Schooling Work Ethic: Homework Part One

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Part One of Four

Homework. It’s evil, I say.

What’s wrong with homework? You say. Doesn’t it teach a strong work ethic? Doesn’t it communicate the importance of learning? Doesn’t it reinforce the learning that happened that day in class? Doesn’t it give the parents a window into the child’s day and therefore strengthen the family bonds?

Let’s take it from the top:

Strong work ethic.

Our children basically have a full time job. Most children are going to school for at least 7 hours a day with shorter and shorter breaks throughout that day. These are children. What would you do if your boss insisted that you do at least 30 minutes (and as children rise in grades, this amount rises to potentially hours) each evening also? Would that encourage a healthy lifestyle? A healthy relationship with your work? Your boss?

Children need to play. All humans need to play but someone else can tackle why adults need it. I’m going to focus on our children. Their brains and bodies need play. It’s how they develop proprioception and risk tolerance, and discover who they are in the world. And we have robbed them of nearly all unstructured play. And we wonder why they seem to lack the imagination of generations past. If they’re going to be locked up in classrooms all day, shouldn’t they at least get their evenings and weekends to develop some self-awareness through play?!

And we’re teaching them that it’s not only normal to take your work home, it’s imperative. There’s no time in the day that’s your own. You must be directed every waking moment. And forget any notion of harmony in your life. Your life revolves around your work whether you like it or not. Again, by ensuring there’s no time of their own, we rob them of the precious few moments they might have to discover themselves through self-chosen and self-directed activities. Is this really the work ethic we want to teach?!

What does this “strong work ethic” teach our children about the world they live in? Is it a world where they’re encouraged to find joy? To experience gratitude for the beauty and bounty of this planet they inhabit? Does it teach them that their desires have any weight? Or does it teach them to suppress their own longings in favor of mandated and fleeting “learning” prescribed by the all-knowing “educators”? And that life is dismal and revolves around our work?

Many anxious and depressed adults are suffering from this “strong work ethic.” I’ve been searching recently for a counselor, and nearly every marketing description for the plethora of counselors out there (most with full caseloads and waitlists) is targeting people who need help to create “work/life balance”.

We’ve got skyrocketing suicide rates among teens who are feeling the pressure of this “strong work ethic.” These are children! When my daughter was in the 8th grade (she homeschools now,) I had a conversation with the school counselor. I asked her how many of the middle and high school students at this highly-rated charter school would identify as anxious and depressed. She told me if they were to do a poll of the students, her prediction would be 90%. Ninety percent of teenagers would say they have anxiety and/or depression?! Does this seem right? Does it seem okay? What the hell?!

If you Google “work ethic” you get:

work eth·ic

/wərk ˈeTHik/

noun: work ethic

the principle that hard work is intrinsically virtuous or worthy of reward.

Is it intrinsically virtuous? Anxiety and depression don’t sound like rewards to me.

I can’t solely blame homework for our anxious and depressed population, but homework is just one aspect of school that is contributing to this dismal state we find ourselves in. Maybe it’s time to reconsider this “strong work ethic” we’re teaching our children.

More on the evils of homework tomorrow…

What’s the Harm?

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So, when my son was in second grade, his teacher (like many of the other teachers in this school that had a no homework policy) offered the Pizza Hut reading club where if you spent a certain amount of time at home reading, you would earn a free pizza!

I was furious when I learned she was doing this. I immediately sent her an email asking if we could have a conversation. By the way, my son was one of those many second graders whose brain was not yet ready to easily pick up the skill of reading. Reading was effortful and not fun for him as a result. This is not uncommon among 7 year olds, and even some 8 and 9 year olds. More on this another time…

Back to the phone call. I reminded her that the school had a no homework policy and that by implementing this program, she was breaking that policy. It’s important to note there was a little different relationship here than just teacher/parent. I had been a second grade teacher at this school just the year before. This teacher had been a colleague of mine that had actually taken over my classroom when I decided to not renew my contract.

She said she didn’t think it could do any harm for the kids to earn a free pizza as a way to encourage them to read more. It’s been a few years since this conversation, and I can’t quite remember whether I raised my voice. I know I definitely come across as intense when my passion is driving the conversation. My response went something like this, “It DOES do harm. You are reprogramming my child. I want him to love reading, and you are destroying that possibility by dangling a carrot. He’s learning that reading is hard work that’s only worth doing if you get some kind of reward on the other side of that work.”

