Tag: education

Four Powerful Reasons

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I am writing this ahead of time and scheduling it for Sunday, June 23. The blog challenge’s single rule is that I must publish something each day of the challenge. My family has agreed to go almost unplugged every other Sunday (hubby and I conceded to the texting of friends and listening of music in favor of willing buy-in.) So, I’m going to forgo the writing of an original post again and share one of my favorite articles (relevant to my content) from one of my favorite people.

Peter Gray, an evolutionary psychologist and frequent contributor to Psychology Today, is a champion of self-directed education and an expert on the importance of free play. Here’s his article on Why Our Coercive System of Schooling Should Topple. If you like this, consider reading his highly persuasive book, Free to Learn.

Imposter Syndrome: My Story, Part Two

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I was one of the original teachers at that shiny new International Baccalaureate charter. The school became a quick success despite the ongoing tension in the culture, and it grew much faster than originally planned. Year two, they added an additional class for each grade that only had one the first year, including second grade. My good friend, another OG, became my second grade teaching partner and we worked exceptionally well together, designing a really fun Programme of Inquiry for our 7-8 year old students. She was a gifted educator and I was so lucky to get to work with and learn from her.

Despite getting to collaborate with one of my best friends, being in philosophical alignment with the school model (at the time and on the surface anyway,) being recognized by many of my families and students as their “favorite” teacher, being well-liked by my immediate administrator (the ED was a nightmare. I could have a whole separate blog about the abuse the faculty endured under his leadership,) and being chosen to be on the team that researched, developed, and delivered professional development for the faculty, I managed to find intermittent enthusiasm but mostly I was a miserable wreck who was neglecting her family.

I was always depleted at the end of my 10-11 hour days of “performing” for children who, for the most part, had already lost interest in “learning.” This was also the 5th job in a row that I was certain I was underqualified for. Remember, I didn’t have a teaching degree, just that stupid test that said I knew what I was doing. I had chronic imposter syndrome.

Rather than recognizing that I must present as capable and intelligent to pull off these longshot hires, I would beat myself up for not being a “legitimate” expert in my field since I hadn’t completed the required education for any position in this string of employment: wilderness therapy instructor (a clue- and degree-less city girl,) field medic (remember the EMT test? I did the rushed version—two weeks instead of a full semester—of that training also) speech language pathologist (ha! I was SO underqualified for this one, it was considered unethical,) then two elementary teaching positions (just those stupid tests for the latter.)

In each of these positions I’d received recognition for excelling, but I still blamed my lack of qualifications for my chronic stress. Cortisol was my constant companion. I was always seeking to better “educate” myself and worked stupid long hours so I could feel like I was worthy of the meager paychecks these jobs paid. I still have to laugh ironically about how I left a cushy credit union job with excellent benefits because I was seeking “more meaningful work,” only to take on far too much student loan debt (that continues to haunt me) for an exhausting career that paid less than what I was making at the financial institution.  

Midway through year four, as the level of stress crescendoed at the charter school along with my sense of impotence to improve my working conditions, my mother asked a pivotal question on the phone one day in response to my chronic complaints, “What would you do if you were to leave teaching?” I spent that night into the wee morning hours researching this very question. Joel Hammon, in his TED talk on liberating teachers, jokes about his own online search for “What kinds of jobs are there for teachers who hate teaching?”

My search turned up life/executive coaching among other things. I signed up for an online certification course that I couldn’t afford (and would be another “alternate route” to expertise—seems I never learn!,) decided I was starting my own coaching business, and let the school know I wouldn’t be renewing my contract for the fall. What I couldn’t have articulated at the time was the real reasons I had to leave the teaching profession. I claimed too much self-respect to tolerate a persistent toxic environment as my reason, and while I’m certain and extremely grateful that expedited my departure, it was really that square box that would never accommodate my not-square nature that I was running from.

