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That, in six words, is my summary of what's wrong with American education.
I had both the blessing, and the drawback, of spending much of my childhood with a career-educator relative who began teaching me to read at the age of three, and had me reading at a third-grade level by age six.
That pattern continued all the way through junior high, coupled with constant boredom at the unnecessary structure and regimentation imposed by rote learning and standardized programs. I scored well past the ninetieth percentile on standardized tests, but was only a C+ student. Iread, and learned a lot on my own, formed some of my own opinions, and on a couple of occasions, was reprimanded by some of the more hidebound among the faculty for doing so.
All that changed, and quickly, when I entered college. I missed a class now and then, but my grades improved from C+ to A-.
I believe that at least twenty-five percent of our seventh-graders could handle an open campus-type environment, if the "gangster element" that spoils it for the rest were quickly identified, stigmatized and removed. That figure would, of course, vary from district to district, depending largely upon the attitude of the parents.
But "ain't gonna happen", of course. Our "education advocacy", over-regimented. over-bureaucratized, pseudo-sensitized and fully-unionized, has a far greater interest in preserving and expanding the structure that keeps their paychecks and the taxes that support them high, while holding the more-creative and readily-motivated students down.
I think this is a great post because it is challenging some very deep-seated beliefs and rarely, if ever, questioned assumptions about how education is supposed to work. The regimentation, the structure without the substance, the pervasive competitiveness related to standardized tests and "placement" among middle to upper-middle class Americans, and the pressures on the lower classes to live up to the same model...it all explains why there is so much competitive-ness in the US educational system as well as the parenting world...only for this extremely agitated system to yield largely non-learned, non-erudite, basically UNEDUCATED young adults.
It does however have the potential of producing docile and unquestioning workers in the modern machinery of our times; which is what highly conformist, techno-commercial societies need to function anyway.
The school-family partnership paradigm is also very rarely challenged. It is probably high time for society to become aware that this model is not exactly as viable as policy makers and a variety of interest groups make it out to be.
I believe that at least twenty-five percent of our seventh-graders could handle an open campus-type environment, if the "gangster element" that spoils it for the rest were quickly identified, stigmatized and removed. That figure would, of course, vary from district to district, depending largely upon the attitude of the parents.
Interesting post. But, these "gangster element" children are also entitled to an excellent education. If you place 25% of the "smart & good" children for the excelling schools, you'll hear those that cry foul of elitist and likely racist attitudes.
Interesting post. But, these "gangster element" children are also entitled to an excellent education. If you place 25% of the "smart & good" children for the excelling schools, you'll hear those that cry foul of elitist and likely racist attitudes.
And I have no objection to their getting it --- in precisely the sort of over-structured environment their irresponsibility forces on everybody else.
The radical egalitarians fail to distinguish between equality of opportunity, which any reasonable person favors, and equality of result, which places the greatest penalty on the most productive.
I think there are far too many temptations in ms/hs for an open system like that to work. Can you imagine the peer pressure a child would face every day to "blow off" class and go to the park for a day?
Open, "come and go as you please" college campuses work because 1) Most of the students (or their families) are paying tuition. 2) The students on scholarship are under pressure to maintain a high GPA. 3) Young adults in college have typically worked hard to get into their universities and take their educations very seriously.
I was one of those college kids who blew off class way more than I should have and still managed to maintain an o.k. GPA - for the first year or two, anyway. But that 'tude really came back to bite me in my upper level courses, though. 110% my fault and my mistake - true. But a harsh lesson all the same - and I was an adult....
As a teacher who went from college to K-12 (and thankfully, back to college again), I agree with this. There are other problems too, however, but a campus structure would be much better. We are overly focused on control in K-12, and the lack of freedom (both physical and mental) has a very negative impact on learning, especially for anyone who is inclined to question what they are told. Thus, we have a system in which the students who rise to the top are those who do everything they are told without question, and who work hard at every task no matter how meaningless. Many of these students, in spite of being hard-working and intelligent (2 qualities that by themselves are certainly good) are nearly robotic in their obedience. This is one reason we have so many Asian students in our top schools (nothing against Asian students - but they tend to do everything they are told to the best of their abilities, even if it's something pointless and irrelevant. Teachers love it, but it's got a down side.)
I used to teach a first year mythology course in a top college, and for the first assignment we would give the students an article from one of those really cheesy tabloids with the stories about aliens and devil babies and so on, and ask them to analyze the article. Some of the students - usually some former valedictorians - would write papers with theses like, "Clearly people have discriminated against devil babies by denying their existence." They were not even capable of questioning the truth of a tabloid article (given with the information that it was from a checkout line tabloid) when it was given to them by a teacher.
I agree wholeheartedly with the OP. The "open campus" model is done quite successfully by the Sudbury schools. The kids want to be there and they "own" their educations. Kids live up to expectations. If you expect that they need to be basically chained to desks for 7 hours per day in order to learn to read and write, then that becomes the reality. If you expect that kids, like adults, want to learn and be proactive, then that's what happens. In a traditional school model, the smartest and most ambitious kids are absolutely stifled. The middle group of kids is allowed to stagnate, and in the lowest group (behavior-wise, at least), it's considered a good day if most of the kids are kept relatively under control.
