You remember the conveyor belt in school: You arrived early, appeared at the first “station” and underwent a modification as facts were stuffed into your brain. You then proceeded to the second, third, fourth, fifth and final stations. At each stop there was a worker who was in charge of too many products being generated at too fast a pace, but you were altered in some way at each step, making you feel like an assembly line product.
When you got to the last station in the factory, you were given a diploma and sent off into the world to make something of yourself. With this type of 19th-century model, is it any wonder our children are bored by high school? At Oakton High School, an excellent school by all measures, students would chuckle ironically at the notion these were “the best years” of their lives.
Most of my students considered high school largely a waste of time — save for a few subjects and activities that sparked their interest. (They kindly added, “We don’t mean YOUR class!”) But I knew that they regarded school as benevolent incarceration. This is not the fault of teachers, students or schools. It is the fault of a 19th-century factory model that worked great for cars, but doesn’t work so well when “the product” has a heartbeat.
Theodore Sizer bemoaned this educational model 25 years ago, and not much has changed since then. Those running the system are well meaning, but students often find the model impersonal and filled with paper-pushing that doesn’t take into account their passions nor the life they want to live after graduation.
The calls for higher teacher pay and smaller classes are moves in the right direction, but none of those relatively expensive reforms will take care of the central educational problem: Many middle and high school students don’t like going to school.
There is no easy solution. In younger grades, students bond with one another and their teacher. But older children require teachers with an expertise. Gone is the third-grade teacher who seemed to know everything. The intimacy of a single classroom is replaced by multiple rooms and teachers who know algebra or Spanish well, but their students less well.
And middle school is where, my students tell me, their interest begins to wane. Principals appear only interested in discipline, and teachers begin assigning worksheets. Students shuffle from class to class and begin to feel like cogs in a machine.
There are some alternatives to these “factories.” Charter schools pique students’ interest by appealing to their talents. KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) schools, the subject of Jay Mathews’ recently published “Work Hard, Be Nice,” rely on longer hours and dedicated teachers who make themselves available by phone for homework consultations, and solicit parental support with home visits.
Curricular specialization and community involvement are two means to shedding the factory model. What hooks students on school is what hooks them on anything: being made to feel special and valued — far away from a conveyor belt. We need to change the way that we think of public education and move it out of its 19th-century model. Next week’s column will suggest steps toward that goal.
What kids are reading
This weekly column will look at lists of books kids are reading in various categories, including grade level, book genre, data from libraries and data from booksellers. The following list comes from the March 15 New York Times Book Review.
New York Times best-selling children’s paperback books
1. “Evermore” by Alyson Noel (Ages 12 and up)
2. “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak (Ages 14 and up)
3. “Three Cups of Tea: Young Readers Edition” by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (Ages 9-12)
4. “Coraline” by Neil Gaiman (Ages 9-12)
5. “The Tale of Despereaux” by Kate DiCamillo (Ages 10 and up)
6. “Wicked: Witch and Curse” by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie (Ages 12 and up)
7. “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas ” by John Boyne (Ages 12 and up)
8. “Tweak” by Nic Sheff (Ages 14 and up)
9. “Barack Obama: United States President” by Roberta Edwards (Ages 6-8)
10. “The Mysterious Benedict Society” by Trenton Lee Stewart (Ages 9-12)
