The Cracks in the System

Here’s a list of things we know. Like, there are scientific studies. It’s fact. It’s proven.

1. Students don’t learn well/at all early in the morning.
2. Students don’t learn if they are bored.
3. Standardized tests are bullshit.
4. Stress has negative effects on health.
5. Socialization is an important part of adolescent development (and homework interferes with that).
6. Our school system – The Industrial Model – is outdated. Or so I thought. It is disputed here. For sure we know that student-centered classrooms are better than teacher-centered classrooms.

And yet… here we are.

School starts — for me — at 7:25. Other teachers are on the later schedule, which starts at 8:17.

Students are told to sit down, shut up, and listen.

Students are given little to no choice in what they study (leading to boredom).

Students have hours and hours of homework every night.

Students are STRESSED. How many students do you think are on antidepressants and/or anti-anxiety meds? Answer: A lot.

I don’t know what the purpose of telling you all this is other than to point out that the people who make policies for our educational system shouldn’t have their jobs. The “policy-makers” as we call them in the biz are not educators.

My students hate school.

I hated school.

My parents hated school.

But things will never change, I guess.

I read this article once about how school doesn’t need to be reformed; it needs to be reinvented. I have this fantasy that one day we’ll tear the whole thing down and rebuild it from the ground up. Who will be in charge of the new system? A coalition of students and teachers from all over the country. Representation from all fifty states, from affluent areas and poorer areas, from urban and rural, from big and small. And this coalition would inform decisions with regard to the brand new system that would actually address all the aforementioned issues.

But that’s just the fantasy.

I live and work in the reality.

I am part of the problem.