The case can be made and has been made by many that many of our country's most serious problems can be traced to a root cause which is the dismal failure that is our education system. Liberals propose solutions that involve ever-increasing intervention by the Federal Government, plus of course throwing lots more money at the teachers. Republicans (which I'm purposely separating from Conservatives on this issue) seem to like testing and grading as a tool to shame poor-performing schools to turn things around "or else".
I come from a family of teachers, and must reluctantly admit to having been a teacher once a long time ago. This is a topic I think I'm qualified to address, and let me start by stating that Republicans and Democrats are both wrong. Certainly my teacher friends and family would happily accept more money, but even they would have to admit that just paying them more won't solve the intransigent problems in our schools.
What everyone must come to realize is that our schools reflect us. Kids don't learn because their parents don't value their education. So let's start with the lower levels and work our way up.
I entered elementary school in the 60's. It was so exciting for me to start with half-day Kindergarten at age 5. But only 2 months into the school year, we moved across town to the more prosperous and growing side, where the elementary school had not yet begun to offer Kindergarten. So my parents let me go to my old Kindergarten class' Halloween party, then I waited impatiently the rest of the school year to turn 6 and be allowed to enter my new school as a first grader.
My elementary education was excellent, at least from my memory. Every subject challenged me. I was pretty much average within my class. I was below average in Math and Science. I was horrible in Handwriting and Art Class. But I excelled at Reading and Spelling, and won all my class spelling bees.
What actually took me by surprise was the fact that as I moved up into Junior High (it wasn't called Middle School in those days) and High School, I found myself ascending steadily to the top of the class in most subjects. Except Science and Art, both of which remained elusive and mysterious to me the rest of my life - I wouldn't be any good at Art still today, although I like to think I might be able to pass a Science class by now.
Why did I become a top-flight college-bound student, while so many of my classmates faded well behind? I think the answer is very simple: because my parents cared, and consequently I also cared. So many of my classmates had no parental pressure to succeed, or the parental pressure was more focused on athletic pursuits. Sure, I was an athlete, and also a band member.
So by high school, I felt a bit like a freak. Our school had distinct social groups; the jocks, the band, the eggheads, the hoods, and the heads. In case you aren't familiar with the lingo, I'll translate in the same order: Athletes, Musicians, Geeks, Delinquents, and Hippies.
The reason I thought I was a freak was that I belonged to multiple groups. I was a member of the jocks, band, and eggheads. Although I didn't hang out much with hoods or heads, I sometimes felt more welcome among them than among the jocks. The social rules were puzzling, and very difficult to navigate for me as an adolescent teenager. I'm sure many people wish they had been less concerned with being "cool" during those years - I know if I had the self-confidence to just be myself, I would have been much happier.
What does all this have to do with education? That's the best question. It has nothing to do with education. And everything. It means that kids are more influenced by their peers than by any adults. So being a member of the band, egghead, and to a lesser degree the jocks group meant I was destined for college. The other groups didn't stand a chance. What's unique is that with few exceptions, these groups were all insular. You belonged to one, not several. Yes, there were a handful of jocks in the band, but many of the other guys disdained the company of their fellow band members. Yet as far as I can recall, there were no other jocks in the egghead group. It must have been some kind of social suicide for a jock to be seen with the eggheads - perhaps that partly explains my feeling of being a freakish exception. Your group affiliation determined your future.
So in the early 70's while I was in high school, the hippies became our teachers. And they were strange people who introduced us to strange ideas. Not the math and science teachers, of course - they remained the same nerdy guys with pocket-protectors they always have been. But the other teachers did weird stuff: They started wearing jeans and tie-dyed t-shirts to class. They were using modern slang and trying to be our friends rather than our teachers. They tried to influence us to always question authority, disrespect our parents and especially politicians and administrators, and abandon our parents' stodgy old religion.
In the meantime, I coasted through high school. Nothing was hard, except my Chemistry class, in which I was lost from day one and never did figure out how to understand that old periodic table. I had a couple of outstanding teachers though, one math and the other English literature and composition. They actually forced me to apply myself to find and use my brain, and I'll always be thankful to both of them.
What if we could deliver children to our schools who are ready to learn and excited to learn? What if behavior problems could be all but eliminated? What if we eradicated drugs and assault and sexual behavior and make our schools safe for all students? What if we could influence social groups to become less exclusive and made up of a majority of kids who really want to learn?
It starts with rebuilding the family. Many of the things I talk about in the other chapters are focused on that fundamental solution. Other solutions like mentoring programs and the adult education that might be offered in my post titled "Life Academy" can help rebuild the family. Every child must have the message hammered into them on a daily basis - "Knowledge is power". Kids need to be indoctrinated to a single theme - if you want to be successful in life, learn as much as you possibly can in school.
I favor breaking up the mega-schools and going back to neighborhood schools. When the "experts" proclaimed that we needed to build these huge schools and close the little neighborhood and small-town schools, they said it would provide efficiency and improve the education experience. I don't think it did either, and we all have seen the depths to which educational outcomes have sunk. Why should schools be public? Let's encourage lots of private schools as well. I'm a Voucher fan when they provide an escape route for children stuck in failing public schools.
Implement innovation in education, using technology and the Internet to deliver content and turn the focus of schools from rigid classroom education to a varied experience that we can measure by how much kids learned, not how good they are at raising their hand to be recognized by the teacher to speak.
Stop marching kids in lockstep with their class. If a kid is advanced in English but a bit behind in Math, let her skip to the next level English class and fall back to the next lower level Math class. Graduation needs to mean you've met the requirements - if you meet them at age 16, you graduate at 16. If it takes you until age 19, you graduate at 19. Partner with community colleges to let the advanced students get started with their college career while they're finishing high school.
Most of all, make the primary mission of each and every teacher in each and every school to get their children inspired to learn. Then just give them the resources and guidance and help them learn!
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