There's been a lot written about education and the education system lately. The stories include cuts in education due to the economy, the Wisconsin Governor taking away teachers' rights to collective bargaining and other financially centered dialogues. There has also been a bit, albeit in smaller, specialized circles of talk concerning actual teaching and learning.
Two interesting articles that I've come across and will refer to tangentially are Andrea Kuszewski's
The Educational Value of Creative Disobedience and Jeanne Garbarino's
Education Reform in the Wrong Direction: High-Stake Consequences for New York State Teachers and Their Students. (Both posts appear on Scientific American's excellent new blog network.) Each article addresses important problems that our educational system faces and I recommend checking them out and following wherever they may further lead you.
My own story started a long time ago in a land far away, East Texas during the 80's and early 90's. Though I wasn't self-taught, I was a competent early reader. The only reason I believe this is because it was a significantly odd enough event that I would read to a girl who I shared puppy love with as we waited for her bus to arrive after school during 2nd grade. (My son A, who I will mention later, reads 100-1000x more than I ever considered at that age.) By third grade I was already publicly considering skipping a grade. My parents and teachers did not put this into my head and I have no idea of where the notion came from. All I know it that I already showed signs of discontent with the system. It didn't manifest itself in a 'I hate school!' manner but rather as an 'I want more!'
Not surprising, a collage of my early academic memories reflect more the setting than any scholastic endeavors. In the mixture are various social situations, projectile vomiting, a fourth grade teacher sending me to the office for having sucked hickeys onto my arm out of boredom, a friend demonstrating his break-dancing skills, bathroom hi-jinx, witnessing behavior that was entirely inappropriate for our ages, getting paddled for jumping on some hay bales which were setup for game day and performing something like 20 pull-ups during my team's turn on that same day. In fifth grade I decided that I wanted to be an accountant because I enjoyed math so much. My teacher said, "No", that my handwriting was too messy. She told me I should be a doctor. I don't think she based this on anything academic.
In middle school, I had some clashes with an art teacher who really liked my art (the less effort I put into it, the more she seemed to appreciate it) but didn't like my attitude. The Challenger exploded shortly after take-off as schoolchildren across the country watched. The classroom I happened to sit in didn't see it but I got to hear many of the kids in the halls claim that it had been the Russians. I can't recall anyone in the administration refuting the claim. I didn't actually discover girls at this time; rather, I discovered that girls were becoming even more interesting than I had previously believed. I also discovered that my abilities at participating in school sporting events were lacking. You can make your own inferences on how these two discoveries worked together. At some point in there, my parents bought me
The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible and
Noah's Ark and the Lost World. The day I took my advanced placement exam for mathematics, I had a fever and performed poorly before getting sent home. The next year I floated through math and urged my teacher to let me skip the pre-algebra stage. Thankfully, she did.
In high school I was your typical underachiever. I took more 'honors' courses than our valedictorian, but I rarely felt challenged or driven and never learned any proper or effective study habits. I continued to enjoy math, excelled at algebra and performed well in the courses up through Trig -Calculus wasn't offered until the year after I graduated. I also liked the other sciences whenever I maintained my focus. However, when I discovered that our physical science teacher believed in evolution, I remember declaring that I would walk out of the room if she tried to teach it to me. (My awesome biology teacher would never commit to her stance on evolution. I realize now that had she discounted it she would have said so. She was a smart cookie and knew the political ramifications of any response she gave whether it was given on or off the record.) My physical science teacher never addressed the issue, and my initial resistance was replaced with an appreciation for her intelligence, patience (something I fear teachers very much needed with me) and friendliness, though her teaching capabilities and command of the classroom was lacking. A distinct memory I have concerning her is when she received our school's first laser, a friend and I were given virtually free range to experiment with it. Though we were never successful creating the hologram we attempted, we had lots of fun sending the beam down and around the halls with pocket mirrors where it ended as a giant splash of swirling, pulsating red light. I think she enjoyed our enthusiasm as she anxiously graded papers. In addition to teaching physical science our freshman year, she taught chemistry to us in 11th grade and that year she made a bet with me that I could get an 'A' on the following exam. I told her that I knew I could, so, for her benefit, I attended a study session which mostly consisted of me dickering with some odd piece of equipment while the others in the group studied. I got the A and my teacher beamed, "See, I knew you could do it." To which I replied simply, "I knew I could, and now I never have to prove it again." Her face fell and I felt somewhat saddened that I had caused that expression.
