The State of Public Education According to an 11-Year-Old:
Last Thursday and Friday I had a series of back and forth
email exchanges with one of my 11-year-old sixth grader Mr. O's teachers that
resulted in me phoning the principal. Even after a good conversation with him I
felt unsettled--like, crap, I've made the wrong decision about sending my kid
to a traditional public middle school.
I've repeatedly been told not to make my kids pay for my
personal belief in public education, that public schools are terrible and are
going to make my kids into dumb robots. But at the end of the day, I
fundamentally believe there's more right than wrong in our schools, that they
only reach their full potential when we all invest in them, and that
teachers--even the ones that can't quite seem to understand that I'm not playing
when I ask them to contact me that same day if there's a problem with my child at
school--work hard and want students to learn.
With that in mind I headed over to the Curtis School on
Saturday morning for their Teaching and Learning at Home and at School conference.
The presenters included some of my favorite folks who are trying to
transform education: Sir Ken Robinson, Yong Zhao, Alfie Kohn, Nikhil Goyal, and
Carol Dweck. And there were some new folks--Richard Gever, Steven Jones, and
Wendy Mogel--for me to learn from, too. The goal was to, as Sir Ken said, to
talk about the mindset and actions needed to reclaim education and make it once
more about the relationship between learners and those who help them learn. I won't rehash the whole event here, but
I'll just say that it was one of the most inspiring education conferences I've
ever attended.
After spending the day thinking about the dangers of
praising intelligence instead of effort, how students with the highest GPAs
usually rate low on creativity but rate high on being dependable--turning them
into mere worker bees for companies, not entrepreneurial innovators--and how we
need to ensure students have cultural competence, I came home and, after
dinner, I decided to ask my sons a few questions.
"Do you like school?" I asked Mr. O.
"What do you mean?" he replied.
It should be an easy yes or no question, not one that needs to be
parsed. "You know," I said. "Do you like school?"
"You mean the learning?" Another clarifying
question. He can't say yes, so I know the answer is no.
"Sure," I said, "the learning."
"Well...no. Not really," he finally confessed. Ah,
sweet honesty.
"Why not?" I said.
"Because it's boring," he replied with a shrug.
"The stuff we do is just boring. And there are too many tests."
I know there are plenty of children who agree, and there
there are plenty of adults who don't care if kids think school's a boring and
test-heavy experience.
I turned to his little brother. "What about you? Do you
like school?" I asked 9-year-old Mr. T.
"Yeah, I guess," he answered. How's that for
enthusiasm, folks?
Taking a question from one of the conference's speakers,
Richard Gerver, I asked, "What do you like better? School or
Disneyland?" I might as well have asked if they'd rather have a $100 bill
or a lump of coal.
"Duhhhh. Disneyland. What kind of crazy question is
that?" Mr. T replied. "Are you feeling alright, mom?" I assured
him that I felt just fine. He walked away shaking his head and mumbling to
himself, "Disneyland? Wow."
I can do all the big thinking I want to about education, but if I can't
make it work for my own child, well...that's a problem. And the first step is
listening to what's going on with them, so I asked Mr. O if I could ask him a few more questions. I recorded the entire
conversation--these are his answers verbatim--and I typed it all up so I myself can
read through it later and reflect on how to better support him.
Los Angelista: So
tell me more about why you don’t like school.
Mr. O: It’s not
that I don’t like it, exactly. Like I said, it’s just that it sometimes gets
boring.
LA: What gets
boring?
O: Sometimes the
teacher’s talking and you’re sitting there and you’re not really listening and
you’re trying to kill time in your imagination.
LA: But why
wouldn’t you just listen?
O: Well I do
listen but sometimes it just gets hard to listen cos you get bored. A lot of
kids don’t listen.
LA: What are you
supposed to do while she’s talking?
O: Sometimes
she’s just talking and I have no idea what we’re supposed to do, sometimes
we’re supposed to take notes.
What fascinates me is that to most adults, it doesn't matter
if it's boring. We expect children to simply suck it up and listen--be
obedient, even if they don't know what the purpose is or understand how
something's relevant. We expect it because that's what we did in school, and in
a society full of worker bees, that's what many of us do at work, too.
LA: What would
make school more interesting?
O: Maybe doing
more interactive assignments. Like let’s say you’re reading about science, you
could actually let students go outside and see nature and experience it so we
could learn more about it. We sit a lot. I wish school offered a class that’s
more art—where you can learn how to draw people really, really well. And more
field trips.
LA: So tell me,
what would make school more like Disneyland?
O: It would
probably need more creativity, more imagination. When kids get to walk in, you
can decide how you want the day to go. Stuff like that.
LA: What would it look like?
O: Magical
looking-- a medieval hallway for ancient history. A plant life hallway with
vines and a jungle for science. That kind of thing.
That's a pretty amazing idea. The decorations at Disneyland
are a huge part of what makes it special, so why can't we get cool themed
hallways in schools? And why can't we have days where the kids get to decide what they
want to do? What he's talking about is Google's 20 percent time come to
life--that resulted in the creation of Gmail. Imagine what kids could create.
LA: What is the
worst thing you see happening at your school?
O: Drugs. Kids
dealing drugs. Some kids are getting picked on by older kids and then the
adults don’t bother to do anything about it, although they act like they do.
Like, let’s say there’s a fight on the yard and adults are standing there. They
don’t do anything.
What I've noticed in recent conversations with several educators is
that these two things--drugs and bullying/fighting--are accepted as a given in many middle and high schools.
Teachers don't believe we can do anything about it. "The parents are just
as addicted as the kids--to both legal and prescription drugs, so they're not
going to do anything," one teacher told me a couple of weeks ago.
LA: If you don’t
understand something in school, what happens?
