I Agree With Jay – Whiny, Lazy, Teachers

October 26, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

A few days ago, Jay Cronley of the Tulsa World wrote an editorial which sent legendary #oklaed blogger Rob Miller a bit over that edge from which he otherwise enjoys the view.

In it, Cronley suggests that schools receiving poor marks on the state’s vague, insulting, widely discredited A-F report card stop their whining and simply do what schools getting high grades do.

I’m all for that. It’s embarrassingly obvious, in retrospect – if you want a better football team, publicly degrade the coach, sure. But just as critically, only accept good players on your team. That’s how the so-called “real world” works, yes?

You only blame the coach when it’s clear there’s sufficient talent on the roster, but not enough points on the board. (Right, Bruce Boudreau?) Otherwise you need to get busy making trades and securing draft picks. Cut the dead weight from that locker room!

The schools not doing well are thus either lazy or stupid. Despite the best efforts of the state to push them into the light, they’re still letting pretty much every little loser turd-child walk in the door several days a week and play school with them. Seriously, TPS and others so inclined? This is why the Dallas Cowboys keep losing – no quality control at all.

Forget remediation. If those little parasites can’t read-to-learn by the end of 3rd grade, kick their little asses OUT. Go hang with the Factionless, Billy. Oh, wait – you won’t get that allusion BECAUSE YOU CAN’T $#&@ING READ.

What else are we supposed to do to them?

No, seriously – I get that school-shaming and teacher-blaming are supposed to motivate excellence (thanks, Stalin), but once the schools and teachers are done whining and complaining and are finally ready to step up, what exactly would you like us to do to force these little failures to learn gooder?

Surely you don’t believe that scribbling a few letters and numbers on a piece of paper and mailing it it to their fake address drives the average 11-year old to excellence, do you? Grades are horrible motivators unless the kid already carries an unhealthy fixation on them derived from whatever her parents have indoctrinated her to believe about herself.

But those aren’t the kids getting us in the damn newspaper. So what else could we try?

I suppose a good talk with the average 8th grader about his college and career prospects might motivate him to give up the Xbox and plow through that 17th Century sonnet one more time.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Oh, that was rich. I needed a break from all this serious talk.

The maximum reach of “future planning” among freshmen is about eleven minutes. It’s delusional to expect teenagers to have better self-control and long-term focus than most adults when asked if they want bacon on that.

We’re not actually allowed to hit them anymore, so that’s off the table. Based on a handful of classic rock albums from the 70s, that may not have worked well anyway.

Let’s see… No lunch until you solve for ‘X’ more efficiently? Also not allowed. The Liberals keep acting like none of the dumb kids eat enough to begin with, so forget that.

Torturing pets got a bad rep back in the 80s when we were trying to prove that every child everywhere was being molested by every adult everywhere, so that won’t get board approval. And torturing the actual children is sadly inadequate – hence the entire discussion over test scores to begin with (EYES FRONT NO TALKING NO READING NO SLEEPING JUST STARE AND KEEP STARING UNTIL TIME IS CALLED RELAX AND DO YOUR BEST OR FAIL FAIL FAIL!!!)

Other suggestions?

I’m a little surprised we don’t rank their parents and publish the results. There’s simply no healthy competition when it comes to child-rearing. I say we give kids vouchers and let them leave their $#% parents to join those who’ve already proven they can bring up children properly. The tax breaks are for kid-raising, not kid-having, right?

What’s that? The best families won’t all gladly open their hearts and homes in massive efforts to turn around years of less-than-ideal upbringing and reverse several varieties of cultural dissonance which have been in place for centuries? Surely you jest. They need only do what the good parents do…

It’s probably a moot point. Any kid with the gumption to take advantage isn’t the one getting us on the ‘F’ list anyway.