I know I was putting her in an impossible position. She mumbled something about all the other teachers doing it, but acknowledged that what I was saying was accurate. Unfortunately, she was also putting me in an impossible position. Do I support my 7 year old son’s teacher and play along or do I encourage him to not participate in something his whole class is doing and visibly tracking?

There are so many things wrong with the Pizza Hut reading program that I’m not even sure where to begin. Here are just a few of the most obvious—that may not be so obvious if you’re in the practice of just trusting the “educators”. Don’t beat yourself up if you are one of those people. It’s likely you went through this same system and you learned not to question the “experts.”  

1. As already mentioned, children are being reprogrammed. They are losing their internal locus of control through the use of rewards and punishments. They’re not learning for the love of learning but instead cramming content as a result of coercion. You can read more about this in yesterday’s post.

2. Pressure to participate in such a program makes those who are struggling with a skill BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT YET READY TO LEARN IT doubt their ability to ever learn it. This starts to take a toll on the identity as children internalize being “behind” other kids their age. We’ll dive deeper into this one when we look at the insidious concept of “average.”

3. Homework. This one also deserves its own post (or two,) but a quick primer. Homework typically requires that the parent become the enforcer of the school’s agenda. This has the potential to damage the family dynamic and make the child feel even more isolated and confused about why school feels so wrong. If we must have our children in this unhealthy school environment all day, it’s even more important that home be a place where the child is encouraged to engage in self-determination which requires autonomy, competence, and relatedness<–not things many kids are getting at school.

4. There’s probably more, but I’ll end with this one. If you’re a parent, have you ever found yourself at odds with your intuition in your role as the school’s enforcer? I do want my readers to pay attention to how all of these practices add up to a systematic dismantling of our intuition. Can you see how the Pizza Hut Reading Club could contribute to the questioning of one’s inner knowing not only for the child, but for the parent, and even the teacher?

To the parents out there whose second grade children are struggling to read: don’t force it! They’re not ready. Some kids are ready to read at three, some not til they’re twelve. If you don’t make reading a chore or worse yet, a source of pain because it’s amplifying perceived defects, they’ll learn it much more efficiently when they’re ready. Let your child follow their interests at home. Read TO your child about things they love or stories that explore issues he’s currently dealing with or curious about or that just make him laugh.

Forget about the school’s rating—that’s why they scare you into thinking your child is behind, but you can’t worry about that. Take care of YOUR kid and your family’s health. And make sure your child knows there’s nothing wrong with him if his some of his peers are reading faster than he is. This second part is the hard one. Your child is immersed in an environment where he’s got a constant awareness of how he stacks up against his same-age peers. And we wonder why social media has so much power to damage our kids. Comparison is constantly reinforced and made high stakes in the school environment.

Stay attuned to YOUR child. As much as your child’s teacher may want to best serve your child, you know him better than anyone. YOU are the expert on your child. Listen to your gut, advocate as best you can for him, and don’t let the school bully you. Oops, did I just say that? Hmm, seems like another post topic…

By the way, really take in this photo that accompanies this post. If you’ve been following my writing, this one should be pretty painful. Feel free to comment!

Inspiration

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Every public classroom teacher knows the frustration of being in front of a room of 20+ kids and not being able to maintain everyone’s attention for any real length of time. If you’re really good, you may have a large group of engaged learners in any given lesson, but inevitably, not every Common Core standard is going to keep your learners riveted.

Truth is there is no learning without inspiration.  That inspiration can look many different ways and be both intrinsic and extrinsic. The type of inspiration that drives the learning can have a major impact on how well the new information is incorporated as enduring understanding. Let’s take a look at some of the many ways one might be inspired to learn:

A passion for a topic that drives research and/or practice:

This might look like a kid who picked up a guitar and got a thrill from plucking a few strings. This child goes on to research how to play or finds a teacher. The child gets such enjoyment from creating the music that she’s driven to practice whenever she gets a chance.

A means to an end:

This would be the kid who wants desperately to be in a band. This child might go on to research how to play guitar or find a teacher. This child powers through the tougher parts of learning the guitar to develop the skill needed to be accepted into a band.

