School is a Prison

Describe your childhood education experience.
Public or private?
Enjoyable or drudgery?
Would you have described it as prison?
Do you feel a fundamental shift in our basic educational processes should take place? If so, how?
Do you think homeschooling, unschooling, or democratic education are good options for many people?
What kind of education would you like to / did you provide for your children?
I'll respond with my answers after a few people have responded. For now, I'll just share an article to get things going.

Here's an interesting article in support of unschooling and democratic educational settings.
School is a prison — and damaging our kids - Salon.com
some snippets:

On self-directed learning:
This amazing drive and capacity to learn does not turn itself off when children turn 5 or 6. We turn it off with our coercive system of schooling. The biggest, most enduring lesson of our system of schooling is that learning is work, to be avoided when possible.
...
Another researcher ...set up outdoor computers in very poor neighborhoods in India, where most children did not go to school and many were illiterate. Wherever he placed such a computer, dozens of children would gather around and, with no help from adults, figure out how to use it. Those who could not read began to do so through interacting with the computer and with other children around it. The computers gave the children access to the whole world’s knowledge — in one remote village, children who previously knew nothing about microorganisms learned about bacteria and viruses through their interactions with the computer and began to use this new knowledge appropriately in conversations.

On homeschooling:
More than 2 million children in the United States now base their education at home and in the larger community rather than at school...

On democratic learning:
...democratic school, where children have charge of their own education in a setting that optimizes their educational opportunities and where there are many other children with whom to socialize and learn...
Students in this setting learn to read, calculate and use computers in the same playful ways that kids in hunter-gatherer cultures learn to hunt and gather. They also develop more specialized interests and passions, which can lead directly or indirectly to careers. For example, a highly successful machinist and inventor spent his childhood playfully building things and taking things apart to see how they worked. Another graduate, who became a professor of mathematics, had played intensively and creatively with math. And yet another, a high-fashion pattern maker, had played at making doll clothes and then clothes for herself and friends.

 

I'm not going to read the article just yet. I may later. It depends. I've read tons of different takes on the same thesis: school is somehow ruining our children's lives, suppressing their creativity, and stripping them of their desire to learn. While I can agree that there are certainly classroom and school climates where that is the case, to paint our diverse school system with such a broad brush is faulty. Despite the adoption of the Common Core State Standards by a number of states, not everyone uses CCSS. Not everyone is participating in Race to the Top. Our school system in the United States is a mixed bag of control divided among local school boards, state oversight, and some federal interference to administer certain programs (NCLB, Title IX, Title I, NSLP, etc).

Why is the onus on me, the teacher, to do all the work of educating children? I have limited contact hours with them relative to other people. Were I a regular classroom teacher on our block schedule, I would see students for 360 minutes a week (6 hours), or about 30 hours a month (a little less than that is likely, as there is usually 1 day off of school a month, if not more, assemblies that cut into instructional time, and early release days for professional development). Assuming parents spend a minimum of 2 hours a day with their children, they're going to spend nearly twice as much time in the presence of their children than I am. Yet who gets blamed?

The fact is, with budget cuts, I taught classes of about 40 kids last fall. I will supervise classes with at least that many students this year; it remains to be seen. There is only so much I can do to keep things interesting for kids AND control the classroom. Creativity sometimes comes at the expense of control. I do my best to build relationships with my students so that we CAN be creative, we CAN have fun, and maintain that positive learning environment. I am pretty good at that, so my students get to do all kinds of things other classes don't necessarily get to do; unfortunately, classroom management, though they try desperately to teach us how to do it, is not so easily taught.

Personally, I went to all public schools. My possible future children will do the same, but I won't expect the school to do everything. My parents are educators, and they were well aware that expecting teachers alone to be responsible for my education is foolhardy. We spent a lot of time outside of school on educational pursuits: going to museums, reading, researching, writing for fun. Parents and students need to advocate for themselves; schools are a bureaucracy. There is a system that can be gamed. Once that lesson is in place, a school will serve its students well. I loved school because I knew how to advocate for myself and my needs. I was a TAG kid, which meant lots of pullouts, special lessons, and so on depending on the school I was in; pre-NCLB, though, it could mean no services at all, which meant boredom, and mislabeling. One teacher thought I had ADHD because I didn't do her homework. Nope. Just bored.

Here's the thing: our world is built on systems and on bureaucracy. What's Ph.D stand for? Piled Higher and Deeper. Essentially, the further you go in your education illustrates how much bullshit you can put up with and how many hoops you can jump through. I'm pretty frank about that fact with my students. Schools aren't perfect; they're never going to be. We really can't start over from scratch, and believe me, we've tried in all kinds of ways (see: http://www.criticalthinking.org/files/Educational_Fads_2007DC.pdf).

