Part of the Problem with Today's Schools

(And What You Can Do About It)

Many people complain that our schools are not doing the job for which they were intended and they would be right. A big part of the problem is that our educational institutions are tight on money and slow to change. At the turn of the Twentieth Century, the United States was a country in transition. The U.S. was changing from a rural agrarian society to an urban industrialized society. It was decided that schools needed to reflect this change, so in addition to the "3 R's," courses like physical education, industrial arts, and home economics began to show up in our schools. These were designed to prepare students for life in industrialized society.

Again schools changed greatly after World War Two. By this time behaviorist theories of B.F. Skinner and others had influenced schools to believe they could run students through their institutions just like factory assembly lines. These people expected exactly the same answers from every student in every class, shuffle them around the schools like cattle or sheep either by a bell schedule or by a teacher leading them, and never question the authority of the teachers or principal. In an industrialized society, it made sense to design schools around this model, even if there were a small few who "fell between the cracks," most were able to thrive and benefit from a fact based, multiple choice dominated environment where very little actual thought was required.

In the 1960's and 70's, things began to change again. Authority was not assumed to be automatically right anymore and the individual began to become more important than the group. Education continued to plod along with its "assembly line approach" making very few efforts to change. Many professionals in education felt the need to change how things were done, and some very radical ideas were tried, but mostly the school systems kept falling back to the idea of sitting children in rows, loading them with facts they could spit back to the teacher on blunt multiple guess tests, and herding them around by the hand or by the bell. This educational system still exists virtually unchanged today; meanwhile; our entire society has shifted again from an industrialized one to a highly technological information society.

Since 1970, TV, movies, computers, electronics of all sorts, and the transmission of streams of data and information has replaced everything that the old industrial society stood for, requiring that public education change or move out of the way. A rise in home schooling and private charter schools using public funds is forcing professional educators to rethink their insistence on "old ways." Most experts agree that a person in this country will change careers an average of 7 times before retirement, others believe this is an optimistically low number. Most businesses set their people together in small modular teams for one project and once the project is completed, they break up and form still new teams. People are able to work at home using "cyber offices" to keep up with everything going on in their jobs. We are able to transmit data to virtually anywhere in the world nearly instantaneously, the world moves at an increasingly faster pace. Our children are going to need new skills to handle this brave new world, and an outdated industrial model is not going to cut it. There are so many things one can say our schools need, but some of the skills our children are going to need to stay on top in this new age are:

• Less reliance on Standardized Test Scores- Standardized tests imply standardized people. We are individuals with our own ideas and thoughts and abilities. We bank way too much on the outcomes of these tests. At best they measure a person's ability to take a test, they don't measure how well they can take that knowledge and apply it in real world situations. So what if you can score a 1400 on the SAT, what can you do with that piece of paper? I am much more interested in people who can solve problems "outside the box" who can think quick on their feet and construct a solution that isn't contrived or listed somewhere. Standardized tests reduce everything to the same "factory assembly line" thinking of the early 20th Century "industrial/behaviorist" model. We aren't an industrial society anymore, we're an information soceity, there is more than one right answer to problems and it's high time we recognized this. Standardized tests are but one tool in assessing education, we must expand the horizon and look at each young person as a person, not where he or she "fits" on a catagorical scale when compared to his or her peers. There are other methods of determining ability which measure far more than one's test taking skills.



• Flexibility and Connective Tissues- the ability to shift quickly and not lose what they learn in one area when they move onto another. This may require schools to rethink breaking subjects down into science, math, reading, English, Social Sciences, etc. Integration of as much subject matter as possible into each subject will train people to stop compartmentalizing information. They need to be able to take what they've learned in math, and apply it in any situation, not just math. The same goes with the rest of the subjects. Helping students see the natural connections contained within all knowledge will serve them better when they need that knowledge. We need to spend more time giving our children the ability to connect their knowledge into meaningful understanding that they can apply no matter what situation they find themselves in. We spend too much time separating information, compartmentalizing it into subjects and pigeon holes. We cannot afford to do this anymore. The connective reationships between knowledge and information needs to be stronger.