The passion of another who might be sharing the topic:

A child might be enamored with the style of a popular musician and want to emulate that musician so he decides to learn to play guitar like the object of his obsession. This child might go on to research how to play guitar or find a teacher. This child powers through the tougher parts of learning guitar to be more like the idolized musician.

The charisma of another who might be sharing the topic:

Similar to the last example, except it’s the personality of the musician that the child is taken with.  This child might go on to research how to play guitar or find a teacher. This child powers through the tougher parts of learning guitar to be more like the person the child is trying to emulate.  

The relationship with another who might be sharing the topic:

Similar to the last two examples, except the musician is likely someone the child knows with whom they have a strong relationship or a teacher the child likes that also happens to plays guitar. This child might go on to research how to play guitar or ask this mentor to be the guitar teacher. This child powers through the tougher parts of learning guitar to be more like the mentor/teacher. Or they power through the hard times to please the mentor/teacher. It’s important to note the distinction here. The former is intrinsically motivated while the second is extrinsically motivated.  

Rewards and punishments:

In this situation, the child is enrolled in a guitar class by an adult. The child may or may not be interested in learning guitar. The teacher uses gold stars to reward the child or a grading system to judge the child. Another possibility is that the child loses privileges at home if she doesn’t play well or doesn’t want to attend a lesson. Typically when this is the case, the child will lose interest and either attempt to quit playing guitar, or do it only for the rewards, or to avoid punishment. Any of these situations is likely to destroy the child’s interest in playing guitar. There is a chance that the child finds they love guitar and is unaffected by the extrinsic drivers—should this happen, then the drive to play is still internally motivated. However, once we introduce coercion into the learning process, the learner tends to lose interest.

So what does this mean for learning in the classroom where most “learning” is coercive, driven by rewards and punishments in the form of grades at the school and parents being recruited as enforcers and extending that coercion into the home? And what does the classroom structure and style of “learning” do to a child’s internal locus of control? To their love of learning? To their identity as a learner? You can probably guess. I want to dive more into the concept of using rewards and punishments to drive behavior, and it’s devastating effects on our culture, but I’ll save that for a future post.

In the meantime, think about the amount of content you’ve been able to retain from your 10,000 hours of forced schooling vs. those things you found yourself driven to learn because of an intense interest you had in the topics. Which learning has endured and stood the test of time? Which added actual value to your quality of life? Which seems like it was a better use of your time?

Is it Playtime Yet?

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Continuing on the idea of play…

Play is definitely becoming a buzzword and seems as though it is continuously being redefined. We’re finally recognizing just how crucial play is and it’s clear that children learn best through play. This is how very young children engage, interact with, and learn from the world around them. And it just comes naturally—it certainly doesn’t seem like drudgery and any effort involved is born out of an inner determination to “keep up” with the older humans these littles are surrounded by. Then we take them out of their natural environments and put them in the very artificial environment that is school, where we mistakenly “teach” them how to “learn.” They learn to sit at a desk and keep their bodies still (or at least the “good” kids learn these things.) They learn how to get in line and move quietly through hallways. They learn to raise their hands and to ask before they go to the bathroom. They learn to suppress their natural urges (more on this in the “suppressing intuition” post) and do only what they’re told. They learn to not trust themselves. They learn that learning is work. They learn that play comes after work and only if that work gets done. They learn that their limited play time can get taken away if their work does not sufficiently please their teacher or they do something else displeasing.  Many children learn that they are not good learners. Many of my students started my class with this impression of themselves. 7-year-olds that thought they hated learning or were bad at it. 7-year-olds that spent the first 3-5 years learning how to walk and talk and build and climb and create—all through play and modeling the older humans they were surrounded by.

Evolutionary psychologist, Peter Gray, succinctly explains how play is the way children are biologically wired to learn all they need to know. To separate learning from play is to defy nature. There is still so much to say on this topic and it will definitely continue to show up in my posts, but for now, I’m going to turn it over to the expert:

Word Play

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So I asserted yesterday that school “teaches children that learning is work, work is not fun, and play is frivolous “

There’s a ton to unpack in that statement, and this post won’t get all the way to the heart of it, but I thought we’d begin exploring this one by really examining those key words, “work”, “learning”, and “play” and their connotations, and how those connotations shape our lives.

