I feel it's time to discuss the state of education in our country. We have an incredible mismatch of ideas in terms of 1) what education is really for, and 2) how best to accomplish educating our young. I'm not a person who believes that religion of any kind needs to be injected in the classroom by default; that's not where I want to go with this. (If you want your child to be brought up with a Christian education, that's the parents' job to work out the best way to make that happen. I always favored the "take your kids to Sunday School every Sunday and keep them involved at church" model. It worked pretty well for me.)
DISCLAIMER 1: The following examples are from my own experiences as a student, parent, and teacher. I have not done a great deal of outside research on this...yet. However, in matching my own experiences with many of the issues that seem to be open for debate within our education system, I feel that they are illustrative of the developing attitudes in our complete education system for the last 25-30 years. You probably have a completely different set of experiences, so your mileage may vary.
This discussion focuses on the idea that those who are in charge of education seem intent on destroying a model that has worked quite well for hundreds of years. Indeed, there's a specific reason why "school choice" is such a heated topic of debate for the last few years. Much of it comes from the widening liberal-vs.-conservative rift that has been growing and expanding since the beginning of this century. There are other important reasons, however, that fall distinctly outside of political/ideological lines of thought...which brings me to my own stories.
When I was in first grade, I apparently had a difficult time with my first grade teacher. It seems she didn't like me very much. Mom and Dad tell me that she would send home notes regarding how I was disrupting class and how difficult I was to deal with. I was not able to focus my attention on things happening in class all the time. This happened with amazing regularity. (DISCLAIMER 2: the rest of this particular anecdote is NOT intended for any kind of ego-inflating or bragging purposes.) Halfway through first grade, they took me out of that teacher's class and moved me in with a new teacher, whom they had just hired (and who became my favorite teacher in elementary school). Eventually, my parents took me to a psychologist, where I was given an IQ test. At the time, it was apparently a lot higher than usual for my age, and the reason I was causing trouble in class is because I was bored. Once this was discovered, educators were able to adapt a bit with me and channel me in the right direction. I was in a very small school (the entire first grade was about 30-35 kids, as I recall), but they were still able to get me into a gifted program, as there were 4 or 5 other kids who were also special like me. My teachers were better able to understand the motivation behind my behavior and were thus better-equipped to head off potential concerns at the pass. I never had serious disruption problems in class again.
To bring this particular illustration to a head, how would my situation be handled if I were in first grade with an identical problem today? Well, first, the teacher and perhaps even the principal would probably call my parents in and tell them that I have ADD and I should be tested and probably medicated to control it. I can say that without bitterness and in all sincerity, for reasons you are about to learn.
Let's fast-forward to 2001, when my daughter Katie got into first grade. We put her in the neighborhood elementary school, because it was close and that's what you're supposed to do, right? Lisa had grown up in her local public elementary school, and so had I. Kindergarten seemed OK, though there were a few problems. Lisa and I mostly chalked it up to the fact that Katie had a first-year teacher fresh out of college in her very first classroom job. Then came first grade. Katie was learning to read more, and things were OK...for a bit. About halfway through the fall, we started having trouble. Katie, who had always loved books and having us read to her from the time she was an infant, suddenly didn't want anything to do with books. I would ask her if she wanted to read with me, and she would say no. Reports of Katie's attention wandering in class became frequent, along with reports that Katie wasn't doing well in reading. Finally, Katie began to say she didn't like her teacher. So we went to her teacher and to the school's reading coordinator to try to work out the issues and find a solution. All we kept hearing was, "Katie seems to have ADD. You need to take care of that." We talked to our doctor, we talked to Katie's dance teacher (Katie had been in dance about 2-3 years at this point), we talked to everyone we could outside of the school. No one seemed to think Katie had ADD, except for the teacher and the reading coordinator. After we went to the principal, she stepped in and had Katie placed in a different class, with a different teacher. Katie's attitude and reading skills were back up within a week, and reports of class disruption, while still not completely gone, were much fewer and farther between. After several weeks of Katie doing much better, however, she was placed right back in class with the old teacher! We immediately went back to the school to ask why this was done. We were told that the teacher Katie had been put in with was temporary and her time at the school was up. We then asked why Katie wasn't placed in the other reading class, and we were told it wasn't appropriate to her demonstrated reading level. (The class she was in was already the higher-level reading class.) Katie's problems returned almost immediately. The principal seemed to recognize that it was an issue between Katie and the teacher, and she worked sincerely for a solution. However, being as busy as she was, she really wasn't helpful, and it became obvious her ultimate goals were 1) make the problem go away quickly, and b) back up her staff.
Our ultimate solution? As soon as first grade was over, we moved Katie out of that school entirely and into a nearby charter school. Katie still had trouble early on maintaining focus in class, but none of the trouble she had was unmanageable or required medicating her. And at no point did anyone believe she had ADD. We were never able to test Katie the way we tested me when I was younger, but I suspect that her issues are very similar to what mine were; namely, that she has a special gift and was bored in class. Since we put her in the charter school, she loves it and has really been able to excel. She's incredibly bright, creative, articulate, and intelligent, so it's no surprise to me that she would have these particular issues.
Some relevant points to bring up as a result of these two anecdotes:
1. Educators have become too obsessed with avoiding direct responsibility for what they do in their schools. A large part of this is a direct result of the ridiculous litigiousness that plagues American culture. The other part is just a direct result of the recent American push to avoid responsibility of any kind (an unfortunate side-effect of the 60s civil rights movements). The ADD idea is a great excuse for educators and is regularly dusted off for problem children of all kinds early on. It is a very convenient way for educators to easily and subconsciously say, "The fault does not lie with our staff or our system; the problem is a health issue with your child." This makes it easy not only for the educators to say they're not responsible, but it also is relatively non-confrontational and protects the parents' egos to a degree. The educators and parents don't have to face up to real behavioral problems, should this be the root of the issue.
2. Many educators seem unwilling to adapt to kids with special needs. This goes both directions, up the ladder to the gifted kids, and down the ladder to the TRULY special-needs children (who I would argue have the much greater need). Educators seem to prefer quiet, calm, cookie-cutter children in their classrooms, because the curricula/educational systems they're given encourage this. Plus, cookie-cutter kids allow teachers to do things the same old way, without every changing or adapting anything they do over time. No one likes change.
The latter example illustrates how school choice can work. We were able to take Katie out of a bad environment and put her into a place where she could really learn and grow and excel. In my original case, though, we were in a small elementary school, way out in the country. My parents could not have so easily moved me to a different school. There are, I'm sure, lots of kids who are in this very situation. How do we help those kids (and their parents) find a good solution in a good environment?
I thought education is supposed to be about helping children and preparing them for the future. After having the experiences I've had, with more I will outline in subsequent posts, it no longer surprises me that there are so many parents opting for home schooling, private schools, tutors, or charter schools, and suddenly wondering why they have to pay for those things separately while continuing to pay the outrageous taxes to support a system that seems ill-prepared at times to fulfill its primary function. I know these issues are complex ones that intelligent people at every level of education and government have been debating for years. But it seems that the system needs some serious scrutiny, because there are foundational issues that we continue to neglect.
Thanks for reading along.
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