I have so much more to say about that box—if you’ve been following my blog, you probably know I’m just getting started. Oh, the reprogramming, self-worth stealing box that we call school…   

Accidental Teacher: My Story, Part One

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I was an accidental teacher. I don’t have an education degree. In the state of Idaho, one does not need a teaching certificate to have a classroom in a private school. My family was in a rough patch financially since my husband had been laid off and needed to retrain to enter the workforce. My degree was in Speech Language Pathology and I had just started the masters program (required along with a 36 month clinical fellowship to practice) when we received the news that my husband’s employer was eliminating his position.

Our second child was 2 months old when this happened. After dropping out of grad school and a brutal year of me drowning at a Title One school as an interim SLP, I took a job teaching second grade at a conservative elementary school. I suspected there would be a philosophical mismatch but my family needed me to bring in an income, and this position had the added benefit of free preschool tuition for our oldest child who was 4 at the time.

It was soon painfully clear that the values of this establishment were not representative of my own values, and I was expected to teach these values to the children in my class. I felt certain that if anyone discovered my political views, my job would be threatened. So this seemed like a very valid reason why I wouldn’t just be in love with my new teaching career. Well, that and the fact that I wasn’t trained to be teacher and felt in over my head. (Even though my classes were very small. I never had more than 8 students in my classes at this school.) I certainly enjoyed working with the children in my care, I just needed to be in an environment that aligned with my values and have the proper training, right?

Halfway through my second year at the school, one dark winter morning on my way to work, I heard an advertisement on the radio about a new International Baccalaureate charter school inviting families to enter their children into the lottery.  I jumped on it. I reached out to the director and asked if they were allowed to hire non-certified teachers, and he responded that they could not, but if I would promise to complete the testing for the alternate route to certification before school started in the fall, he would consider an interview.

He ended up offering me the job based on my assurance I would get the testing under my belt before school started. I researched the process and obtained the materials to study for the exams. It wasn’t long before I realized the necessary content was, well, everything. It felt like I needed to know every detail about every subject taught in school, and it was an insurmountable mountain of knowledge. There was no way I would be able to cram that much content in such a short amount of time. Even studying for the GRE was easier than this!

I decided to just schedule the tests. If I failed them, I would have just enough time to squeeze in another attempt after the required delay and I’d have to pay the testing fee again, but at least I’d have a better idea of where to focus my attention—or so I thought. Come testing day, I was pretty nervous, but I’d always been a good test taker. The adrenaline rush that would come at the beginning of a high stakes test had always served me well, unlike the devastating opposite effect it has on so many.

While I was completing the multiple choice tests, I had no idea how I was doing. I took this as a bad sign. The one other time in my life where I couldn’t tell whether I was doing well (on an EMT test that was also high stakes for me at the time) I’d barely passed. Frankly, while I’m not a fan of using testing as a way to determine competency at anything, I believe this is the sign of a really poor test. Any test taker who’s not just swimming in adrenaline and cortisol because of test anxiety should have some idea of how they’re doing.

I was sweating and I felt a little sick as I left the secure testing room to obtain my results. I was shocked at how I did. Distinguished. Are you f-ing kidding me?! That was supposed to prepare me for what I faced in the classroom? What a joke!

To be continued…

Restoring Justis

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Restoring Justis

Yeah. The title is meant to be ironic. It’s ironic that my last name is Justis. I’m certainly not justice-oriented. The world has never been fair and it never will be. By trying to make it fair, we just cripple everyone.

No, I’m not trying to restore justice. I’m trying to restore curiosity. I’m trying to restore creativity. I’m trying to restore human nature. It is not our nature to be caged. It is not our nature to follow orders and deny our bodies movement, or to hold our waste until the bell rings. It is not our nature to only learn what we’re forced to learn, to do as little as we can get away with, to only look out for ourselves, to be apathetic.