Let’s start with the word “work.” How does that word make you feel? Does it feel heavy or light? Do you associate creativity or drudgery with the noun, “work”? Is work ever fun? When I Google “work”, I get these definitions:

“a task or tasks to be undertaken; something a person or thing has to do.”

“activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result.”

Even those two definitions feel very different to me. Which feels lighter to you? Lens matters, and the language we use shapes that lens, don’t you think? When I think of something I have to do, it tends to feel heavy. But if I am doing something that involves effort to achieve a purpose, that seems meaningful and can be really energizing—this feels very different to me than the first definition. I do think for the majority of us, “work” has become those things we have to do. In fact, one of the listed synonyms is “drudgery.”

Has school played a role in shaping our culture this way? I think it would be hard to argue otherwise. Though if we chicken and egg this, did school come after culture or the other way around? We’ll eventually examine how school’s primary purpose is to indoctrinate culture.

What about the word, “learning”? Does that word make you think of classrooms and teachers? Does it inspire you or make you tired? Does how it makes you feel depend on the reason you’re learning something new—like whether you’re being forced to learn something for your job, something you have to learn vs. something you’re really interested in and choosing to learn?

The noun, “learning” is defined as:

“the acquisition of knowledge or skills through experience, study, or by being taught”

Let’s unpack that one a bit! How different does it feel to acquire a new skill through experience vs. being taught? Which is more efficient? One might say being taught is more efficient than learning on one’s own, through trial-and-error, but then which is more effective and enduring? And by this definition, if learning comes from experience, is it happening all the time? When are you not learning? Does this challenge our cultural idea that learning only happens at school or when we’re being taught by another or studying something?

And the word, “play”? Does this word conjure up images of creative endeavors such as knitting a scarf? Writing a song? Making dinner? Maybe “play” to you is more active like riding a bike or participating in a team sport? Or do you think of watching television or sipping a drink by a pool? Maybe all of these things feel like play to you? Do you feel guilty when you play or like it’s a waste of time?

Play, verb form, is defined this way:

“engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose.”

As a noun,
“activity engaged in for enjoyment and recreation, especially by children.”

Seems like it’s the opposite of “work” which is done for a purpose. I’ve definitely used this idea to distinguish these two concepts and play experts often contrast these concepts in this way: “play” being intrinsically motivated and activity that has no intended outcome where “work” is purposeful and is done precisely to achieve an outcome.

Then is there any overlap between work and play? What about learning and play? Learning and work? Is play truly frivolous? Does it not provide experiences through which we learn?

And how about that idea in the “play” definition, “especially by children”? Seriously? What is implied by this definition? That adults don’t play? Shouldn’t play? Maybe that play is frivolous? Frivolous is a fun word too, isn’t it? How does that one make you feel?

I want to continue into the idea of play and its relationship to learning and work (and frivolity) in a future post, but for today I might leave it here. Play (yes that was an intentional word choice) with these questions, with this language. Examine your own response to these three words and your philosophy of work, learning, and play.  How do they make you feel? Did the culture you took on throughout your schooling affect your perception of these concepts? Has that perception affected the way you live your life and how often you play today? Or learn? Or work? Are there ways or times in your life when all three are happening at the same time? Is this even possible?

Does the idea of answering these questions feel like “work” or “play”? Please feel free to comment with your answers to any of the questions posed or your response to even being asked the questions. Or whether you think this is a pointless exercise. Bring it on! Let’s get this party started.

You’ve Been Schooled

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Okay, so here we go. This list is not exhaustive, but these are the ways that quickly come to my mind in which school is crippling our children. I’m not going to explain in any detail today, but will dive into each listed item over the next few weeks. Many of these topics overlap, but they each deserve to be explored through the described lens.

