By Sarah Davies
Waiting in the doctor’s office today, my oldest asked what I was reading. When I told her it was Guy Claxton’s What’s the Point of School?, she looked confused. “Mommy, I know what the point of school is. Why do you need to read a book on it? It’s to learn and be patient and to learn to be nice, and respectful and honest, intelligent, and kind. You go to school to learn to be part of a group. That’s the point of school.” (pauses) “Oh! And magic tricks. You can’t learn magic tricks if you don’t go to school.”
Magic tricks aside, she sees school as a place to learn and grow. For her, it’s a shaping environment that will help her in her head, her heart, and her community.
This view of school all too often gets lost in the desire to have the ‘best’ students, the ‘hardest’ workers, Ivy-league at the expense of Junior League. Even when we try to mitigate its less than desirable effects, school can too easily become a shaping place for the wrong reasons.
Successful students, measured by grades, grow up to be measured by their bank account; the higher the number the better. Shouldn’t it be about something more?
I want excellence for myself and my children. When I was a kid, my grandfather told me that he didn’t care if I was a toll-taker as long as I was the best one I could possibly be. Whatever you do, be excellent at it he told all of his grandchildren.
We have, unfortunately, traded in excellence in education for success. The former is intrinsic. It is a state of mind that can be applied to everything one does and becomes part of who we are. It is what schools should teach, what everyone should strive for in everything. The latter depends on others to tell us how we’re doing. It’s extrinsic – without a bank statement or a grade or a job performance it’s hard to tell if it’s been achieved.
Standardized tests are a prime example of this. What they measure has nothing to do with personality, kindness, honesty, or community. Nowhere in her description of school did my daughter mention that the point of school was to learn to take multiple choice tests.
The tests measure for the academically successful students, not personal excellence. If we aren’t even bothering to check for those qualities, how can teachers be expected to spend any time developing them in their students. Creativity has to be replaced with cramming to make sure that the school passes the next round of standardization.
So, while learning success at school, she will learn excellence at home. The hope is that the two join together to give her the life that she wants, a well-lived life however she defines it. I want her to have a great education, but I want it to be more than facts. I want it to include experiences and empathy.
I want her to understand that the world extends beyond her eyes. I want her to be the best that she can be. I want her to understand the wonder that is Earth. These are all things that she can’t be tested on, but will make her life richer.
I want her to learn magic.
Sarah Davies is a parent and blogs at Sarah’s Musings.
Nancy, you are right, but what if our children and their parents are not allowed the freedom to choose excellence over success? How could this be in ‘the land of the free?’. Please note that I am including England in this blessed territory of freedom from state domination of our thought processes..
But is it true? The Lysenko affair in the history of Stalin’s Soviet Union should be telling us that it could never happen in the ‘Free World’.. What if an inverted form of Lysenkoism is operating here backed with same power of state coercion? You don’t believe it? Maybe your Bernie Sanders understands it.
See
https://rogertitcombelearningmatters.wordpress.com/2016/02/13/educational-lysenkoism-is-blighting-the-english-education-system/
You can also find my book on Amazon.com
Thank you, Roger. I need to read my history, but I do have concerns about GERM. I appreciate the link. I think there might be some hope in Bernie Sanders, but I wish he would speak out more about the problems surrounding K-12 education.
I wish we had traded excellence for success. That would be a better deal than trading excellence for proficiency, which is what we have done.
Now, I would prefer we have excellence. I don’t think that is possible in our current public schools for several reasons.
1) NCLB and ESSA don’t push for excellence. Whether it is proficiency for all students or a full year’s growth for all students, neither take into account that students differ and therefore what is excellent differs for them. For my friends whose children have Down Syndrome, one does not have to be proficient or make a full year’s growth for excellence. For my friends with gifted children, proficiency or a full year’s growth is not nearly excellent.
2) As you wisely state, excellence goes beyond what can be measured in schools. However, my definition of excellence and yours may vary widely, particularly in the area of morality. Due to court rulings and the current climate, public schools have a difficult time in teaching morality. Having attended both parochial and public schools, I certainly saw a difference in the content and strength of moral teaching. One cannot have true excellence developed through school if only a weak morality is allowed to be taught.
3) Many parents are not willing to have their children undergo what must occur for developing excellence. True excellence requires dedication, a sacrifice of the old self to become a new self, discipline, and an extended worldview that goes beyond ‘me’. As long as parents rescue kids or help instill a ‘Do what you love’ attitude, the child will not develop excellence. The great melting pot of public schools makes it harder for parents who do want excellence developed to have sufficient allies, yet parents who have to sacrifice to send their children to private and parochial schools are more likely to find the allies in the other parents there.
Pushing for excellence through public schools will be tough due to the constraints placed upon them by the legislature, courts, and parents.
Joshua, you are right that excellence does not come easily. Matthew Syed in his new book argues that ‘cognitive dissonance’ is always involved in deep learning.
