What’s Next?

I was a senior in high school in 1999 when the Columbine shooting happened.  I remember coming home from school and watching the news coverage with my family.  We sat and watched for hours as details of the horrific events were revealed in real time.  But as horrible as that day was in Colorado almost 20 years ago, it would have been hard to imagine that it was only a type of jumping-off point for mass shootings that would continue through the present.

In the nearly 20 years since the Columbine tragedy, a great deal has changed for me personally and for the country.  I am no longer a nieve high school senior eagerly anticipating entering college to prepare for a career in sports medicine.  Somewhere along the way I grew up, decided I would become a teacher, and have been attempting to educate students for nearly 15 years.  And sadly, the United States is no longer a nation where a school shooting that claims the lives of multiple students and teachers is shocking.  I’ve heard some say this is the new normal, the new reality in which we as a nation are forced to live.  I’m sorry but I don’t want my reality, my normal, to be a place where I have to wonder if my school, my students, or my friends will be the next victims of a purely senseless act of carnage.

The most important job of any school is to protect the students it serves.  I believe that for the most part, schools do an adequate job of providing this protection.  But over the past few days, it has become quite apparent to me that our nation is failing to protect the lives of young people.  There is plenty of blame to assign, but the one place that blame should never go is to the students who are now attempting to stand up and draw attention to an issue that the adults in their lives have refused to confront.

We will only solve the issue of gun violence in this country when we are able to admit that guns are the problem.  The statistics are clear and I need not list them here.  America has a gun problem.  America has a problem with a minority of people who want to cling to those guns and convince others it is their God-given right to own a machine that was designed for war and has the potential to mow down hallways full of innocent children in a matter of seconds.

Since the shooting in Florida occurred last week, I have been having a difficult time going to school.  Never before has a school shooting affected me to the point where I felt differently about doing my job until this most recent event.  Perhaps this is because I now have two young children who, with my wife, eagerly await my arrival each day after I return home from school.  But I believe it is more than that.  Schools and the country are moving so far away from the ideals that I value and I am saddened by that.

I am saddened that I live in a country controlled by people who cite the sanctity of life in controlling a woman’s right to have an abortion while at the same time demanding that nobody’s right to own a machine designed to take multiple lives quickly be infringed upon.  I am saddened that I live in a country where one has to be 21 years old to buy a can of beer but can buy a war machine at 18.  I cannot understand why a 16-year-old has to go through a 6 month waiting period and pass multiple tests to drive a car but can instantly receive a license to own and fire an AR-15.

Tonight I listened to the president of the United States discuss how arming teachers may be the solution to the epidemic of mass shootings in schools.  Many will agree with this position, and I would assume it has a good chance of becoming a reality shortly.  But like I previously stated, the nation and schools are moving further and further away from my personal convictions.  Schools should have No guns.  Teachers should have No guns.  Children should have No guns.  Nobody should be permitted to own a device designed with the intention of killing massive amounts of people.

This is a sad time to be a teacher and an American.  The best interests of millions of children are held hostage by the NRA, fearful politicians, and those who are too afraid to live without the protection of firepower designed for war.  If arming teachers is the answer to mass shootings in schools, I should not be a teacher.  I am confident that most know that gun control is the solution to this epidemic and can only hope that the majority of people in this country will someday come to this realization.  Until then I will remain sad that I have to go to a school where children are afraid and the adults they trust are also too afraid to take the right steps necessary to protect them.

Preparing Students for…

I wish that everyone could stop thinking of school as a means of preparing individuals for the workforce.  That would probably be a radical statement for most to read and I’m sure one that would garner a great deal of criticism.  The historical roots of public education in America point us toward the fact that the purpose of school is to assimilate students to the culture of the country so that they can become viable contributors to the economy.  But if this is really the purpose of school then why don’t we end the charade and label students for particular jobs at an early age and then simply train them for those positions throughout their school career? If someone seems as though they will be a good accountant, teach them to be an accountant throughout high school and upon graduation they will be prepared to be an accountant. I believe we don’t do this  because we want to believe education can do so much more than prepare an individual to make money for someone else. But what is it that we dream our educational system has the potential to do if it is more than prepare a workforce to drive the economy? If we allow the conversation to stop at preparing students to be good workers we will never know.

