Teaching: To Dream the Impossible Dream

I substitute teach. I’ve been in over 50 buildings, a dozen districts, Catholic, private and public. Everything from schools in open country to the inner city, from greatly affluent districts to those in abject poverty.
I’ve sat in teachers’ lounges and listened, I’ve chatted with principals, I’ve talked to parents and have had several conversations with their student offspring. In short the last few years have given me a pretty comprehensive overview of American elementary and secondary education in this part of Michigan. (Oh yes, I’ve taught several community college courses, too.)
Want my straight up evaluation?
We’re wasting a whale of a lot of money on public education, and we’re getting shockingly little back for it. Oh, don’ t, don’t, don’t try to tell me that it’s all just bad teaching and if we would just hold those incompetent and lazy teachers accountable, everything would be beautiful. If you try, I will throw up on you.
No doubt there are a few who fall into that category – you’ll find them in Congress and General Electric, in every human endeavor. But the real problem in Michigan/American education is that the system is broke. It may even have been put together wrong in the first place.
You can flog teachers, you can offer them bribes, but until you fix the basic system, you are going to accomplish very little. In all probability the school down the block – where you ship your kids every weekday morning, where you volunteer and attend PTO, probably stinks as an educational institution.
Big reasons? The kids don’t care; they don’t have to care. The administration is probably going to find a way to squeeze them through anyway. Often the parents don’t care. This is accepted as a hard reality in ghetto schools but, in many subtle ways, it can be equally true in wealthy suburban schools.
If the parents don’t care or are too busy to notice, the old adage about leading a horse to water but not being able to make him drink applies. I don’t care how accountable the exasperated teacher, if the student won’t absorb the material – that takes time and work on the kid’s part as well as some pushing from his folks – you can’t tamp it down his throat.
I can identify several high schools in which the only subjects that could awaken student interest would be drugs, booze, rap music and sex. This has changed significantly in just the past few years. Five years ago I could sub in an American history class and tell them about things I saw going on in Washington during the Vietnam War (that aren’t in their texts) and I’d get some real response and interest.
The last time I tried it, a year ago, I very nicely put together young high school girl – college bound, I’ll wager – raised her hand and asked in the most bored voice, “Why are you telling us all this?” I will bother her and her ilk no more.
I listen to teachers in the lounge at a suburban school, with lots of college bound. This one has a third failing her class, that one admits to half flunking. They haven’t the faintest hint of a solution.
That’s not quite true. Many have murmured under their breath, “Bring back the paddle”. Give the kids some consequence to actually fear. They’re not afraid of being kicked out for a week – they get to lie about and watch TV all day. “Go ahead, kick me out” I’ve had more than one student sneer at me.”
A kid can heap obscenities and all manner of insults at you. Consequence: a session with the school counselor and the recommendation that he make better choices. He can launch his body at you in a full frontal attack and the most he’ll get is a time-out in a separate room. If it comes to the attention of his parents, they’re liable to be solidly on his side.
You can’t teach in that kind of environment, I don’t care what kind of bonuses they offer.
Bring back the paddle. No we’re not going to send you home to your TV. We’re not going to make you write an essay on good choices, we’re going to make your bottom sting. (I suspect that one of the reasons we’re seeing more workplace shootings is that today’s kids are suddenly facing their first real consequence for bad behavior. They get fired. They don’t know how to handle it so they go home and load a weapon to avenge something they’ve never had to experience before. Punishment.)
It might not be a bad idea to teach kids that consequences, real consequences, are a part of life. That you can actually flunk a job, just like a course.
This isn’t going to go over well. Neither is my next and final suggestion. IMPOSE A MONETARY COST ON PUBLIC EDUCATION. Charge them. Jehovah’s Witnesses know you’ll probably toss a free tract, so they used to charge people a dime for each leaflet. Put a value on it.
“You flunked a course, junior, and I’m out the fifty bucks I paid in September? They’re going to make you take it over for another fifty bucks?!? They’re going to tack it onto my property taxes and if I don’t pay it they’ll attach my house?!!?”
That kid is likely to get all kinds of motivational attention from his parents.
Once that happens, then teachers can be held as accountable as you want.