High School
I suppose that for many people, high school is a happy time, and those four years are looked back upon with fond remembrances and nostalgia. My high school experience, however, conjures images of a four-year prison term. I couldn't wait to get the hell out. But then a weird thing happened. I somehow ended up going BACK to high school, this time as a teacher. For the past 8 years I've served the state of Texas in both Houston and Austin as a public high school English teacher, and now that I'm leaving the profession (at least for now) I thought I would take this moment to share a few of my personal reflections and opinions on the subject.
You can't go far these days without hearing someone bemoan the public school system, and I'm sure you are familiar with the litany of complaints on the subject: Unqualified teachers, outdated curriculum, school financing woes, lack of teacher pay, and so forth. When you tell someone you are a teacher, you never know what kind of reaction you are going to get. Many people seem to admire you because you are working a tough job for low pay, and you are giving something back to the community. But on the other hand, there are others who think that teachers are incompetent or perhaps lazy - choosing to merely "teach" rather than "do." I've also noticed that most of the blame for our current educational "crisis" tends to fall squarely on the back of the teachers. Now, while I'll be the first to admit that there are, in every school, teachers who are irresponsible, lazy, and even... well... stupid... from my experience I have found teachers to be a pretty respectable lot. I see a lot of very hard-working, intelligent, caring folk - people who really care about students and want to make a difference with their lives. These are people, for the most part, who are knowledgeable in their subjects and are good communicators. So... what is the real problem with public schools?
It sounds cliche, I know, but from my view it is a complex problem. I think that in the state of Texas, the first problem is that we don't seem truly committed to what we say we believe. You know the old phrase, "Put your money where your mouth is"? If we really want to improve our schools, why are we constantly hearing of slashing budgets, cutting enrichment programs, and so forth. Why are we asking our teachers to go without even an incremental "inflation-managing" raise each year? Why do we talk about the importance of technology in the classroom, and yet the public schools seem to be about 5-10 years behind the rest of the world in possession of those "gadgets" that make the use of technology possible? So this is one problem.
I think, like I said, that some teachers are probably to blame, but then again we could point that finger of blame around the room at everyone. What about administrators, who fail to support their staff and instead only add to the pressure of an already difficult job? What about parents who refuse to make their kids take responsibility for their own actions and choices? Ask any teacher to tell you of a time when a student refused to do his assignments, and yet his parents somehow believe that "Little Johnny" is an angel and would never lie to Mommy and Daddy--so the teacher MUST be picking on him. Speaking of students, isn't it possible that the kid who can't remember to do his homework or to bring his books or even a pen to class with him, but can somehow remember to bring his cell phone, fully charged IPod, and PSP is at least partly culpable for his own education or lack thereof?
One thing that doesn't help, it seems to me, is the recent emphasis on standardized high-stakes testing. It is actually quite funny to think that we are somehow judging our kids (and our schools!) by how they score on a once-a-year multiple-choice test! We test them in high school every year, some years in multiple subjects. Add to that all the practice tests we administer, and you can safely say that 1/6 of our year is devoted solely to testing. That's an entire six weeks of instruction lost, which is a terrible shame, in my opinion.
I think the most ridiculous and myopic aspect of this testing mandate is what it says about our philosophy of education. Anyone who has ever been in a classroom and learned anything knows that learning is not like depositing money in a bank account, or saving files on a computer hard drive. It seems that lawmakers see our schools as little businesses of sorts... teachers have product (education), which they give to the students, and we can see if the teachers and students have done their jobs by testing the students over that product to see if it has transferred over adequately. Obviously, this is a simplification of the issue, but it does have some truth to it. What I wonder is how these Very Important People who make our laws have so soon forgotten what learning is REALLY like? I'm reminded of an example from my own experience. In high school I read "Hamlet" and was tested over it, and I passed. But a few months went by and I was asked to remember a bunch of facts from the play for my cumulative final, and I found that I could only remember certain parts and lines, and that much of the play had sunk into a kind of haze from which I couldn't retrieve much of anything. Now, as a teacher, when I read "Hamlet" three or four times in one month, I tend to remember minute details of the play for longer periods of time. Isn't this much more like REAL learning? It's a constantly developing process, and each person goes about it at his or her own unique, individual rate.
One could argue that I'm talking about knowledge as "facts" and not knowledge as "skills." True, but how much are we really objectively testing these "skills" - and how much are we merely testing "facts?" Check the state tests out... see for yourself.
I'm rambling now, and I see that I could probably write an entire book on this subject. Let me bring this to a close by saying that I don't think that public schools (generally speaking) are really all that "broken" actually. I think that our society has changed - out culture has changed - and we are now struggling with the question of who is going to give - the system or the people? Are we going to change, or are we going to change the schools to meet our current needs and interests? I think this is a very interesting question, and I'll be curious to see what we end up doing!
Until then, thanks to everyone who helped me keep my sanity over the past 8 years. I will miss all of you, my wonderful colleagues and especially the students who made my job so very very interesting and often quite surprisingly fun. I hope you will all keep in touch as I enter this new phase of my life, and I hope that you'll know that you've made a great impact on my life forever. Keep it real!