But what if instead of focusing on transforming students into good little workers of the future, education set its sights on preparing individuals to become great democratic citizens? Preparing great democratic citizens means so much more than preparing a worker for some job somewhere. To be a great citizen in a true democracy one first must understand what a democracy is. They then must have practice in being a participatory member of a democracy. And the purpose of school becomes to teach these skills while allowing each individual the opportunity to discover and foster their natural talents and abilities so that they can become good people and thus good contributing members of society. Notice that being a good, contributing member of society does not simply translate to being prepared to perform a job for an employer. We must instead allow students to discover what they are passionate about and allow them to build on that passion so that they can make themselves and others around them happy.

I believe it is time to leave the job preparation to the employers. A common refrain is that education has not kept up with the needs of employers.  The simple fact is that the needs of employers change at a faster pace than the entire system of education can adapt. If the needs of employers change, why don’t they create their own training facilities to re-train individuals to meet their needs? One answer is that it should be the job of public education to change to meet the needs of employers. But if we continue to view education simply as a means of meeting the ever-changing needs of employers we will continue to be left with an education system that neither meets the needs of those employers or prepares individuals to become great members of a democratic nation.

People want to believe that education has the potential to be the transformative force in peoples’ lives that allows them to achieve any dream they may have. We cannot fall into the trap of making our education system simply about scores on a math or reading test or preparing a worker for a job that may or may not exist when they graduate. We must allow education to become that place where individuals are allowed to first create their dreams and then work toward realizing them.

The School Day

I don’t think I’m going out on a limb when I say that changes in technology should allow schools to alter the way that the school day is structured at the secondary level. If we are to ever break free of the traditional, industrial revolution-era factory model, and I hope that we do, then we must change what a typical day of school is like. I think that at most, online schools only have it half right. They utilize technology in a way that allows them to completely eliminate the school building. But as anyone who has taken an online course before knows, something is lost when the physical meeting space that the school building provides is eliminated. At its very best, school is a social environment where young people can create, grow, and learn amongst peers and knowledgeable and caring adults. At its very worst, school is a monotonous presentation of facts and assessment that rarely taps into the outrageous human potential inside of each individual.

In order to harness the power of technology and use it to discover the untapped potential in each student, I propose that the school day transition from a five day per week, seven hour per day endeavor to a much different structure, either bringing students together at school every other day, ever other week, or for only half a day every day. Direct instruction where facts are presented is still needed but sites such as Kahn Academy should show us that technology allows this delivery of information without live teachers. But what sites such as Kahn should also show is that facts without the opportunity to meaningfully interact with them in a social environment are difficult to understand and apply to the world around us. In my model, students would receive their direct instruction outside of the school building, and then meet at school with teachers and peers to deepen understanding through the creation of authentic projects that integrate knowledge across subject area lines. In upcoming posts I will describe these times at school in more detail but for now I would like to part with the thought that no secondary student, living in the 21st century, should be forced to endure seven hours per-day at school for 180 days per year. Let us begin to break free of the constraints that the factory model has placed on us for so long and instead begin to use technology in ways that truly benefits young learners.

Just the Facts

In my current teaching position I am often subjected to listening to others tell me how teaching should be done. Recently, there seems to be a push to say that the presentation of facts is no longer important. It has been said that with Google there is no need to memorize or know facts anymore. When you stop to think about that it seems rather silly. When speaking with someone who is very intelligent it is not difficult to recognize. One of the things that sets really smart people apart from the rest is their ability to call on factual information at opportune times and apply it to the given situation. I am a huge proponent of focusing on creativity and critical thinking but the importance of these skills does not negate the fact that intelligent people also know a lot of stuff.

Perhaps those who are imploring education to move away from memorization and facts need to frame the argument in a new way. The problem with traditional education is not the factual information but rather the way it is presented and tested. Most academic activities are simply an exercise in short-term memory games. The fact that formal education really does not know how to teach and assess factual information certainly does not mean that it is not important.