So we’re back to faulting teachers for not sufficiently inspiring them. If police would police better, there’d be no crime. If columnists would just write better, everyone would still read the newspaper. Seems only reasonable that if teachers to would teach harder…

The penalty for doing poorly in school is to keep repeating the parts you hate until you hate them even more. If that doesn’t work, we’ll begin taking away the few things in our control which you DO care about or value in yourself (in those few instances we’ve somehow connected with those to begin with) until you drop out or change districts and our scores improve that way.

Other than that, what is it that Cronley and the populace at large think we should be doing? I’m 100% serious here – what is it you believe all of these stupid, lazy, sucky teachers COULD be doing but aren’t?

Better yet, why don’t you come show them? Bring your little platitudes and patronization and take over their classes for a month or two?

I know, I know – who would POSSIBLY fill the critical life-altering role of writing a few columns a week taking potshots from the sidelines?

Oh wait – that’s my $&#@ing SPECIALTY! Got you covered!

So go coach those kids into excellence. If they pass whatever random set of politicized and poorly framed expectations we’re swearing by THIS year, they’re practically guaranteed a fulfilling lifelong career, food, housing, health care, and access to a multitude of other services. If they DON’T, they’ll be stuck at home smoking weed and playing Xbox while guaranteed food, housing, health care, and access to a multitude if other services.

The main difference in the latter scenario, of course, is that NEITHER of you will be working as a result. If that doesn’t inspire them, I can’t imagine what will.

As to to merit pay, if the teachers with the best scores are the most talented, it stands to reason that James Patterson is the world’s most profound writer and Kim Kardashian the finest thespian of her generation. Now if only Donald Trump would run for President based on his impressive outcomes, all of our problems would be solved!

Cronley and the rest might oughta start making those lesson plans. Between the open hostility of our state legislature towards knowledge in general and ongoing abuse from the press, those stupid lazy teachers dumb enough to work with those bottom-feeder kids tend to bail after not-very-long-at-all.

They leave the state, sometimes even the profession, or they compete with one another for a handful of slots at those “good schools” – the ones smart enough not to try to win high stakes games with undesirable players. The ones with better demographics, or stronger magnets, or more stable populations.

The ones doing what the good schools do.

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Teachers Are Weird

October 7, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

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It should probably come as no surprise that most teachers are a little weird.

We work for relatively little money in a sporadic and unpredictable flux of appreciation and condemnation, trying to teach Enlightenment values and curriculum to youngsters who rarely seek or appreciate the knowledge we impart – and we LIKE it.

It’s unusual to find a particularly gifted teacher who isn’t noticeably dysfunctional in some essentially related way. Many of the best supplement their sincere drive to reach broken children and save academic souls with a desperate inner need to prove to their own doubts and insecurities that they are, in fact, tolerably swell at this intellectual (and yet holy) calling. Recurring bouts with self-loathing make bountiful fuel for late-night lesson planning and weekend grading marathons, and there’s nothing like constant second-guessing of oneself to promote patience and flexibility with all sorts of teen falderal.

Similar irrationalities lead many of us into an unspoken conviction that not only are we humble martyrs taking a bludgeoning for the future, but that in so doing we’re making a daily decision to refute the sorts of lofty, respected, and embarrassingly profitable gigs to which lesser beings have succumbed. As if at any moment, we could in a moment of weakness or rebellion cast off our dry-erase markers and group discussion rubrics and take up that executive position at Microsoft, accept that endowed chair at Cambridge, or go on that book tour for the novel we’ve so selflessly never gotten around to writing.

But no! Instead, today we will again set all of that aside to TEACH!

What? Oh, er… And to monitor at the pep assembly! And collect those home language surveys the state requires of the SAME families every year as if they’ll get tricky one day and switch up their home language just to screw with us!

We vent endlessly about the attitudes of our students, the blind bureaucracy of our superiors, and the suffocating pampering of parents determined to permanently cripple their young, then get giddy when struck by some odd new idea how we might better connect with that weird kid who we’re pretty sure keeps writing “c***sucker” on our mouse pad.

