RE: Why I’m quitting teaching part 11/11: Five ways in which mainstream education doesn't 'fit' society
I will begin by stating this is a solid post, with a lot of thought and insight. I agree with everything you say here (I teach at the college level, I recognize many of the same problems since I inherit students from the public school system, but I also have two of my own kids and I’m involved in their school, AND coach high school athletics. While I’m giving his long self intro :), my wife is a high school guidance counselor, so you could say we are fairly immersed). Stamdardized testing is so problematic, but I’ve heard first hand testimony from people in the rural US that say it was a god send. Their take is that their schools didn’t get the attention they needed until the testing showed how far behind they were. So that one purpose of them kind of softened by anti-testing attitude. They do serve a role, but there are so many other problems associated with testing that it’s still hard to rationalize the widespread use and overemphasis.
Large class size is less of an issue to me. I grew up going to an overcrowded school, but we had great teachers and a lot of supportive families so it was fine. But I’m places with higher levels of at-risk kids, class size is more important. I just think there are other issues that are much more pressing.
The daily schedule is perhaps the most damning thing I see and that I experienced as a kid. We could be way more creative about how to use the school day!
Age cohorts is an interesting point. I never really thought about that before. Along with a national curriculum, I wonder if those are both things that are just practical in an publicly provided system.
And I guess that’s my main point to make in this comment. How do we change these things in a public system? I know in the UK (from a couple of friends only, so not really sure) that people are less adverse to taxes, so perhaps there is more flexibility to fund more creative (and expensive) programs, but in the US it is a constant struggle to get people to support public education. My attitude is that we are more or less stuck with the current sustem(s) but we need to keep fighting to improve them, in most cases from within. If you quit teaching, will you be able to have an influence on positive change? I know that’s a very loaded question, as I go crazy with the slow change in higher ed! But at the same time, I see that at my kids’ elementary school the teachers are way more creative, and curriculum is much improved, compared to my experience 40 years ago.
As someone who is very involved in my town, schools, and local politics, I always wonder how we can best move forward toward ideals like what you’re hinting at. I know your purpose here is to articulate the problems, but how do overhaul the system?
I like your point about the testing being helpful for showing how behind some schools are - it's not a point I'd thought about before. However, it also leads to certain schools "teaching the test" and skewing the results badly.
It would be wise for economically-disadvantaged schools to acknowledge this fact and then tackle it from a different point of view, i.e. the point of view of helping students achieve what they can rather than trying to conform the whole school to the same standards of more advantaged areas.
I graduated from a poor, rural high school in Oregon. We had enough students to get most of the activities we wanted to do. Because it was a small school, students had more flexibility to do what they wanted to do. You didn't have to be a perfect cheerleader or and NBA-quality basketball player in order to get onto the Varsity squad. The "talented and gifted" had programs too though most frequently, those students simply participated in more things and flourished in their own ways.
However, no school can do everything, and that's even more true for the poor, rural school. I was not pushed enough in high school - not in the right way, anyway, and despite being a gifted student myself, I wasn't prepared to have to work for my grades and struggled immensely in college - it was a shock to the system.
What hurt my school the most?
There was a tax reform measure that was passed about the time I graduated which diverted our property taxes to the central government who then decided where the money would go. Guess what? It wasn't to the rural schools. Although my school's sports program has done exceedingly well in the past decade or so (the community places huge value in it, after all) - I went to school with the guy who is currently one of the winningest baseball coaches in Oregon history - the arts programs have pretty much died. It's very sad.
I don't know if it's as bad in other states, but that's what happened in Oregon - it's hard to recover from that kind of blow.
I live near Philadelphia, and teach at Community College of Philadelphia, where I work with a lot of students from the city's school district. They have lost most athletic and arts programs. It's a terrible situation right now, and by the look of the mass walkouts happening around the country, I would guess it has happened everywhere.
So sad, and so short-sighted. :-(
Yes, the one-size-fits-all formula doesn't work for many.
