All in all you're just another brick in the wall

("The Wall" - Pink Floyd, 1979)

Each child is unique.  I have taught close to two thousand students in the past 7 years, and while some of them have certainly had common traits, I have never seen two children who are exactly the same.  Even identical twins are not the same, despite their physical appearance.  Since they are all different, children learn in different ways as well.  Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences identifies 9 distinct intelligences of which children may be gifted in several and lacking in others.  Teachers routinely use this knowledge to teach their lessons in a variety of ways so that every child has the opportunity to learn.

As we tighten our belts in an attempt to educate more cheaply, the first thing that suffers is always class size.  As class size increases, it becomes more difficult to teach using Gardner's theory and even the most capable teachers are sometimes forced to teach more things than they would like in a direct instruction format.  Although we have all learned that this is the least effective instructional strategy, it is a necessity as bodies multiply to fill every corner of a classroom.  There is not enough physical space for students to work on projects or in groups, and there is not enough time for teachers to conference with individual students to design independent activities geared toward each student's interests and strengths.  There is sometimes not even enough time to give adequate instruction as various behavior issues and interpersonal conflicts consume much of a teacher's time.

Please understand - when teachers complain about unwieldy class sizes, it is not because they would like to have fewer papers to grade.  It's because these educators realize that cramming 36 11-year-olds into one classroom results in a sub-par educational experience for all of them.

The number one thing we could do to improve every struggling school in America is to reduce class sizes.  Otherwise students will continue to be - pardon the overused reference - left behind.  I believe there should be a national policy limiting class sizes according to grade level and type of class.  Children with certain special needs who require extra attention should be weighted in this total.  Self-contained classrooms should also be limited.  This is common sense.  Failing to do it indicates that we don't think the next generation deserves the kind of education we received.

All you need is love

("All You Need is Love" - Lennon-McCartney,  1967)

Arguably the most important skills children learn as they grow up are the ones that help them get along with others.  They learn to show respect for others, how to resolve a conflict, and how to have empathy for others.  Developmentally, children are very selfish until they near adulthood and begin to see the world from a more mature perspective.  They are actually unable to put other people ahead of themselves in their brains, but they are still able to be nice to others if someone teaches them how important it is.  Reminding them that they like it when others are nice to them helps them to understand.

As an adult, I am shocked at the number of my peers who seem to have missed learning this skill in their childhoods.  Certainly none of us is perfect, but I have worked for people who lack even the most basic politeness in speaking to their subordinates.  While it mostly makes me angry to be treated with less than the respect every person deserves, it also makes me think that teaching these skills to children is as important as ever.

When our focus narrows to include only one goal (reading and math test scores, for example) we must remember what we are leaving out in order to devote all of our energy to this one thing.  I will never say that reading or math is unimportant, but surely empathy is even more important.

Can we all ignore the people in charge just enough to be sure we teach the next generation to care for one another?

Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea. Joy to you and me!

("Joy to the World" - Three Dog Night, 1970)

Most people who work with kids mention joy when they describe what they like about their work.  They know how beautiful it is when a child's eyes light up because of an interesting fact or a funny story.  As an adult, I always wish my life were as full of joy as a child's.

I believe there is less joy in those children's eyes than there once was.  Spending hours each month practicing with arduous standardized tests and bubble sheets has done little to improve their reading ability and much to sap the joy out of their busy little lives.

Clearly we need a way to quantify our children's knowledge - to make sure they are gaining the skills that society has indicated they must have.  Since standardized testing has repeatedly been proven inaccurate because of children's demographics, testing ability, and mood on the day of the test, I think we should demand a better way.

Why not let professional educators, who are trained in assessment, be responsible for the assessments in their own classrooms?  Why not ask them to explain what their students have achieved each year in an honest way, without being afraid of punitive measures taken against them every time they are tasked with trying to reach a child who struggles?

The real problem seems to be society's belief that educators are dumb, lazy, and uncaring.  All of these things are true of some educators - as they are true of some members of every profession.  Instead of making principals responsible for hiring good teachers, we are making our children responsible for showing us their knowledge in a format so unwieldy that its results do not even give us a true picture of what's happening.

Simplify it.  Give everyone involved - parents, teachers, administrators, community members - a job to do, and then let them do it.