However, we can shift the focus to student-centered learning. Part of the problem is that it can be difficult for teachers to relinquish control; see my earlier remarks about classroom management. Relationship building is crucial. Do I have time for it? Not necessarily, but I make the time, as it pays dividends in the long run. Were classrooms smaller, this would be no issue. I've taught classes ranging from 12 students to around 40. 12 is much easier in terms of management, especially if we want learning to be student-centered. Because I have a relationship with my students, I know what their background is, what their interests are, what's likely to keep them hooked into what I'm teaching. I did a great Prezi last year on the history of the English language. I tied it all in to works of literature they had heard about and were curious about; we went from Beowulf on to Homer Simpson, stopping along the way to look at "The Wanderer" (The Wanderer (poem) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), which J.R.R. Tolkien used parts of in The Lord of the Rings. I knew there were waypoints along the journey that would interest my students and keep them listening, so I used those as the cornerstones of what was ultimately--gasp--a lecture; sometimes there is content that has to be covered to open up doors for them to walk through on their own. The whole point was to give them the basis for Shakespearean English and to show them that it is closer to modern English than they think; it made them much more engaged with Romeo and Juliet since they weren't scared of it.

As a teacher, I've seen self-directed learning go bad. The fact is, thanks to the Internet, there is a lot of shitty knowledge out there. I spend a lot of time disabusing students of misconceptions before they become cemented. I try to focus more on turning students into critical thinkers, critical learners, and autodidacts that can filter out what's real and what's bullshit so that they're not relying on me to be the Font of All Knowledge (because I'm not, and I don't want to be). I want them to leave my classroom understand that sometimes, there is no right answer, and in this world, there is a lot of gray between the black and white.

In sum: we're doing the best we can with what we have. Yes, it absolutely could be better. But until someone shows up with enough money to buy me all-new class sets of the books I want to teach, provides me with tablets so my kids can read articles of their own choosing, and makes classes no larger than 15 students, well, we'll just have to muddle along, I guess.

By the way, don't blame CCSS for the problems with education. Would you blame the map if you went the wrong direction? I don't think so.

 

Thank you for responding, Cis! I'm excited that you responded with positives about a Catholic school, since they're pretty much universally considered the best option for elementary school where I live in the greater Cincinnati area. But I'm not very familiar with Catholic schools myself, and it seems that there is a big range when it comes to the way they are run and the educational philosophies that form the basis of lessons.

I hope you'll entertain a few more of my questions.
What aspects of the Catholic education do you like most?
Do you feel this way about all Catholic schools, or just one type such as Jesuit schools?
Do you think that if you lived elsewhere you would prefer the public school options? Why/ why not?

 

Thank you, Snowy, for stopping for a few minutes and chiming in with your opinion from the front lines of education. This article is absolutely biased, and paints the public school system with a broad brush, so I can't complain about you holding off on reading it.

I have a few years ahead of me to explore my options when it comes to my child's schooling so I'm exploring these ideas pretty slowly. I'm a product of the public school system. My parents went out of their way to encourage my interests outside of school and I'm grateful for that. I'm pretty happy with how my education turned out, but I'm skeptical if the same sort of a system would also work for my daughter. She is a highly social child, but also very active and curious, so the concept of a democratic education is appealing to me. While I took what was supposed to be a democratically-run neuroscience course as an undergrad, it was nothing like the democratic education facilitated by a school environment as shown in this article. My experience was a top-down run course that simply had a student as the instructor. The concept of an unschooling environment with lots of children and the requisite number of teachers present to assist the students as they learn and assist them in their pursuits sounds very novel and appealing.
--- merged: Sep 3, 2014 at 3:15 PM ---

Ha! That's great that you live so close!
I see where you're going with private schools more likely to have parents who care about their children's education. I see that as very much the case out here. I've seen the curriculum of some of the local public schools and have been appalled. I should look into the private schools more.

 

Well said, sir. You really hit the nail on the head in regard to poverty. One of the toughest things I face in the school I work in is the wide range of SES. We were driving through my district the other day, which is fairly rural, and I pointed out to my husband, "You see that trailer there? I've got a kiddo who lives there. And you see that mansion on top of the hill? There's a kiddo that lives there. And I have to teach both of them." We're fortunate in that the community really values learning, so there is generally good support for the schools, and we're able to help kids who need help. Personally, I really value the diversity, as it brings a variety of perspectives into the learning environment; I just wish that we had better social safety nets for those kids so they could focus solely on learning.

Your post reminds me of one of the greatest conclusions I've come to while subbing: "There are no shitty kids, only shitty circumstances." Seriously. 9/10 the shitty circumstances arise due to poverty.

 

Well, that's an interesting question.
I don't think school failed me, I actually got exposed to a lot.
The schools in southern CT weren't prisons. (all public)
Although the kids may have acted like inmates.

It's just that I was socially oblivious...so I didn't recognize cues.
I stuttered. (which is surprising to many who know me & my mouth now)
I had a single mom who worked nights, so she didn't have as much time or mind to invest into my activities.
She loved me dearly and gave me flexibility, but there's only one person.
And mostly she was focused on keeping my sister, the rebel, out of trouble.
And she wasn't a guy...so she didn't know how to "apply" that male aspect or dynamic either. (and I didn't have any guy role models)

So, being a "strange" kid, I got bullied a bit.
Fortunately, I grew bigger...so just being of some size, sooner or later, I struck back...then my peers left me alone.
So, then I only got bothered by the bullies in some grades higher.

