Time to Throw Some Rocks at the Glass House

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After commenting so freely on all that is wrong with so many other institutions, it is only fair that I take a critical look, and well deserved shots at my own profession, American secondary education.  It is not, as you might think, that I am so parochially loyal to my own place in the educational status quo, that I have avoided turning my acidic prose loose on the outdated and self-serving colossus we call American education.  Nor have I avoided assailing this arthritic relic of the 19th century because I might be chomping down on the very hand that feeds me. Instead, believe it or not, it is because I have been saving many of the criticisms you are about to read for a book I plan to write when I retire.  But then it occurred to me that if I did not get a few things "out there," I could very well go toes north and room temperature (that's die for those of you less crude than me) before I ever get any of this said.  And I do want to go on the record, albeit with a woefully incomplete polemic at this time.

First, after thirty plus years of standing before thousands of college prep teenagers, I have come to the conclusion that my dedicated colleagues and I have done a pretty good job of preparing our students to take their places as citizens and adults in the late 1800s.  Everything about our physical plants and the ways in which we socialize our kids is as outdated as if we were conducting lessons on the intricacies of managing a team of oxen along the Oregon Trail.  Actually, that is an incomplete analogy, as we are also getting our young charges ready to assume positions on Henry Ford's Dearborn assembly line making Model T sedans and coupes.  For while the rest of the post-industrial world is training its young people for life in the 21st century, we are still pretending that our kids need three months off to help their Homesteading parents plant the crops, tend to the livestock, and harvest the autumn bounty. For most American high school students, the school year runs for about 180 days.  At my school, a private Catholic college preparatory institution, we are in session for about ten fewer days than that.  I guess tuition paying Catholic school kids need more time back on the farm than their peers in the public sector.  Most of the secondary students in the rest of the developed world are in session from between 210 to 240 days per year.  When you add that all up over thirteen school years, our kids are behind by as much as three academic years when they graduate from high school.  Can everyone say, "Would you like fries with that sir?"

Then there is the way we structure our classes.  Ringing bells, assigning detention to late kids, sitting them in rows, mandating mind-numbing and tedious busy work, are all excellent ways to get kids ready to go to work in a factory.  Think of this if you will, the vast majority of school discipline problems are related to issues of rules of conformity.  Most kids who are assigned detention, or even suspended, are are in trouble for being late to class, out of their assigned seats, or talking to someone sitting near them.  Truly disruptive or disrespectful behavior is much more rare, even in some of our worst schools. But the model we are using was designed to condition-out any spark of individuality, as that would have been disastrous on a factory assembly line.  Think of it, for thirteen years, American kids cannot use the restroom when they need to go.  Again, a wonderful idea on an assembly line where one missing worker disrupts the entire process, but a useless behavior trait in a post-industrial society.  So we ring bells, kids move, we ring bells, kids sit, we ring bells, kids eat, we ring bells, kids go home.  One hundred years ago, we blew whistles, factory workers came in, we blew whistles, factory workers lined up at their work stations, we blew whistles, factory workers rested, we blew whistles, factory workers ate lunch, we blew whistles, factories workers went home.  They all came to work at the same time, they dressed alike, they were punished for being late or talking during work, and they were conditioned to do the same boring tasks over and over for eight hours a day, five days a week, month after month, and year after boring year.

No wonder a quarter of our American high school students drop out of school every year.  Even the way we evaluate our kids makes no sense any more.  Grades are assigned based on a system of rigidly scrutinized individual mastery of a narrowly defined curriculum.  We call cooperative work "cheating," and punish kids for doing exactly what will be demanded of them in the modern adult workforce.  Since most of the really good jobs awaiting our young people involve highly complex communication and technological skills, a premium in the real workplace is placed on cooperating, rather than isolating.  No wonder so many of our valedictorians can't seem to fit in as adults.  The best jobs of the 21st century are going to demand workers who are highly creative, adaptive to rapid change, skilled critical thinkers, and stimulated by peer interaction.  Think back to your school years and reflect for a moment on all the tasks you were forced to do that rewarded those real-world skills.  You may find, as I have, that your athletic teams and other extra-curricular activities were more nurturing of modern workplace skills than anything you did in the classroom.

As far as rigidly enforced dress codes go, there was indeed a time in American history when a person's attire immediately marked them as working or middle class, as educated or destined for manual labor.  After World War II, when the new middle class fled the cities and factories for brand new row houses in the suburbs, they demanded that schools teach their kids how to look like future members of the managerial class.  Denim pants and shirts were symbols of the manual labor jobs of their immigrant parents' generation, not their GI Bill financed entree into the good life, and so were banned from schools. Thus, we find that an outdated 1940s and 50s social agenda is still being enforced well into the 21st century.  I think it would be fantastic if our shirt and tie school administrators could all take a one-day field trip to some of the top high tech companies to see how modern capitalists actually dress. Plus, it would really be cool to see them all sitting in those ridiculous yellow buses.

Finally, at the risk of violating that over-used adage of always avoiding fouling one's own nest, I have some criticisms of my fellow faculty members around the country.  First, why is it that so many of us are militantly opposed to any kind of performance-based evaluations?  I cannot think of another profession where outcomes are not used in determining whether one moves up, down, or out of a job, other than in education.  Perhaps it is because of the ridiculous way in which most of us are economically compensated.  To make more money as an elementary or secondary school teacher, one must earn more college credits while hanging around for another year.  To put it simply, pay is about units and years. Since most public school districts post their salary schedules online take a look and see if I am wrong.  Actual performance as a teacher has no bearing on salaries, other than in those rare cases where a teacher might actually be dismissed.  It seems that the only way for a talented teacher to move up economically, short of units and years, is to make a transition into administration.  Now there is a great idea, incentivize our best teachers to leave the classroom and take on jobs for which they may have absolutely no aptitude or innate interest.  Which may explain why academic administrations are so dysfunctional in this country.

Oh, but I have so many other items on my educational agenda, but that is enough for now.  Suffice it to say that as I am getting ready to step away from a profession that I love, I am so disheartened as to the limited progress we have made to improve education in America.  In fact, during my tenure within its confines. . hmmm, tenure, now there is a topic for another discussion.