I was recently contacted, from prison, by a former student, a brilliant young man according to the state standardized tests we were giving a decade ago on which he scored in the 99th percentile in math and not far below that in English. Michael (not his real name) expected to do well in school with little effort. He'd done that for most of his life -- and didn't seem interested in being challenged. He and I had some battles. I made him earn his grade by demanding more than he believed anyone had a right to demand of him. Like many students I've encountered in two decades of inner-city public school teaching, he didn't value the free education he was receiving (free to him, at least).
Now, ten years after he graduated, Michael thanks me when I send him an article to read and we exchange ideas about it. I send him books and he reads them in his prison cell and appreciates the time and money I spend and the education he's now getting with my assistance (budget cuts have for now eliminated post secondary educational opportunities for inmates where he is currently housed and the library has also been shut down).
Fortunately Michael isn't the only student of mine who appreciates his education. But mostly the children I teach take these opportunities for granted -- as Michael did when he was in high school. Take school for granted and even believe themselves oppressed by it.
To be fair, public schools can be oppressive. Too much prison architecture -- though Michael might now challenge that assertion -- and overcrowding and bells and regimentation, rules enforced with the precision of a cluster bomb; too much attention to mischief and mayhem and not enough attention to quiet excellence; too much institutional indifference and alienation.
Still, I am always a little disheartened whenever students in my class read about children denied an education -- like the African American children Grant teaches in Ernest Gaines' A Lesson Before Dying, for example, or an account of child widows in India -- and fail to be moved by such accounts to cherish the learning they are being afforded.
Perhaps there is just something in the restlessness of youth that makes such appreciation hard to experience. And perhaps the children of this generation -- or at least many among it -- have been hardened by the general oppressiveness and hostility toward young people in our society (that I sometimes think is at least in part an expression of adult envy and resentment, in a culture that worships and even fetishizes youth).
I suppose also that the various campaigns against public schools and teachers haven't exactly inspired appreciation on the part of our students. But I'm not interested in excuses. I think we -- educators and parents -- could do better; and I think that if our children appreciated their education they would do more with it. They shouldn't have to be locked up in a real prison to appreciate school.
Insanely, I sometimes wonder if we shouldn't replace one grade level -- somewhere between fourth and eigth -- with a year of hard labor in factory or field. I do think that a year of such sweat and toil might help cultivate a stronger appreciation for the luxury of being able to think and write and calculate and create (along with the memorization and recitation some educators still believe in).
But I don't think we're ever going to write such an exemption into our child labor laws -- and that is probably a good thing. Our world already has enough toiling misery and our courts have enough law-suits.
But then what?
Explaining to children how fortunate they are never seems to go very far, does it? But what else do we have besides our own love of learning, our infectious passion for knowledge and understanding? Enlightenment is one of the great gifts of being human and we ought never feel embarrassed to remind children of that truth. Or to believe in the power of ideas or the transformative opportunity of each generation -- however polluted their minds may seem with all the noise of the popular and street cultures.
If knowledge is power, if the search for meaning and the practice of reasoning are human needs, let's make sure that it isn't us -- teachers, administrators, parents -- who have failed to appreciate those values.
I don't know where Michael's reading and our discussions will take him (he's got quite a few more years to go before he'll be eligible for parole) but I know where it is taking me -- to a deeper grasp of how important we are to our students whether they ever show it or not.
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Plus we just don't really give a crap about education in this country no matter how much debate there is about it in the media. What students are taught is mostly pablum where controversial issues are skirted around, historical figures are portrayed in ways that make them simple cardboard cutouts and every child is put into the same round hole even though their learning styles may not be suited for it.
Then there are parents who not only also probably hated school, but who defend their kid's misbehavior and threaten to get a lawyer if the administration doesn't back off on punishment. This is partly a product of a trend over the last 30 years whereby children have been elevated in status by becoming human shields for various political and religious agendas.
It also doesn't help that most school administrators are demonstrations of the Peter Principle, far more adept at kissing school board member butt than they were in the classroom, which injures their credibility with parents, students and the teaching staff.
1. it's not entertaining, and they are habitually entertained by media since infancy;
2. learning and scholastic achievement is mocked by 'cool' kids who are the guardians of the pop culture that entertains them; while lip service is paid to getting good grades, the stigma of being labeled a 'nerd', and being bullied for it, is real and powerful.
3. families (parents) are too busy themselves working or being depressed about money issues to spend quality time ( or even know how to) with their kids and impress the value of education into them; the pop/kid culture demeans it, kids take their lessons from older kids, and parents / the adults are seen as 'out of touch' or their view irrelevant as their overall daily impact on the child is minimized due to their work schedule and lack of personal interaction ( which is dominated by the media / entertainment system)
4. the school system rewards teachers who are proficient at bureaucratic system management, discourages individual teaching curriculums and styles, and blames teachers for the failure of mentally unhealthy / emotionally crippled children.
10 more years and the ship sinks... ? we'll see.
http://www.laweekly.com/2011-05-05/news/torpedoing-a-top-science-program/
Oh, wait. Quite a few already do.
If children from disadvantaged homes have not made the connection between their present situation and a lack of education a stint at hard labor isn't going to change their minds. So far the only education models which appear to have even the smallest chance of working are full neighborhood immersion programs.
The Harlem Children's Zone isn't perfect but it might form a basis for a new way to teach disadvantaged children.
That way they would 1) appreciate our country and the education that can provide them with a better life and 2) they'd stop whining about people "taking their jobs" in foreign countries. No one is entitled to a job, they have to prove to someone else that they can add enough value to earn the salary.
The communist now wear suits and work on Wall Street! Nobody wanted free trade with communist except Wall Street!
Actually, a class where students had to prepare a comprehensive business plan--including a detailed analysis of all required regulation--might work better than the real thing where the administration plunked them in a kitchen and gave them the cookie dough.
We've got nearly three quarters of a million students in LAUSD and hopefully we can get more of them to know what matters.
Did anyone ask the students who appreciated school and wanted to have class instead of going off an being the "Red Guards" for the teachers' union?
Appreciating unionized government monopoly teachers is not the same as appreciating education.
Look at how are American businesses run themselves? Our insurance companies are scam-factories, our real estate companies brought the country to a crash and our banks have brought the entire world economy to its knees, all though mismanagement. Now you want our schools to be run the same way?
What is it about true democracy (the kind practiced by unions), that scares you people so much?