Read about his ideas here
https://rogertitcombelearningmatters.wordpress.com/2016/02/01/why-mistakes-must-be-celebrated/
All the books I link to on Amazon.co.uk can be fpund on Amazon.com
Thanks again, Roger.
Thanks, Joshua. You refined some meaning surrounding Sarah’s view of excellence. I especially appreciated the exceptional differences.
I’m wondering how you think morality should be approached with schooling. That’s a subject I am interested in right now especially as it relates to literature in schools.
I agree with you also about the issues surrounding public schools. They’re in trouble.
Nancy,
Morality in schools is very very tricky. Until the 1960s, generally Christian morality was taught in public schools. Cases in 1962-3 made that more difficult. I’m not saying that Christian morality should be the basis of morality taught in public schools, but now I don’t know if you can have any specific belief system as the core of public school morality Any religious belief system would be considered unconstitutional and any secular belief system is subject to the whim of society. Even our elected leaders claim to have changed their beliefs on key issues within a span of several years and the only thing that telling kids in second grade that something is wrong and in fifth grade that something is right will do is say that morality is inconsistent and flexible. In that case, what about every other moral they’ve been taught? So, public schools are in a bit of a pickle.
My solution is one that most people will hate. Some will hate it because they believe it will harm public schools. Others will hate it because they don’t want their money going to espouse beliefs they disagree with.
Vouchers.
Make every school a voucher school. Public, private, parochial, home, and un-. Every school gets to also state which morality will be taught, be it Christian, Muslim, Wiccan, secular, none, etc. Parents can then choose which school’s morality and other aspects are a best fit for their children. Now that there is no default school, government would not be promoting a religion; it’s completely up to the parents.
I went to a Catholic high school with many Protestants and several atheists, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, and several others whose religious affiliation I don’t know. It’s actually easier to say “We don’t believe what they are teaching you because we aren’t Catholic” than to say “We don’t believe what they are teaching you because we aren’t ((WHAT?))” What is public school morality? Human? American? Liberal or conservative depending on the state, principal, and teacher?
Some morality is easy to say is universal. Don’t steal. But there will be strongly divisive issues, such as gay marriage and abortion. But there is also things like responses to bullies. Ignore? Tell a teacher? Defend oneself? Fight back? Or “It is better to be kind than right.” Many people (and religions) don’t believe that. What authority does a teacher have to teach that in a public school? Who sets that morality?
I don’t there is a truly feasible solution for morality in public schools given the current system. One must go fairly far down for greatest common factor morality and at that point, we might as well declare Lord of the Flies. Yet choosing a belief system to base morality on isn’t acceptable either, because it is either religious or inherently unstable. It’s a horrible situation that requires some form of fix.
I agree that specifically religiously based morality should not be taught in state (you call them public) schools. Unfortunately for us we also have a tradition of publicly funded religious schools, which now include Moslem as well as Jewish, Sikh etc. This was a historic mistake that increasingly causes us trouble,
Although there will always be contentious issues like those you mention any universally acceptable morality has be based on commonly held secular values. The basic principles are usually enshrined within the common law (decided by courts on the basis of precedent). There are also United Nations and European declarations of human rights. You also have your constitution. Most Christians will not have too much problem with most of that, but of course there are issues where they may. For example abortion, gay marriage, genetic experimentation etc. All of these issues including the contentious ones should be discussed in school classes, with the teacher pointing out the contentious areas. Your constitutional right to bear arms is quite immoral to us on both a secular and Christian basis.
I agree that it is tricky. I don’t agree with vouchers. Public schools in my opinion should bring children together from all religions, and if parents want a religious school they can go outside of the public school. There was a purpose for Separation of Church and State. Many Americans do not like funding religious schools with their tax dollars–especially if it is not their religion. We also see that vouchers aren’t working. But I respect your opinion, Joshua, and always appreciate your comments. .
Enjoyed this post – thanks Sarah and Nancy for bringing this to us. The child’s perspective attracted me as I’m currently writing a series exploring the lessons that stuck from my own school years to try and break down were I learnt such helplessness during the course of my education as a ‘successful’ student.
Looking forward to your thoughts on literature and morality Nancy. I’ve a feeling you’re looking at younger age groups to me but, since my presentation at a teachers conference a few months ago (video here: http://leahkstewart.com/researched/ ) on how it was literature, rather than my exam success, that helped me see a way past the glass ceiling, I’m also exploring this theme more widely. In fact I’ve recently began supporting a self-published author interested in looking at this too via his fiction work – see our latest mini interview here http://turndog.co/love-letter-prize/ and next month we’re exploring heforshe & gender equality themes 😀
Thank you, Leah! Always wonderful to hear your positive voice! Good luck with your blog!
The idea of pinpointing where the hopelessness began is fascinating. I had a really hard time in school as well and wonder when that started. I’m glad you enjoyed the piece.
I cringe when I remember my difficulty sometimes with standardized testing. Thank you, Sarah. It was a thoughtful piece.