We condemn pointless torture of children over minutiae when the state requires it, but take great pride in not letting them go pee for asking ‘can I’ instead of ‘may I’. In the first case we’re defending their right to grow up at their own pace and find their own way towards becoming their own unique person; in the second we’re holding the line because there are proper ways to say and do things and they just need to learn dammit.

Our intentions are noble both times.

We’re endlessly committed to the emotional and intellectual growth of young people we didn’t raise, can’t realistically control, and with whom we cannot ethically or legally mingle beyond the confines of school functions. We derive immense satisfaction and fulfillment from relationships in which strong, clear boundaries are the defining, terrifying feature, and in which any realization we ‘need it’ or even ‘like it’ casts immediate aspersions on our motivations, maturity, and emotional health.

We resent criticism from the community, reject the faux-accountability efforts of lawmakers, and bristle at student complaints regarding our pedagogy or expectations, then fill Twitter and our edu-blogs with condemnations of anyone doing things differently than us, lamenting their lack of accountability, and figuring if they had merit at all, their students would seem much happier and self-motivated.

We clamor to be treated like professionals but deluge our administrators with dilemmas and complaints better suited for kindergarten playgrounds. We retweet clever graphics proving we all work 120-150 hours a week and if we were paid babysitter’s wages we’d be millionaires, then take eleven ‘mental health days’ a semester without leaving sub plans – all with far less guilt than when the new lesson we tried didn’t go as well first period as it did third period after we changed that one part and why-does-first-hour-always-get-shortchanged-I-suck-so-bad…

If we do our job well, most of our kids will cease to need us at all. If we’re especially successful in our efforts outside of class, our profession will rapidly cease looking like anything currently familiar. A real burst of progress could render us suddenly obsolete. But not really. Well, maybe. Oh god, could it, you think?

It’s bizarre if we think about it too closely, so we don’t. Teachers tend to drink a great deal, or binge-watch trashy TV shows.

Our coaches spend an additional 173 hours a week coaxing a hundred kids at a time to at least break a sweat in their quest to become the next Lebron James or the new Tom Brady.

They drive team busses to towns with names like “Crack’s Flat” and upon returning watch hours of game film – GAME FILM – of bewildered 13-year olds running around butchering the holy name of football. They referee little league games throughout 108 degree weekends so their OWN kids can play – adding these proceeds to the eleven cents an hour windfall they enjoy for coaching.

A select few educators decide that even the occasional moments of enlightenment or rapport shared with their students is simply too much fulfillment for one individual to deserve, and nail themselves to the absurdity-laden cross of a degree in public school administration. This allows them to deal almost exclusively with the worst-behaved, highest maintenance elements of the school population – after which they try to fit in STUDENT discipline issues as well.

They commit themselves to innumerable evening activities and a steady stream of only those parents unhappy enough to call THEM instead of whichever teacher is ruining their child for life THIS time. They sacrifice any remaining energy enduring interminable meetings with folks carrying longer titles but much shorter job descriptions, then hurry back to catch that one long-term sub and explain yet again why the lesson plans the pregnant teacher left really ARE a pretty good idea to follow – or at least try – please just this once – oh god don’t make me find yet another warm body…

For this we rebrand them as ‘Instructional Leaders’ without the slightest intention of cruel irony. They let it slide because they know someone has to throw themselves into the barrage if their teachers and students are to have the slightest chance.

And they do. God bless them, the good ones do.

So yeah, we get a little too anal about following the rules exactly during our Academic Team competitions, and the signs we make for our annual protests get a little snarky and rely too heavily on lame puns. We tend to get homely and fat and careless about proper hair care, and we chant and cheer for the most awkward things – often badly.

We’re cynical and bitter, but still ‘retweet’ and ‘share’ sappy motivational edu-memes much too freely. Waaayyyyy too many of us are still excited by the idea of test reviews via Jeopardy on the Smartboard or playing that Billy Joel song about not lighting Marilyn Monroe on fire.

We’ll trade our biological young for free notepads, and we grab extras we don’t even need, telling ourselves they’re in some way ‘for the children’.