My husband and I often talk about the fact that "the system" tends to fail both ends of the spectrum at the same time. We were both at the bright end of the spectrum. While I was better at not rocking the boat, he was bored stiff and branded a trouble-maker. It was years down the road before someone decided to give him an IQ test. (Actually, there's a charming scene in the Icelandic film "Noi Albinoi" which focuses on that problem.)
My opinion is that a Montesorri-ish system is the only way that one can deal with all levels at the same time - but even that has its serious drawbacks. (Not to mention the fact that it requires a lower student-to-teacher ratio.)
My ex-husband attended a school of that style in Minneapolis. He had very high opinions of the school, but my observations was that the school simply magnified the parental attitudes. Hence, the children of parents who cared about their education did extremely well in that school. The ones whose parents did not care failed miserably.
This seems to support homeschooling again - it's the parents that matter most!
Still, for many, the system is their only option and it's so sad to see the system failing those who need it most.
That sounds scandalous, and I had no idea there was a rural-urban divide in Oregon. Is that all those 'socialists' in Portland?
Yes, the rural-urban divide is actually quite strong - though the coast is being gradually taken over by city-slickers wishing to retire nearer the beaches - locals are having trouble trying to afford to live there. I grew up on the north Oregon coast, and I have to realize now that barring some financial miracle, we will not be able to afford to retire there ourselves - despite the fact that I have deeper roots there than any other place.
I won't place labels on the people who make the decision (I hate politics) - but the main urban (and very liberal) area is down the Willamette (will-AM-ette) Valley - Portland down to Salem and on to Eugene, primarily (Corvallis, is more conservative as the ag and tech college.)
East of the Cascades, with the notable exception of Bend and Prineville (Facebook HQ now), is all very agricultural wherever it's possible to farm, anyway, it's also one of the most severe rain shadows in the world. A lot of ranching country over there - and therefore quite conservative as well. They even have a different accent than those west of the Cascades!
Thanks for the very detailed comment, excellent questions, I'll reply fully later today, just wanted to briefly say thanks for now, I do appreciate dialogue!
I will quickly say this, the secondary enrollment stats suggest the US has 'third world' levels of school enrollment, I assume that's due to some states allowing parents the freedom to 'home educate' their kids - I know states vs Fed is a big issue with many millions of Americans, so it sounds like quite a lot of US citizens are already voting with their feet. In the UK practically every child (99%) attends a state school (or at least 99% of the 93% who aren't privately educated).
Great comment, will reply in more depth later,
Karl.
Sounds like the numbers are now up around 27,000 students being home-educated in England. (I didn't see what numbers might be in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.) I don't know what percentage that makes without further research. It also sounded like the numbers have doubled in recent years.
I home educated off and on while I lived in the UK.
My eldest wasn't ready at the age of (barely) 4 - August birthday.
Second wasn't ready at 4 1/2...
And thus it continued.
After my divorce, I did put them into school, but pulled them out again after our local catchment school failed an OFSTED and then a couple weeks later got flying colors from the C of E version - so, that was okay then, they didn't need to fix anything...
I dislike the GCSE system, as a huge pressure to get one test perfect - as the be-all-and-end-all about whether they did okay in school or not.
I'm glad that home education has picked up steam so much. (I started home educating in about 2000 for my eldest and was doing it off and on until I left the UK in 2013.) But I'm concerned about the constant attempts by the government to rein in all the rebels. I think they need to concentrate on fixing the state schools first.
Right now, I'm still home educating my youngest children, one of whom is not academically gifted. Her gifts are elsewhere - arts, computing, things like that. Not to mention that her personal schedule is incompatible with the "system."
Thanks for the stats. Oddly enough I remember being on an updating A level sociology course about 12 years ago and I met someone who was just starting her PhD on home education, I remember at the time thinking that was clever as there was a research gap in a growth market, checking up on her research is something I must get around to doing.