But as for the school itself...I got exposed to art, theater, swimming,
all types of classes, languages, home economics, wood shop, photography and so on...it never denied me.
I had more than many kids have today in the typical school.

The teachers were all sincere and diligent.
If anything, I failed them...although I was very intelligent, I was inconsistent and undisciplined.
So often, I didn't do my homework...and my mom was too exhausted/distracted to constantly chase after that.

The only thing I'd say they missed in the standard system.
Was to recognize some talent...and how to focus my attention on efforts.
And 7-12 is setup to focus on homework, not results, labs, and cognitive tests. (as college is)
Only in Art, was it a dynamic which focused on application...so I excelled.
I've always done better when I was engaged...not just studying for a tedious test or doing an uninteresting report.

I hear about the education system now from my cousin, who just spent 20 yrs as a math teacher.
And it's all about getting them through, keeping the numbers up, controlling the kids, managing the parents.
It's not often about applying that knowledge...just Tests, and more Tests. (standardized tests)

I think if I had kids...I would want them to be in a school that engaged them more...exposed them to more, had more options.
Try to recognize those talents they have...develop those.
Keep on them to develop some discipline over time.
But expose them to much more than what I hear they get now.

Of course, these days...this translates into money.
And with everything going more online...I think the standard learning portion won't be lacking,
but certain things may fall through the holds, not be caught
and they won't be exposed to as much in "hands-on" application and activities.

So if I have kids...I'm going to have to invest into engaging them more.
Pay in all...money, time, mind and effort...in exposing them to what they don't get.
It can't be just let your kids go to school, be "babysat" and just learn the basics.
Then again, it's what you get out of it
and that's the responsibility too of the parents and the student.

 

I don't have as much time as I'd like to invest into this topic right now, but I think my perspective might not be well represented in our community so I'll share some of it. The caveat to any input I have in this is that I didn't grow up in the US school system. I don't know how much is different between there and here, so my input might not be completely relevant.

I don't make any secret of the fact that I didn't really get along with the public education system during my interactions with it. There are a lot of reasons for that. I was bored, I wasn't very healthy, much of the curriculum was utterly uninteresting to me. I was lazy and couldn't really motivate myself to do what felt like the same homework assignments over and over again.

Knowing myself now I realize that I'm not really a good fit for formal educational environments. I thrive on novelty and I'm a quick learner. I'm also primarily interested in practical knowledge. I don't really care about knowing how to do trigonometry because it isn't relevant to me, and I don't want to spend six weeks learning something I could teach myself over the course of a weekend if I really needed it. Thanks, but no thanks. Of course, as a teenager I lacked the self awareness to realize these things about myself. I also had major health problems that caused my attendance to be pretty horrendous, which nobody within the education system seemed very interested in accommodating. Perhaps they just lacked the time or energy or professional freedom. Or maybe they just didn't care. I don't know, and more than a decade after the fact I'm not really interested in finding out anymore.

I've landed on my feet and I've done alright for myself. My suspicion (or maybe it's just a hope) is that folks like me probably do more often than not. But the fact remains that the education system is a one-size-fits-all glove. It's good enough for most. It's perfectly suited to very few. And there are a handful who it doesn't work for at all.

I don't think I'd want to homeschool my as-yet hypothetical children. There's a big part of me that says that homeschooling means limiting them based on my own knowledge and interests, which seems unfair. I also don't think I'd have enough time and energy to devote to making sure it's done properly. It just doesn't seem like the answer to me. Is there a better one? I don't know. And how far should we go chasing edge cases? What are the acceptable losses here?

I don't pretend to have answers. This isn't a subject I'm particularly knowledgeable about. I just know that school and me were not friends, and it's something that I was bitter about for a very long time. I'm not so much anymore, but I do think the system just wasn't equipped to handle someone like me, and I think that's kind of sad.

 

Yeah, in the United States, IDEA and its renewal in 2004 require schools to provide services and accommodations to students with "health impairments." Chronic illness is one of those. This can result in either the construction of a 504 plan (fairly typical for illness) or an IEP (individualized education plan), which is kind of the next step up from a 504 and more formalized.

For instance, in a 504 related to brittle Type 1 diabetes, the student can leave the classroom at any time if needed to test or use insulin, and we accommodate the student's absences for doctor's visits. Putting a 504 into place is not difficult and it requires the least amount of work for teachers; at the beginning of the year, the counselor will email out a sheet with the basics, so I have a heads up as to what the student needs me to do. IEPs are a little more work, but I feel it's justified. I want kids to get the best education they can; if that means that I have to spend an extra hour a week in IEP meetings, so be it.

I should note that I actually really like IEP and 504 meetings, as I want everyone to get the services they need to be successful, and I also want the student and parents involved to see that we really do have the best interest of the student at heart. They can get really emotional, though, and that's hard at times, but it's still totally worth it.