We always want donuts.

You’ll have no trouble finding far less needy, frustrating, bewildering adults in the professional realm, should you wish to look. But they won’t be lined up at your door, clamoring to teach.

Because teachers are weird.

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Why Kids Learn (a.k.a ‘The Seven Reasons Every Teacher Must Know WHY Kids Learn!’)

September 16, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 2 Comments

I’ve been in the classroom for 16 years and doing this blog for about 18 months. I don’t have a Master’s Degree in anything, nor am I pursuing one. I don’t like most edu-books and haven’t done independent research on how or why kids learn or don’t. I consider myself thus supremely qualified to write on this topic.

There will be no footnotes.

There are 7 Basic Reasons Kids Learn. I number them to increase clicks to this post and to lend artificial credibility to what is essentially an opinion piece.

1. They Learn Accidentally

Kids learn while playing, or while caught up in other things. Everything from blocks and unstructured time as a little person through video games or online arguments as a teen – information, good or bad, is created, encountered, or absorbed. This one is so very important and can be crazy effective – but it’s the one most threatened by the Cult of Assessment and our own unwillingness to Defy the Beast.

It also gets trickier to create these opportunities intentionally as students get older.

2. They Learn From Family & Loved Ones

We all know the value of parents reading to their children. In a perfect world they take them to museums or musical performances, or travel places promoting conversation and reflection. How many times a day does a parent or sibling overtly attempt to explain a ‘why’ or a ‘how’ to a little kid?

But they learn all sorts of other things as well – attitudes towards authority, or learning, or society. How to solve problems (in good ways or bad). What matters and what doesn’t. Where they fit in the world.

What they’re worth as an individual.

This is the stuff we’re quick to bring up when people start blaming teachers for everything, and probably the biggest factor shaping what a child KNOWS and who he or she IS over which we have almost no control.

We also go to it as a cop-out when our calling becomes difficult. Sorry, educators – but it’s true.

3. They Learn Because They Like The Subject

This is the ideal. Those kids who keep wanting to know if they can leave your class to go finish something in Engineering? They tend to get good at engineering. That girl who reads voraciously? She tends to get pretty good at reading. And don’t get me started about young people truly devoted to their choir, marching band, baseball team, or speech & debate.

Booyah.

Of course, we have almost no control over this going into a new year. And it’s easy to ruin this passion even in the best of them if we’re not careful – which is terrifying. But still we try to nudge and ignite and encourage, right?

Wait – we DO try to fan these embers, YES?! Hello?

4. They Learn Because They Like The Teacher or Peer Group

I have mixed feelings about this one.

There are students who find me far more entertaining and caring than my friends and loved ones can fathom, based on what they know of me in my other, supposedly ‘real’ life. Because of this, these students will often attempt things they wouldn’t otherwise try – books out of their comfort zone, writing until their hands hurt, talking through a skill AGAIN so that I can give them full credit.

They will play school because of all the love and acceptance flying around, just like in those horrible motivational memes and Garfield posters. “They don’t care how much you know…”

At the same time, I worry this won’t transition to the next teacher they get, who may be perfectly adequate, but to whom they don’t feel the same connection. I don’t want them to be good at my class (and let it stop there) – I want them to get better at being learners, no matter what the circumstances or personalities involved. I want them to become better versions of themselves.

I know, I know – but I’m idealistic and delusional that way. Shut up.

5. They Learn Because Of Grades / Fear / Pressure / Rewards

This may begin from above – parents, or even the school system itself – but often becomes internalized. Either way, this is a stress-driven type of learning with little lasting value.

It might be about staying eligible for band or sports or whatever they’re into and like. It’s often about a sense of survival, and ‘getting through’. Sometimes it’s also about college acceptance, parental approval, career success, or other specific stressors – other times it’s more panophobic. They couldn’t say exactly why, but face a consuming terror of veering off the assigned path.