I know exactly what you mean about 'their schedule'... we're doing revision ATM, and I can totally understand it if a student wants to revise in their own way and totally ignore me. In fact, I let many of them do just that. Problem is, if I got caught doing that... why I've gtg!
I do wonder how the government get their teeth into the home educators....
I wish I could afford to do an online degree - problem is, I have too many interests and I can't stick to any one focus for long enough to get there! Had I gone that route, I'd probably have 3 or 4 totally unrelated degrees right now and still not know what I really want to do when I grow up!
Heck, I've even had research projects in mind that I would have loved to do! The thing that would have made the biggest difference to me as a student... had someone sat down with me, not give me a stupid aptitude test - I have too many aptitudes! - but help me work out a career path that would encompass 2/3 of my strong interests - and help me find that one career that I've still never heard of, but would have suited me better than anything else... like finding the passion, but better.
I once sat with a solicitor in Wiltshire who told me that he'd hire a home-educated person any day! His reasoning was that he wouldn't have to worry about what the person would be doing. Home schoolers are self-starters! I've taken that one to heart and carry it with me whenever I feel that I'm not "doing enough" - which is a common problem.
One of my sons is another that can't do the regular schedule. He would work best if I let him stay up past midnight and wake up near noon... As long as I worked with his schedule, he was a positive person and a real asset around the house. If you forced him to the normal accepted school schedule, he would be grumpy and confrontational... my most difficult child in some ways!
He's also the one who did the autonomous learning thing best...
When I first took him out of school, it took some time, but then he started reading... and reading... and reading... read through everything we had, pretty much. All of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings... and kept going! Then he started writing - and wrote about 100 pages! Another time, he decided to learn Algebra. He literally picked up a GCSE-level textbook and just plowed through it!
This child has recently been accepted at Bristol, to study law!
Yeah, the government in home education is a hot potato in England, especially - since that one seems to be done separately in Wales and Scotland, at least.
See, the LEAs like to do these annual home visits for home educated students. Part of the excuse seems to be child welfare related, especially in the aftermath of the whole Baby P thing. Yet, it's become just that - an excuse - and the people are now fed up with it and saying "no"- they're not legally entitled. Of course, the response is - "well, we'll just make it legal" (to poorly quote Darth Sidious.)
In the US, even the most difficult states to home school do not require a home visit!
Anyway, must go and get my students back on task. :-)
I know what you mean about the degrees - personally these days I prefer to look at specific topics in depth and just apply knowledge to them.
Interesting what you say about employers..... for a similar reason I'd be reluctant to employ privately educated kids - you don't know if they're intelligent or just hot-housed!
Yes - child safety as an excuse, it's all bullshit of course, we've no idea how much abuse there is or has been, so you can't tell whether it's increasing or decreasing.
Glad your kid got into Bristol, good university that, good alternative town for him as well.
Will come back and upvote the comment once my VP's recharged!
That sounds scandalous, and I had no idea there was a rural-urban divide in Oregon. Is that all those 'socialists' in Portland?
TBH I have no idea how we change things at a systemic level - education is one of those institutions where so many people have 'stakes' in it that it's difficult to see how it's going to change!
In the short term I'd certainly say abandoning testing for primary schoolers, everyone up to at least 11 (I'm trying to be a realist here); introducing more vocational streams earlier on, say for 14 year olds; getting more people involved in education would be an idea - maybe once a week having voluntary groups, industry, pensioners, anyone really just taking over education for a day - that would allow teachers a day off to prep and reduce class sizes (if you think about the math). The last strategy would also need to be co-ordinated with a 4 day work week.
A lot of other solutions are already being done in many schools - there's lots of creativity, time for students to do individual work, we just need more of it and less pressure from the examination system.
I think being aware of its function is the first step though for sure... Danny Dorling's 'injustice' chapter on education is very interesting in this regard... basically he argues it's set up to distinguish the middle classes.
Oh, and there are those teachers who just 'shut the door and teach', but it's no country for old men for sure!