School:

  • teaches children that learning is work, work is not fun, and play is frivolous.
  • suppresses, even punishes individuality.
  • suppresses, even punishes intuition.
  • suppresses, even punishes creativity and imagination.
  • suppresses, even punishes innovation and resourcefulness.
    • Note that creativity, imagination, innovation, and resourcefulness are among the often promoted “21st Century Skills” that educators claim are the most important for our time. I would argue that children come wired with these “skills” and we systematically deprogram them.
  • creates risk aversion.
  • teaches helplessness.
  • teaches authoritarianism, also known as bullying or violent communication.
  • robs children of natural movement and the real work of children—play.
  • robs children of time in nature and all its health benefits.
  • robs children of more natural relationships with humans of various age-groups and the resulting healthy mentor/mentee dynamic and authentic learning that results.
  • reprograms children from their internal locus of control to external behavior drivers.
  • indoctrinates dangerous values.
  • damages the family dynamic.

Don’t expect the supporting detailed posts in order! For me to stay on top of this challenge, I’ll need to do the one that I feel most inspired to write that day. By the end of this blog challenge, I hope to persuade you that children are naturally wired to acquire the necessary skills and hone their talents to be healthy, contributing members of their communities and that with the right modeling and support (NOT what they are getting in our coercive schools,) the vast majority would reach adulthood well prepared to live satisfying and meaningful lives.

Imagine a World…

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Imagine a world where far more people reach adulthood with their curiosity, creativity, and intuition intact. A world where our children aren’t punished for their behavior but instead learn to identify and clearly communicate their needs. A world where we have the freedom to explore and discover lifestyles that combine our interests with our strengths and talents. Where we feel strongly connected to our culture and lead lives that are energizing, contributing to our communities in a meaningful way and finding joy in those contributions.  How different would that world be? How much healthier would people be? How would crime rates be affected? What types of problems could we solve?

I know this sounds ridiculously idealistic, but what can I say? I’m a dreamer. I also believe we can get much, much closer to this ideal if we rethink the way we’re educating our children. I know I promised an outline of how our school system is hurting our kids, but that gets pretty dark. I felt compelled to first share my vision and why I’m so driven to talk about these ideas.

So take a moment, and imagine that world.

First Post

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I left the classroom, after teaching second grade for 6 years, in 2014. I left because of atrocious leadership—like seriously abusive to an unbelievable extent. I would sit in the faculty meetings in shock but also a little entertained. Remember the staff meetings from The Office where Michael was completely inappropriate? Yeah, like that, though sometimes our ED would target a specific teacher and lay into them, red-faced, raised voice, and shaming—those times were less amusing. Once I’d done all I could to try to shift the culture of the school—to no avail—I left with somewhat of a lame plan, knowing I could no longer tolerate the toxic environment.

Here’s the deal: I couldn’t be more grateful for that guy. Had he not been a tyrant, I think I would have spent many more years forcing myself into a painful box that was breaking me. Though I couldn’t have explained it at the time, it was breaking me because I was breaking them—the kids I mean. There was a nagging feeling that things shouldn’t be so hard. And as far as school teachers go, I was a darn good one. Parents of my former students still stop me at the grocery store or when I’m out and about to tell me that they miss me as their child’s teacher. But here’s the deal; when 7 year-old children enter second grade believing that learning sucks, we’re doing something terribly wrong.  

It’s not the teachers’ faults for the most part. Many manage to confer lots of relevant and useful learning to their students which is a miracle based on the system we’ve created where most of what kids are learning is how to be a questionable human. As a recovering school teacher who has spent lots of time researching and thinking about this topic, not only have I come to the conclusion that school is the root of most of our social problems, but it’s also at the heart of our health crisis.

This is Post One of a 60-day blogging challenge. There are really no rules to the challenge except to publish something every day. I plan to mostly get my thoughts on this topic out of my head, but there may be an occasional unrelated post. (Though I’m not even sure that’s possible. My kids tease me that I can bring everything that’s wrong with the world back to school. It’s true—and it’s easier than Kevin Bacon to get there in 6 degrees of separation or less.) My current plan for tomorrow is to present an outline of the ways that school is crippling children and I will follow that with posts that go into more detail about each of the listed ways.

Yes, I know that this is a provocative topic. I’ve tried to temper my disdain and find more positive ways to share my ideas, but this is where I obsess so it’s the easiest content for me to produce. There are existing solutions to our current schooling problems, but they’re, of course, out the box and most parents won’t consider them because we’ve been so effectively schooled ourselves.  Still, I feel compelled to share in the hopes of inspiring action toward a better way.