I did informal surveys of many of my best students last semester, and discovered that these ‘best’ kids in terms of grades, behavior, organization, and personal responsibility, almost universally hated or at least disliked everything about their school day. A few had one teacher or subject they found tolerable, and most had activities or extra-curriculars in which they found fulfillment, but the bulk of each day and long hours into each night were have to, have to, have to.

It was all about the grades. The future. The system. The idea that there would be anything of value to be learned along the way they found… quaint. Of course they resisted being quite so blunt, being the ‘good kids’ and all – you don’t have 104% in every class by proudly slandering the system.

But learning and loving and new worlds of ideas weren’t really factors. If anything, those would be distractions to winning at the game.

6. They Learn Because of Long-Term Goals

This one is pretty rare if you eliminate the vague terrors in play above. There are a few, however, who are specifically chasing a degree in veterinary medicine, motorcycle repair, or that study abroad opportunity in Monaco. They press on because they know what they want.

At least, they think they do – which for our purposes works just as well.

On the one hand, these kids aren’t necessarily driven by a love of learning… on the other, though, they are at least self-motivated, making the learning they accept as necessary a bit richer and more meaningful.

7. They Learn Against Their Will

If you torture them enough, confine them in stale rooms and badger them into compliance…

If you test them repeatedly, then pull their electives, their after school time, their freedom to sit with their friends at lunch, until they pass…

If you manage through attrition to wear away or cripple enough about themselves they’d otherwise find meaningful, strong, beautiful, or useful…

If you constantly elevate those who comply, who understand, who feel and think as we demand, and denigrate those who can’t – or who for whatever reason won’t…

They may eventually give you enough to count as learning. They may remember enough to secure their release from the system. They may even move on to the next round of ‘education’.

But they’ll never forgive you, or the system, or those who participated in the process. You know why?

Because they’ve learned.

Karmapologies

September 10, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 3 Comments

I’d like to officially apologize to every teacher who, over the past four or five years, has complained to me about ‘helicopter parents’ or told wild stories about crazy student family members swooping in to make everything dramatic and difficult – often at great expense not only to the blood pressure of the involved teachers, but to the long-term well-being of the students themselves.

I was always sympathetic, and outraged in unity with thee. I was intellectually well-aware that there but for the grace of Horace Mann went I.

But on some level, deep down, in ways I’d never admit aloud, I’d often smile with thankfulness that I was somehow avoiding such problems. I was glad I was a bit more flexible with parents, or perhaps simply more personable. I was – dare I say – smug that when the students just loved me SO much, those sorts of issues tended to resolve themselves.

Oh what a fool. What a vain, idiotic, foolishly foolish fool I was. I’m so sorry.

Because Karma is a twisted and patient b*tch. It has waited all these years, letting me build confidence, and comfort, and a certain puffed-up brashness. Even as I fought on some level to overcome such buried thoughts with the knowledge that mostly I’ve just been lucky, Karma was not fooled. I was taking credit for how my students’ parents and other looming parties-of-interest were and weren’t behaving. I was letting pride come before a pretty substantial Fall (as it were).

In short, I was karmically asking for it.

Well, it’s here.

Two and a half weeks of class, eight assignments in the grade book, every single one of them currently redoable, replaceable, or otherwise redeemable at no penalty, daily reminders, notes on the board, and a class website replete with copies of everything in two different places and reminders of everything worth reminding of, and OH MY GOD WHAT AM I DOING TO THEIR CHILDREN?!?

*sigh*

We’re closer to a dozen parent emails so far than a hundred, and most are panicky and flustered more than actually angry – yet. But I’ve NEVER experienced this sort of frenetic concern, laced with just enough accusation and annoyance to give them edge. Of greater concern are the expressions of confusion – bewilderment – SHOCK – at why their children don’t have better grades they need a better grade they’ve ALWAYS had better grades why am I making their children so confused and helpless and crushing their spirits WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA?!?