If we threw out all the bubble sheets at every elementary school in America, perhaps we would see some joy creep back into our children's eyes.

Life is bigger. It's bigger than you, and you are not me.

("Losing My Religion", REM, 1991)

It starts small, as little jokes that we rationalize away as a way to ease the stress and tension of life.  Then the sarcasm develops a sharper edge and becomes the cause of humorless laughter.  After that one gets used to smiling without feeling any happiness, and the joy of daily life is invisible.  Cynicism is the lens through which life is seen.

Why do we become cynical?  It doesn't achieve anything, help anyone, or accomplish any goal.  In fact, it's really the opposite of all of those things.  It only causes pain.  A child doesn't touch a hot stove twice, so what makes adults continue to be cynical about every major problem in life?

I think it's a faith problem.  Not necessarily a religious faith issue, but a lack of faith in general.  When cynicism has taken over, it's difficult to believe in the good of people, the possibility of improvement in a situation, or any good thing happening in the random way a flat tire or sore throat can occur.  This makes it hard to combat, because you can't just say to yourself, "Have faith!" and suddenly have it.  People have proven repeatedly that they will mess up.  A bad situation can be chronic and very slow to improve.  Good things don't just happen everywhere you turn.

Or do they?

I think the antidote to cynicism is watching a three-year-old share his toys.  Seeing that, I challenge anyone to believe in the worthlessness of all people.  It probably happens every day, too, even though it seems against the nature of the average toddler.  There are anomalies all around us.

The truth is that we are wrong when we are cynical.  We are stacking up all of our negative experiences and pointing them out as proof that everything is dumb and no one cares.  We are excluding every good thing that has ever occurred.  Feeling sorry for yourself may be fun for five minutes, but after that it loses its appeal.  So why not let go of it?  Search for an antidote until you find it.  Look for a nice person who will prove you wrong.

Or just be that person.

There's enough cynicism in the world.  Don't be a part of it.  Please.

Time Keeps on Slippin, Slippin, Slippin, into the Future

("Fly Like an Eagle," Steve Miller Band, 1976)

The talk in school hallways this time of year is all about scheduling the day within a classroom.  Every authority figure’s pet subject has a non-negotiable block of time that must be set aside for that purpose every single day, no exceptions.  Sometimes pet programs within those subjects get their own blocks of time too.  Often the sum of these blocks of time is greater than the total time in a teaching day.  The assumption is that if students just spend enough minutes doing something related to each skill we want them to know, they will learn at the rate we require of them.  I see some problems here.

Example time.  I am a horrible piano player.  When I took piano lessons, I always spent plenty of time sitting on the piano bench when I felt I should practice.  Sometimes I stared at the music, and other times my eyes drifted to the ivories themselves.  In moments when I felt especially ambitious, I actually moved my hands over the keys and produced a sound.  I found the difficult passages to be less fun, so I practiced the easier ones instead.  I was good enough at faking the hard parts so my teacher thought I had rehearsed them, but I never got better.  In spite of the time I spent actually playing the instrument, I never mastered it.  I did the same simple things over and over and never progressed.  Why would we expect anything different from a reluctant math student?  Requiring a child to spend a specific amount of time doing multiplication will not make the student better at multiplication unless some kind of learning is happening.  As we know, every student learns at a different pace – which makes the idea that there is a magic number that tells us how much time every kid needs to spend on every subject absolutely ludicrous.

I have watched every classroom teacher I know struggle to fit blocks of this and that special program into their daily schedule.  Engineering a schedule that meets all of the incredibly specific guidelines given to them is nearly impossible.  In fact, it probably never happens on a normal day.  It is only possible at all on paper, when no one has a runny nose or a new baby sister or a shirt he doesn’t like.  Since children are human, they can’t be expected to behave with the calculated precision of a well-calibrated machine.  We wouldn’t want them to.

Perhaps these struggling teachers could use their time in a more productive way.  If they were not required to fit unwieldy blocks of time into an already tight schedule, maybe their discussions with colleagues would focus on instruction instead of how to eliminate bathroom breaks in first grade to keep the scheduling engine running along.  Maybe they would collaborate with each other and learn new and innovative ways to teach.  Possibly they would find ways to reach students that seemed unreachable.

It’s not about the time you spend doing something, is it?  It’s all about quality.  If you make each minute worth something, then it won’t matter how many minutes you have.