O: Well that kind
of depends on what kind of teacher. With Ms. X, she doesn’t really care. She’ll
just move on. But with Ms. A and Ms. B, they’ll do their best to make sure I
understand it.
LA: Do your
teachers care about you?
O: I think Ms. A
and Ms. B. But not Ms. X.
LA: So how do you
feel when you’re in her class?
O: I feel like
she doesn’t really like me. She doesn’t really want me to be in her class. She
tries to pick on me.
LA: Do other kids
notice?
O: Yeah. She does
it in front of everybody.
We ask kids not to be
bystanders to bullying, but if the adults aren't modeling that, and are in fact
bullying students in class, that's a real problem. Also, learning is about
relationships, so if there's no relationship, there's little to no learning
happening. Yes, the teacher, Ms. X, is the one I had the disappointing email
exchange with.
LA: Tell me more
about what you think about tests.
O: Being able to
think is more important than a test. Being able to think and answer the right
questions in real life is more important than a test. But then they kind of go
hand in hand, I guess.
LA: Do the
teachers talk about the CST a lot?
O: Um, yeah. They
talk about how if we do good on the weekly tests, we’ll do good on the CST.
On the one hand I'm so relieved that he's more interested in
learning than tests. On the other hand, how long will that last in a culture
where the main point of doing well on a weekly test is so that you can do well
on the state standardized test?
LA: What’s more
important: Looking smart or learning how to fail?
O: I’d say
learning even if you fail. Failing is how you learn stuff, you know? But
there’s a difference between learning that way and just failing cos you’re not
trying.
LA: What do you
think is more important, good grades or creativity?
O: Good grades,
because without good grades, I might not be able to go to college. I could have
all the creativity in the world but if I don’t have good grades, I’m not going
to get in college.
LA: What’s more
important, that you tried hard or that you got a good grade?
O: That I tried
hard.
LA: Do you think
you think your dad and I are too hard on you about school?
O: No, cos I do
need to get good grades so I appreciate you all pushing me to get better
grades. That reminds me, I have to study on Sunday and Monday for my math test
on Tuesday.
Those questions were
inspired by Carol Dweck's presentation about a fixed mindset vs a growth
mindset—in a growth mindset, you look forward to failure, feedback, and hard
work. In a fixed mindset, you believe the opposite. What's interesting to me is
that he puts creativity below good grades but doesn't do the same with effort,
and he rightly ascertains that we care a great deal about grades. However,
emphasizing grades leads to more less risk taking, curiosity, and eagerness to
take on harder tasks. Of course the conundrum is if he doesn't get excellent
grades, in our current education model he's shooting himself in the foot,
especially when it comes to college admissions.
LA: Do the
teachers talk to you guys about college a lot?
O: Eh, not
really...Well, they sometimes have some staffer go on the loudspeaker doing a
one-minute speech about college.
LA: What do they
say?
O: 'I went to
college and you should too.' Like that’s
going to motivate anybody.
I laughed so hard over
this. So often, the approach that we think will motivate kids ends up not being
motivating at all. I imagine the voice coming through the loudspeaker sounding
like Charlie Brown's teacher.
LA: What do you
wish you could change about school?
O: The lunch.
Sometimes they feed kids crap. Moldy food and then the kids throw up. I hate
the drug dealing that goes around. JC got offered drugs so he’s probably not
going to go there next year. Also, let’s say you get a really nice teacher and
then you get a really nasty teacher. You can’t do anything about it. You can’t
switch classes. And theft. On Friday a kid got his gym clothes stolen out of
his locker and some other stuff too. The other day someone got his phone
stolen. Also the afterschool program—it doesn’t really seem like they have a
safe or stable afterschool program. They let high schoolers on campus, too. Oh
and having enough supplies in the right place is a problem. We need to make
sure if something gets dirty or broken, they have the money to replace it. Most
of the time the teachers buy things with their own money, and they shouldn’t
have to.
LA: What are the
things they did at Y Elementary School at you wish they did at Z Middle School?
O: 1:1 laptop
program. More technology. We have to share a laptop with two other students.
It’s not really your laptop. And I already know how to do most computer stuff.
Teach me something new.
Agreed. He doesn't
need more "how to use Microsoft Word" help. Give him some actual
coding experience.
LA: Should
schools be K-8?
O: NO. I like
being separate from elementary school because otherwise the eighth graders
would mess with kids Mr. T’s age. Try to sell them drugs.
Note to self: talk to
principal again about drugs on campus. This is clearly bothering him. He's
brought it up three times.
LA: What about
the size of your middle school?
O: There’s a lot
of kids in the whole school. What I don’t like is that in my honors classes
there are less kids. If you’re not in honors, the classes are packed. That’s
not fair. And if you’re in honors, it’s almost all white and Asian kids. In the
classes that aren’t honors, it’s more diverse. Like I’m supposed to believe
nearly all the smartest kids are white and Asian.
LA: Why do you
think there aren’t more black and Latino kids in honors?
O: Honestly, I’m
not sure. Maybe they purposely keep the number down. I’m not sure.
He's brought up the racial divisions and how honors kids get resources the other kids don't several times. Why is it that an 11-year-old can see these things--and be bothered by them--but many adults are not? Truly, I don't think we adults are bothered enough by that. We're too used to operating in a race and class-grounded scarcity model--if everyone's child gets small class sizes, resources, and technology, there won't be anything left for my baby.
***
I could see that Mr. O was itching to go wrestle his brother on the floor so that was the end of our conversation. We say we want more creativity and imagination in kids, but I wonder what would happen if every parent and teacher asked students these sorts of questions, and then changed teaching/parenting according to what they discovered?
Comments
Thanks for reading. What I really started thinking about is that my son's enrolled in a gifted program that's trying to be innovative, etc, so imagine what the kids in the "regular" school might say.