We’ve been reprogrammed. Humans are social creatures, wired to contribute to a community. Our bodies reward us with feel-good hormones when we behave in a way that supports the greater good. It should feel good to parent. It should feel good to learn. It should feel good to contribute. It does when we haven’t been reprogrammed with external drivers, rewards and punishments, prestige and shame.

I don’t believe in good and evil, I only believe that we are social creatures by nature. When someone is acting in a way that is not socially acceptable, it’s because they have a need that is not being met. What do we do in our culture when that happens? Typically, we punish the behavior. What would happen if we attempted to find out what was going on for that person and tried to meet their needs rather than impose consequences? Can you imagine what a different world that would be?

But instead, we’ve become a culture of control. We lack the skills to effectively communicate, so we forcefully impose our will on others. And children get the worst of it. They have less freedom during the school day than prisoners. Many of our schools even resemble prisons with guards and weapon detectors. It’s no wonder we’re suspicious of children when we treat them like criminals.

Then we expect them to suddenly be able to direct their own lives at 18?! Is this logical? It seems so obvious to me that childhood these days does not support self-directed, functioning adults that know how to create satisfying and meaningful lives. Satisfying and meaningful lives. Is that really too much to hope for? What a different world it would be if more of us were living satisfying and meaningful lives.

This is what we need to restore. And I think it’s human nature to create satisfying and meaningful lives, if only we allow our children to develop as they naturally would. Unfortunately, it may be too much to hope for. The adults that would be modeling such lives are few and far between. Most adults think they’re supposed to control kids. Make them “get in line.” Teach them to sit still and raise their hands when they want to contribute. Teach them to tolerate tedium. Teach them mistakes are bad.

If you want to change a culture, you take the kids. It’s what they did with our modern day school system. We like to call it “education” but really it’s “schooling.” We’ve been schooled into believing we’re providing our children with the knowledge they need to be “successful” but really we’re just programming them to be mindless consumers.

But maybe if we stopped schooling our kids and were just there as supportive adults, resources and models of stewardship, we could restore human nature. Maybe if we let them learn instead of coerce them to cram content, we’d restore their natural tendencies to explore, discover, create, and contribute.

Who knows? Maybe those kids could even save the world.

Forcing the Read

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During my years of teaching second grade, I had many parents who were extremely stressed by their child’s reading progress (or lack of.) While our school had a no homework policy, many of the teachers ignored this policy and sent home reading practice. If you haven’t read my post, The Making of Mediocrity, I’d encourage you to read that before continuing  as it gives background to the information I share in this post. If you have read it, you’ll have some idea of what this reading practice might look like at home:

For the precocious readers, there was certainly no need for assigned reading practice, since these children were already fluent readers. In fact, getting their noses out of books and outside moving their bodies was probably much more of a challenge for these families. Any assigned reading practice for these kids would just be a hoop to jump through. The rule-followers would do it to check the box, the pleasers would do it to keep their teacher’s affection, the kids whose identities relied on being one of the “smart ones” would do it for the evidence that they were superior to their classmates, and those that had other interests would recognize it as the busy work it was and insist on doing their own thing.

For the kids resisting reading and who spent the day struggling to control their bodies in the classroom, forcing reading practice at home, in my opinion, was just plain cruel. Unless you’re a super savvy and creative parent with the excess energy to somehow make decodables fun, this situation is likely to set you up for an ongoing battle with your child. We’ll talk more about this when we look at why homework has strong potential to damage familial relationships. And in the end, what exactly is your child learning by being forced to practice reading? They may make small gains in their reading fluency, but what they’re likely learning is that they hate reading and their desires don’t matter.

For the invested kids who have sophisticated thinking skills but their brains aren’t ready to learn reading, consider how painful this practice must be. Maybe they suffer through the practice then spend time ruminating on how inadequate they are. Or they start finding reasons to opt out of any activity that involves reading so they don’t have to feel stupid. They start to hide emotionally to avoid feeling vulnerable to judgment. I’m sure you can already start to imagine dangerous outcomes to this path.