You can't go far these days without hearing someone bemoan the public school system, and I'm sure you are familiar with the litany of complaints on the subject: Unqualified teachers, outdated curriculum, school financing woes, lack of teacher pay, and so forth. When you tell someone you are a teacher, you never know what kind of reaction you are going to get. Many people seem to admire you because you are working a tough job for low pay, and you are giving something back to the community. But on the other hand, there are others who think that teachers are incompetent or perhaps lazy - choosing to merely "teach" rather than "do." I've also noticed that most of the blame for our current educational "crisis" tends to fall squarely on the back of the teachers. Now, while I'll be the first to admit that there are, in every school, teachers who are irresponsible, lazy, and even... well... stupid... from my experience I have found teachers to be a pretty respectable lot. I see a lot of very hard-working, intelligent, caring folk - people who really care about students and want to make a difference with their lives. These are people, for the most part, who are knowledgeable in their subjects and are good communicators. So... what is the real problem with public schools?
It sounds cliche, I know, but from my view it is a complex problem. I think that in the state of Texas, the first problem is that we don't seem truly committed to what we say we believe. You know the old phrase, "Put your money where your mouth is"? If we really want to improve our schools, why are we constantly hearing of slashing budgets, cutting enrichment programs, and so forth. Why are we asking our teachers to go without even an incremental "inflation-managing" raise each year? Why do we talk about the importance of technology in the classroom, and yet the public schools seem to be about 5-10 years behind the rest of the world in possession of those "gadgets" that make the use of technology possible? So this is one problem.
I think, like I said, that some teachers are probably to blame, but then again we could point that finger of blame around the room at everyone. What about administrators, who fail to support their staff and instead only add to the pressure of an already difficult job? What about parents who refuse to make their kids take responsibility for their own actions and choices? Ask any teacher to tell you of a time when a student refused to do his assignments, and yet his parents somehow believe that "Little Johnny" is an angel and would never lie to Mommy and Daddy--so the teacher MUST be picking on him. Speaking of students, isn't it possible that the kid who can't remember to do his homework or to bring his books or even a pen to class with him, but can somehow remember to bring his cell phone, fully charged IPod, and PSP is at least partly culpable for his own education or lack thereof?
One thing that doesn't help, it seems to me, is the recent emphasis on standardized high-stakes testing. It is actually quite funny to think that we are somehow judging our kids (and our schools!) by how they score on a once-a-year multiple-choice test! We test them in high school every year, some years in multiple subjects. Add to that all the practice tests we administer, and you can safely say that 1/6 of our year is devoted solely to testing. That's an entire six weeks of instruction lost, which is a terrible shame, in my opinion.
I think the most ridiculous and myopic aspect of this testing mandate is what it says about our philosophy of education. Anyone who has ever been in a classroom and learned anything knows that learning is not like depositing money in a bank account, or saving files on a computer hard drive. It seems that lawmakers see our schools as little businesses of sorts... teachers have product (education), which they give to the students, and we can see if the teachers and students have done their jobs by testing the students over that product to see if it has transferred over adequately. Obviously, this is a simplification of the issue, but it does have some truth to it. What I wonder is how these Very Important People who make our laws have so soon forgotten what learning is REALLY like? I'm reminded of an example from my own experience. In high school I read "Hamlet" and was tested over it, and I passed. But a few months went by and I was asked to remember a bunch of facts from the play for my cumulative final, and I found that I could only remember certain parts and lines, and that much of the play had sunk into a kind of haze from which I couldn't retrieve much of anything. Now, as a teacher, when I read "Hamlet" three or four times in one month, I tend to remember minute details of the play for longer periods of time. Isn't this much more like REAL learning? It's a constantly developing process, and each person goes about it at his or her own unique, individual rate.
One could argue that I'm talking about knowledge as "facts" and not knowledge as "skills." True, but how much are we really objectively testing these "skills" - and how much are we merely testing "facts?" Check the state tests out... see for yourself.
I'm rambling now, and I see that I could probably write an entire book on this subject. Let me bring this to a close by saying that I don't think that public schools (generally speaking) are really all that "broken" actually. I think that our society has changed - out culture has changed - and we are now struggling with the question of who is going to give - the system or the people? Are we going to change, or are we going to change the schools to meet our current needs and interests? I think this is a very interesting question, and I'll be curious to see what we end up doing!
Until then, thanks to everyone who helped me keep my sanity over the past 8 years. I will miss all of you, my wonderful colleagues and especially the students who made my job so very very interesting and often quite surprisingly fun. I hope you will all keep in touch as I enter this new phase of my life, and I hope that you'll know that you've made a great impact on my life forever. Keep it real!
posted by mavengloiven at 3:05 AM
2 Comments:
Yo, bro -- that's fo sho!! The banking model of education (thank you, Paulo Friere) is NOT what makes for true learning. Education can be so powerful -- but only if we help kids learn to think critically. But high-stakes tests (at least the ones we use in Texas) don't encourage critical thinking. IT'S TIME TO GET CRITICAL! And definitely krunkadelic, j$...
Hey J.R. Yeah, I remember Cy-Springs... and I remember the class you were in. Wow. Now I'm going to try to block out those memories for the rest of my life. I figured you'd be in the music biz - next time you're in Austin you should let me know.
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