It’s tricky to explain without sounding frustrated or hostile that I am, actually, going to some length to begin nudging their child towards young adulthood – some early modicum of personal responsibility.

I am not, in fact, demaning flawless intellect or academic greatness, but rather, I am begging them to notice that between what’s in the syllabus they signed, written on the board every day, what I say every day, and what’s on the class website in at least two places, none of which changes quickly, there are things we try to do in class to make it, um… educational.

Whereas I’m asking their child to do at most ONE version of any given assignment, I’m creating in most cases at least THREE versions in hopes of reaching as many of them as possible, and offering as many redos as I can stomach before mandatory retirement in about 20 years.

I’m not sure what more to do short of nightly home visits or full body tattoos – perhaps done in reversed text so they can read them in the mirror before bathing.

I am not intentionally sarcastic when asked what their darling could do to improve their grade, and the only accurate response available is “their work?” Can they have extra credit? Well, no – not in the way you mean. By definition, in order to have ‘extra credit’, one must first have ‘credit’. You would not order a pizza with NO CHEESE, but with EXTRA CHEESE – the net result would simply be ‘cheese’. So no, they cannot NOT do the work, then do EXTRA work to make up for it. What they CAN do, though, is the WORK.

I should be more sympathetic. These poor parents who seem to have virtually unlimited time to email and call me repeatedly (on behalf of a child who has yet to speak to me willingly, even when I attempt to initiate) are clearly far too busy to read the syllabus they signed, look at the class website for which I’ve neglected my world-famous blog, or otherwise consider the possibility that the same kid they can’t get to clean up their room, take out the trash, or provide any coherent reason WHY he or she remains bewildered or resentful of consistent, clear expectations at home, might not be the fearless academic angel portrayed – thwarted daily only by THAT ONE HISTORY TEACHER who stays in the profession to crush the future, hate children, and undercut the American Dream.

My friends, peers, and cohorts, forgive me. I never meant to judge you, but I fear that is exactly what I’ve done.

Don’t worry, though – Karma is taking vengeance on your behalf. It’s like she –

Sorry, have to cut this one short. I have some parent emails piling up, and my phone is ringing.

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United First School District of Change & Continuity

September 4, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

Being in Tulsa, one can’t help but maintain some awareness of the evangelical community and the world of relatively orthodox faith – American Protestant flavor. I’ve been in and out of it myself in years past.

Despite perceptions of the godless and truculent (who seem to find fascist right-wingers ruining fun everywhere), the past few decades have been difficult times for the faithful – especially those in positions of responsibility. It’s increasingly challenging to bring in new, er… ‘believers’. It’s almost as tricky to hang on to those brought up IN the church.

Spiritual ramifications aside, it’s an interesting dilemma. How can organizations – like, say… churches or schools – built on specific beliefs and value systems, with long traditions regarding how things are done, survive (or maybe even grow) as the culture around them loses interest and moves on?

The current system of simply stealing members back and forth across town from one another is inherently flawed and finite. You can imagine the hand-wringing by well-intentioned church leaders and their supporters as they grapple with a question familiar to anyone interested in public education:

How do we adapt to new freedoms, more tantalizing distractions, a new sort of clientele, and a changing set of socio-political realities, without forsaking our core values and beliefs?

This leads to an even more difficult question for either world – church or school…

And what exactly ARE our core values and beliefs? What is it we’re trying to accomplish?

The answers aren’t as self-evident as they may at first seem. In the world of faith, perhaps the goal is to ‘save souls’ – to help people find Jesus or some variation thereof. But that hardly explains multiple meetings each week (composed almost entirely of those already converted) to teach doctrine, or inspire behavior, or correct poorly chosen paths. We must be trying to teach and grow those already converted as well.

Then there are those cell groups and potluck lunches and innumerable breakfast-at-Panera meetings – what do THOSE accomplish? It appears there’s a network or support system of relationships that we value deeply, in addition to our other goals. Fair enough.