• Critical Thinking Skills- Teach our students to think critically about everything they do. Do not allow them to do work which requires little or no thought. TV, movies, and video games have caused young people to be entertained mindlessly for hours and hours at a time with very little thought or interaction required. This has caused many children to quickly get "bored" when it comes time to engage their minds. Teachers cannot and should not have to compete with MTV. We must work to reverse this trend.



• Cultivating more Realistic Problem Solving Skills- Our students have to be able to think quickly on their feet and come up with solutions that work, not necessarily ones that are simply "right" or "wrong". In this day and age, there are plenty of good solutions for every problem, no one solution will always be the absolute "right" one. We are so caught up in this "Yes or no", "right or wrong", "you win/you lose" "you scored higher, you scored lower" mentality, that we have forgotten to consider that there can be more than one solution to a given problem.



• A Comprehensive Character Education Program- Our children are growing up in a society where morals and ethics are being changed on them depending which channel or movie they are watching, magazine they are reading, or which social group they belong to. We must instill in them the ethics and morals they are not getting elsewhere if we want our society to continue to function. We must require children to adhere to respectful and proper manners with each other as well as with adults. We as adults must be the example of the kind of lives we want our children to live. If we fail in this, we are going to see more tragedies and be baffled at the apparent remorseless behavior our children will display. The whole community MUST play a part in this for it to succeed.



• More Parental and Teacher involvement in our children's lives- Our children are growing up learning more from the television than they are from parents and teachers because we as a society are busier than ever just "keeping up." We all must show our kids we care by taking more time out with them at home and at school. We have to give up the idea that teachers are just there to shove facts at our kids and hope they memorize them. We have to talk with young people and validate their ideas and feelings. We are going to have to demonstrate that we care about them everywhere they go and no matter what they do. A community must cultivate its greatest resource for the future by being a community that talks, works, and cares together about our children. Teacher and parent training programs must be put into place. Time for parents to take from work to be with their children is essential. Warning signs that children may be headed into trouble must be noticed and heeded. We must make children one of the most important parts of all our lives if we want them to grow into responsible and stable adults.



• Laymen making all the big decisions- Many places elect their school boards from the general population. These people do not have to have any experience in education, finance, or general common sense. Many school boards become battlegrounds for petty politics, unfair hiring practices, corruption in money and other resources and any number of shady deals. A school board should be comprised of more than a bunch of laymen who have little or no understanding of education (other than the mega-industrialized schools they went to as children). A school board must be comprised of educators, parents, and professionals. They should be picked partially by the community, partially by the administration and faculty of the school district, and certain members should be appointed by an outside group with little or no ties to the district itself. We need responsible, knowledgeable, professional school boards whose first priority is the education of children, not playing petty political games, spending all their money on the athletic programs, or currying favor with certain groups within the system. Until such time as we get a fair, impartial, and balanced school board system in this country many schools will continue to be paragons of mediocrity and hypocrisy.



• Technological Literacy- We must insist that all children is exposed to and understands the implications of technology, not just computers. We must show them how they rely on technology of all kinds just to get through the day and how it affects the lives of everyone in our society. Without a strong grasp of the workings of technology, our children don't stand a chance in an information society.



• Hold up the proper examples of what our children should aspire to be- for too long the students idolized in our schools have been the "jocks" and the "cheerleader babes" these people are held up as the example that every student should want to aspire to be or respect. Making the squad or team is a big social determinant of class structure in high school society. Scoring the most touchdowns or goals is more important in most school districts than getting the best grades. The Prom King and Queen get more recognition than does the student who invents a new method for transmitting data over a network. We should be looking up to the future Bill Gates and Albert Einsteins in our schools, not the next Joe Namith or Theisman. The people who are going to change the world are the "brains" not the "jocks." The future belongs to those who can think faster and better than everyone else, not who can score the most points on the field or jump up and down cheering. Too much money is funneled every year into school athletic programs when teachers are fighting to get enough paper to copy their handouts on, buy more up-to-date technology for their classroom, or even just have enough desks for their overcrowded classrooms.

Our public schools have always fallen behind the times. Now more than ever they cannot afford to do this. We must insist that politicians and administrators get the message and bring our schools in line with what is going on around them. Otherwise we are selling our children short and we are the ones who will pay for our oversight in both tragedy and competitive edge.

© 1999 J. S. Brown