The reason many college kids go wild is because they've never been allowed to have autonomy. Imagine if kids learned the "don't blow this off" lesson when they were 10 or 12 years old, instead of 18 or 20. By the time college rolled around, they'd have already figured that out. Actually, many wouldn't bother with college (depending on their career choices obviously!), because they'd recognize that they can learn so much more in real-life applications. (This would not work if someone wanted to be a surgeon, but it would if they wanted to manage a small business or work in computer design.)
I think there are far too many temptations in ms/hs for an open system like that to work. Can you imagine the peer pressure a child would face every day to "blow off" class and go to the park for a day?
Open, "come and go as you please" college campuses work because 1) Most of the students (or their families) are paying tuition. 2) The students on scholarship are under pressure to maintain a high GPA. 3) Young adults in college have typically worked hard to get into their universities and take their educations very seriously.
I was one of those college kids who blew off class way more than I should have and still managed to maintain an o.k. GPA - for the first year or two, anyway. But that 'tude really came back to bite me in my upper level courses, though. 110% my fault and my mistake - true. But a harsh lesson all the same - and I was an adult....
I didn't think the OP meant an open attendance policy, just more flexibility with courses, choice, and a curriculum not subject to state standards that focus on a lot of memorizing instead of big concepts, like college classes. I thought she meant intellectual freedom, and some more freedom in how to spend one's day - like when to study, when to go to the library, the computer lab, etc. - not the freedom to spend it out of school completely. My own grades in high school improved dramatically senior year because we were given the freedom not to attend "study hall" and to either leave campus completely for an hour or to spend it in the senior lounge. I actually got work done in the lounge, whereas I never could accomplish a thing in study hall.
That, in six words, is my summary of what's wrong with American education.
I had both the blessing, and the drawback, of spending much of my childhood with a career-educator relative who began teaching me to read at the age of three, and had me reading at a third-grade level by age six.
That pattern continued all the way through junior high, coupled with constant boredom at the unnecessary structure and regimentation imposed by rote learning and standardized programs. I scored well past the ninetieth percentile on standardized tests, but was only a C+ student. Iread, and learned a lot on my own, formed some of my own opinions, and on a couple of occasions, was reprimanded by some of the more hidebound among the faculty for doing so.
All that changed, and quickly, when I entered college. I missed a class now and then, but my grades improved from C+ to A-.
I believe that at least twenty-five percent of our seventh-graders could handle an open campus-type environment, if the "gangster element" that spoils it for the rest were quickly identified, stigmatized and removed. That figure would, of course, vary from district to district, depending largely upon the attitude of the parents.
But "ain't gonna happen", of course. Our "education advocacy", over-regimented. over-bureaucratized, pseudo-sensitized and fully-unionized, has a far greater interest in preserving and expanding the structure that keeps their paychecks and the taxes that support them high, while holding the more-creative and readily-motivated students down.
This is a really good post. Mindless regimentation has infected every area of the educational system in the US including the adults. Zero tolerance policies, mindless dependence on behavioral matrices for discipline, and strict adherance to preset curriculum standards are all examples of how the US educational system has fallen prey to over regimentation and lack of creativity.
When I was student teaching I once gave an assignment that was meant to teach a specific skill that involved reading and notating music. I was told by my adviser that I should have changed the lesson plans because the assignment I gave did not tie to a specific state standard. The standard that refers to notating music did not have a specific strand for the skill I was teaching (reading notes with ledger lines for the musically literate) so I was supposed to just leave it out even though it is an important musical skill. My adviser was a music teacher so she knew that it was a skill the students should be learning but yet she still insisted that I was wrong to have included it (and she dinged my grade for including content that did not tie to the state standards).
This is the sort of thing that should make any taxpayer angry because it turns our students into the same sort of mindless bureaucrats that run the schools. Additionally, it turns our kids into automatons who are incapable of independent thought. If we can't even let a senior in high school leave campus for their lunch period how can we expect that person to function independently?
I posted this in the MA forum.. but feel it is fitting to this discussion as well.....
As someone who attended private schools, when I go to a public high school I am shocked at how much it reminds me of a jail.
Kids are essentially locked in, the public is locked out, you have to be buzzed in. Its really a terrible situation. My high school was multiple buildings, we were free to go in and out as we pleased.
When I question it, the answer is always about protecting from school shootings. Well, I went to college in downtown Boston and none of our buildings were locked during the academic day. IMO, the real answer represents what is fundamentally wrong with public schools.. if the doors were unlocked, some of the students would leave.
Its time the public schools stop wasting resources on those who don't want to be there. If they want to leave, let them. It would help those who want to be there.
My high school (a prep school, dirty word around here) has an open campus. We didn't have study hall, so if our free period was 1st, we would all come to school when our 1st class was. There were no hall pass'. If we wanted to go to the bathroom, you just got up and left. You could have walked to your car and no one would stop you.
I was more structured than college, and I agree that younger kids need more structure, because if you missed a class without an excuse they hit your final grade with -2 points every time.
The transition to college for me and many of my other prep school friends was very easy.
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