Oh – and most churches worth their salt (see what I did there?) have some means of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, etc. Some target the divorced, victims of abuse, illnesses overseas, or other groups perceived to be in need. There are even a few doing impressive work helping kids succeed in school. Because education ‘breaks the cycle.’

I appreciate them lending depth to my analogy.

These things need not be mutually exclusive, but any organization can only have just so many top priorities – so many ‘primary functions’.

What does ‘improvement’ look like, exactly? It might be possible to make Sunday mornings more entertaining, for example… does that require a trade-off involving doctrine or appropriate mindsets towards an omnipotent God? Maybe we could focus more on outreach and bringing in the lonely and dysfunctional. That certainly seems in keeping with the overall mission, but what do constant new names and their weird issues do to that community the rest of us need so badly?

I’ll bet getting rid of hell and so many sins would do wonders for participation – with one minor snag being that if we’re wrong, the fallout could be both permanent and uncomfortable.

And that would be unfortunate.

It’s not my purpose to solve this particular dilemma on behalf of 21st Century Protestantism. I’m not even sure I have a real solution when I transition to the world of public education.

Which is now, I guess.

There’s no shortage of books, blogs, tweets, and edu-rants laying out all the things we supposedly must change/fix/modernize/grow in public education. There are even more about how wrong and awful everyone else’s ideas are. Jonathan Edwards has nothing on BAT or their ilk when it comes to rhetorical venom – just ask them about charters or vouchers or TFA and watch them go! And just smile politely in the direction of Common Core on Twitter to experience a level of scathe beyond all but the most radical evangelicals tackling the most colorful sins.

We do not lack solutions. Everyone has a plan, a direction, a technology, an approach to set things right. Now if we could only agree on what ‘right’ looks like, exactly. What ARE our core values and beliefs? What precisely are we trying to accomplish?

The answers aren’t as self-evident as they may at first seem. Perhaps the goal is ‘college and career readiness’ or some variation thereof. But that hardly explains the variety of subjects we require of even those committed to technical trades or our inflexibility regarding seat time no matter what their gifts or interests. We insist on a diet of literature, science, math, and some social studies, so… we must be trying to enrich and grow those already employable as well.

Then there are those sports, bands, school clubs, and innumerable pep assemblies and speakers – what do THOSE accomplish? It appears there are diverse talents and relationships we care about deeply as well. Fair enough.

Oh – and most schools have some system in place to care for and instruct high-needs kids, those with a wide variety of learning or emotional issues. Many of them aren’t college or career-bound, but we’re nonetheless legally and ethically committed to pour ourselves into those in the greatest need.

There are even a few doing impressive work with character-building and personal responsibility. However carefully we shy away from anything smacking of religion, we not only want our kids to be ‘successful’, we have a non-neutral approach to the morality of how they get there. We’re consciously inculcating ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ as we currently define them. Because ‘character counts’.

These things need not be mutually exclusive, but any organization can only have just so many top priorities – so many ‘primary functions’.

What does improvement even look like, exactly? It might be possible to raise test scores, for example… does that require a trade-off involving personal fulfillment or student attitudes towards learning or the miraculous possibilities it offers? Maybe we could focus more on creative ways to reach the misfits and the underachieving. That certainly seems in keeping with the overall mission, but what does pouring all of our resources into the most draining minority of our population do to the standards and expectations the rest of them need held firmly in order to flourish?

I’ll bet getting rid of grades and so much outdated curriculum would do wonders for participation – with one minor snag being that if we’re wrong, the fallout could be both permanent and uncomfortable.

I have no doubt we can find amazing solutions. We may even manage to scrounge up the resources to implement them. But first, perhaps, we should revisit one more time exactly what our core doctrines and non-negotiables ARE in public education.

What is it that all else must serve?

Unlike in matters of faith, there’s no omniscient power potentially judging us if we get it wrong. The consequences, however, of chasing the wrong sorts of solutions – of forsaking the essential in favor of the flashy, or of clinging to the familiar at the expense of the necessary – well…

That would be unfortunate.

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