Histories held little interest for me in high school, but I did possess a passion for literature. It was evident enough that during 10th grade a conscientious coach allowed me to study in the library or read during my half year of required P.E. following an incident with a bully and a bat (nobody got hurt, by the way, but the bully did later go on to commit suicide). I enjoyed verbally sparring with my intelligent, yet somewhat testy freshman English teacher, barely knew my 10th grade teacher -who incidentally looked like Ursala from The Little Mermaid, retired mid-year to sell dried flowers, had a good 11th grade teacher but held little respect for my 12th grade instructor. I felt she was disingenuous, using gimmicks to get her students' admiration. ("Why should you not assume? Because it makes an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me." Really?) Here are the two situations that most confirmed my initial impression: Assignment 1)Write a short story consisting of a group of vocabulary words (this project I actually got excited about). My story ended up being about 25 pages. She actually let out a sigh when I turned it in. I got an 'A', but the problem was that there were absolutely no errors or corrections. I'm not that good now, I wasn't that good then. Assignment 2)Research paper. We were given 6 weeks in class to complete it, several weeks of which we sat in the library. I chose to attend college English that year, forgoing high school Physics since I couldn't stand to be at that school the extra hour it required. As it so happened, that research paper was also assigned. We were given two weeks on our own time to complete the work. I got a 'B' on my college paper and failed the high school report. That, in itself, was enough suck but the real kicker for me was that I didn't
really fail. The paper had an initial passing score of 70% -I admit that I hadn't put much effort into it - written in the standard red ink like everyone else but added, or rather subtracted, below that in
black ink sat a
-1, bringing the final, recorded grade to a failing 69%. I shrugged it off as an amazing display of audacity. Luckily, as I mentioned above, my high school English experience wasn't a complete wash; I did have a good 11th grade English teacher. She respected her subject and respected her students. She mentored appropriately and was firm when required. She taught one period of debate which, because of her personality, I also took. I did alright for a novice and enjoyed myself in their small circle. That is until I got myself arrested.
I won't go into it here, but I will say that the reasons were all tied into my academic experience, as well as the aforementioned suicide, and I learned something more valuable from the incident than what curriculum the school taught. I grew even more cynical of the environment - my guidance counselor served as primary word twister and situation over-blower -, I but continued to desire knowledge. Fast forward through some college in England -undertaken for England's sake, not education's-, several unrelated courses, a crappy novel while working as a busser and finally a genuine attempt at a literature degree since it became obvious to me I wasn't going to write full-time. I grew disillusioned by the literary racket the more I learned. My motivation dropped to nil so I chose to take a sabbatical and joined the Army as a medic.
*Cue patriotic music* I found myself in a place where I couldn't quit, removed my 'self', in a sense, from the equation and did very well. After several years in Germany and a couple of deployments -should I include getting stationed in Oklahoma?- I requested to be discharged and allowed to go back to school to study science with the intent of returning as a military doctor. *You may return to regular soundtrack now* My study habits underwent a severe overhaul and I had to fight an uphill battle of circumstances. Though I never quite reached the level of achievement I had hoped for, I did raise the flat 'B' from two years as a Literature student to almost a 'B+'. Not too bad considering I hadn't taken a math or hard science course in over 15 years, but we all know 'not too bad' is not good enough for medical school. This was a difficult concept for me to accept at first, but my re-found enjoyment of science has helped to cushion the blow. My mind has been exposed to countless paths to which my interests turn depending on the hour of the day or by whatever topic I am exposed. As a young man I may have fantasized that I could become some kind of savant, but the wisdom I've gained has revealed otherwise. Heartbreaking, right? Well, I live vicariously through, and hold an amount of pride in, knowing that most of my friends are more intelligent than I. It's not so bad since it helps keep me grounded and interested. So, I suppose what I really wanted to drive in, since I am currently waiting to enter into a graduate program about 15 years late, is that I have been going through a lot of reflection lately. I have come to acknowledge my own faults and failures, my own strengths and limitations. As well, I realize the obstacles within my earlier environment and the weaknesses of the system.
This all leads to my interest in Andrea Kuszewski's and Jeanne Garbarino's articles. You can read the articles yourself and I highly recommend that you do. It will give you a better idea of the situation that our nation is finding itself in and will clarify the remainder of this post.
After reading Kuszewski, I performed a little test of my own with my oldest child. It was a simple sequencing series. The instructions that I gave 'A' were merely to complete the series. He probed me for more definitive guidance but I refrained. Below are the results.
The top row is pretty straight-forward. His middle completion is interesting because it wasn't the sides that he added but rather the corners (the third image I drew in the series has marks where he showed me what he was attempting since he wasn't satisfied with his final product.) The bottom, I found to be his best. 'A' stated flatly that he felt he wouldn't be capable of adding additional lines to the series so he simply drew a hashtag in its place. He acknowledged his limitation as a 7 year old and reinvented the parameters. (Perhaps I'm just a proud papa, but I've seen this kid create a pattern with colored macaroni complex enough that his teacher didn't see it. I discovered the sequence through accident and a cup of coffee and had my suspicion confirmed by having him describe his intent to me.) Andrea was right! Children will find more novel approaches if left to devise something on their own. Other issues she addresses in her article and my own prejudices concerning the current methods are the reasons we pulled our school-aged children out of the system.
However, though schools should and need to allow for thoughtful creativity and a significant free flow of discovery, the responsibility can't sit solely on the shoulders of the teachers. As my own experiences can attest, the students have to be held somewhat accountable. They must put in the effort and meet the standards set before them. We can't determine the value of the teacher merely through the performance of the students. As Garbarino discusses, doing so will simply incapacitate our teachers, lead them to "teach the test" and further degrade the system.
We need to encourage a new paradigm for both the teachers and the students to increase the effectiveness of our schools. I don't know that there is any 'silver bullet' method to address either of these problems, but I agree with both Kuszewski's call to actually use the methods that have been demonstrated to work and Garbarino's assertion that teachers shouldn't need to become robots in the classroom to retain their jobs.
During my own sad education, I fought against every effort to subjugate me or box me in. However, the teachers who allowed me more freedom to show creativity, and those who pushed me and held me more accountable were the ones who got the most out of me and I don't hold them liable for any of my own shortcomings. For those willing to make the effort, I am grateful, I only wish I had realized more fully what they were trying to say to me sooner.
