In 2004 I wrote a book "America's School Bus, It's time to get off." It was published as an e-book. The situation with our education has only gotten more intense. This blog is a response to that situation. (The book is offered free on this blog - see blog description in heading.)
Here is an excerpt from the Introduction:
"Test
scores and class ranks have become defining characteristics of our
children. We began learning in either
Pre-School or Kindergarten to depend on the teacher to define success for us,
rather than trusting ourselves. We now
look to test scores to tell us whether or not our offspring are above, below or
at average intelligence. What has this focus done for them?
The
term ‘average’ is a relative term.
Just a little research and observation of children will confirm that
there are multiple definitions of intelligence.
Consider Howard Gardner’s*6 seven forms, which include ‘Linguistic,
Logical-Mathematical, Spatial, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Musical, Interpersonal and
Intrapersonal’ intelligence. It would seem that the ‘average’ or ‘below
average’ score earned on one specific test is indicative of only a single,
narrowly defined skill. Yet it is these
scores that are used to drive policy and programs while offering ‘evidence’ for
either an abundance or lack of ability.
This often results in feelings of low self-worth and/or anxiety, not
only for students and parents, but for their teachers as well.
In
this country, schooling has done an incredible job. “I’ve
since come to understand the reason school lasts thirteen years. It takes that long to sufficiently break a
child’s will.”*2 Adults, having been
through at least thirteen years of schooling, don’t often question the
necessity of government control. It has become the fabric of our life and is
not something to which we typically give much thought. It is with this habitual attitude that we
enroll our children in school, not envisioning it to offer them anything more
than it gave us. This numbing of our
expectations is the result of our years spent conforming to the ‘educational
state’. It is not, in fact, ‘normal’, to
feel this way, but the result of a systematic plan we willingly if unknowingly
participated in. The intent, which is clearly stated in more than one
historical document, was to create one uniform, cooperative citizenry. We have
become numb to its effect on our lives, on our thinking, our internal senses,
and our own self-assessment process. We
have learned well.
Today’s
children are not learning well. This has
become a ‘problem’ for the gatekeepers.
Books have been written and experts have been consulted. System upon
system has been designed, changed and designed again. Home schooling, school reform, medications
and private schools have each in their own way attempted to fix the conditions
seen as flawed. Some of these fixes
address the various learning ‘disabilities’ of the children; some of these
fixes address the many learning styles of the students and some address
teaching styles. Numerous and often
brilliantly devised, these plans work some of the time with some of the
children and some of the teachers in some of the schools.
Perhaps
it is time to think differently. Not
just about the children or the system or style of education, but about the
control of these methods and who is at the wheel.
This
book proposes we examine just that. We
trust that when we get into a bus marked ‘Fifth Street’, the bus driver has the
skill and knowledge to get us to that destination safely. We are united in purpose: we pay him or her
some money, and are subsequently taken to where it is we intend to go.
Who
is driving this ‘Education of America’s Children’ bus? It is a journey that takes twelve years or
more. Does the driver know where I want
to go, or where my children want to go, or where your children are hoping to
go? Is it reasonable to expect all of us
to want to go to the same place, at the same time and follow the same
route? There are 299,398,484*7 people
living in this country. We have given
over control to a system of education set up over a century ago.
It
is time for us to offer our children the chance to move beyond providing the
‘right’ answers, and to discern for themselves some of the questions.
My
son, (nine years old at the time), and I were working on something
together one day, when we both came up with the same idea at the same
time. I made the comment “Great minds
think alike.” Without skipping a beat,
he replied, “No mom, great minds think for themselves!”
Self-definition is an ability we
are born with. Let us give our
children the opportunity to trust and retain that trait into a gratifying and
self-determined adulthood."