In all of these situations, the requisite reading practice reinforces emerging and damaging identities. What seems like a fairly benign practice that is intended to strengthen reading skills takes on an insidious undercurrent of psychological shaping. Rarely do the educational “experts” consider the delicate egos that are taking such blows when they recommend that parents force their kids to read for a certain amount of time each evening after school.

The one situation where assigned reading practice may not be harmful is those invested emerging readers whose time has come to learn to read. Yet, even still, boring decodables are not going to foster a love of reading. These children should be choosing materials that inspire them to persevere through challenging passages and reading at home for pleasure, not for the gold star or to check the box.  By offering recognition and rewards, we risk obliterating the child’s internal locus of control.  So I take it back, I don’t believe there is any assigned reading practice that is not potentially harmful to the child.

For those parents who came to me stressed about their child’s reading progress, I encouraged them NOT to force it. Your stress causes your child to stress and be fearful, and there’s no need. Your child will learn to read when his brain is ready for it. If you need some reassurance that it’s okay to relax and let reading happen when it’s meant to for your unique child, please read this article.

Forget about his test scores and the school’s rating. Forget about the teacher’s evaluation. Foster your child’s love of literature and your relationship with your child by reading TO him stories that he finds riveting. Stories that are rich in content that you can use to teach about life and how to be human in a way that fosters stewardship of his health, his relationships, his communities, etc., but mostly help him discover things that light him up and encourage him to engage in life—even if it means not reading. He can suffer reading instruction in the classroom; keep your home a judgment-free place where he can leave all that behind and just be himself.   

The Making of Mediocrity

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This started out as the next homework post, but I realized that I needed to explain another concept before diving into Homework Part Three. If you’re new to my site, you may want to read Part One and Part Two. We’re going to take a quick look at reading instruction in schools.

There’s an urgency for educators to ensure that all children be fluent readers by third grade. The reason for this is because at this point, the classroom changes from a place where children are learning to read to now reading to learn. Students may fall seriously “behind” and be unable to do the independent work typically required from 3rd grade on if they’re not fluent readers. You can imagine how difficult and stressful this is for teachers who have a full class of kiddos they need to keep “on track.”

When it comes to learning to read, just like with any skill or knowledge acquisition, there’s a very wide spectrum among children when it comes to ability and readiness. Educators are made to believe that all children should be reading fluently by the age of seven, and if we just find the right approach and spend enough time on the skill, then we can get them all there—unless there’s some learning disability. Let’s examine this educational philosophy through the lens of a 2nd grade classroom.

Now, the 2nd grade classroom teacher is likely to have a small number of very fluent readers who picked reading up easily and as early as 3 or 4 years of age, with little if any instruction. These same kids also tend to be the ones who love to read. They’re independently reading chapter books with engaging stories or using their skill to learn about topics they love by reading non-fiction, informative materials. Imagine these precocious children in a classroom during reading instruction.

This is also an age where we have lots of emerging readers. It’s a relatively new skill for these kiddos and fluency is not yet mastered. In a typical classroom, not taking socio-economic status of the school population into account, this will be the majority of the class. And, of course, within this group, there will still be a wide range of ability and investment in developing the skill.

The invested child is enjoying how reading is opening up her world and giving her access to this new form of information. She’s likely unable to even turn it off, reading every street sign while in the car with her parents and trying to sound out words on product labels.

Is this because her teachers have done a good job of educating her on this new skill? I would argue against that and say, it’s just her time. She was READY to pick up this skill and would have, if not now then very soon, with or without formal instruction. Is she feeling successful right now in school? What about her teacher? There’s a large enough number of children who resemble this girl that we can pat ourselves on the back and say reading instruction works.

Now, let’s take a look at another emerging reader. He’s not so invested. Sounding out words is effortful, and the decodables (which focus on repeated sound patterns) he’s made to read in class are storyless and uninspiring.  He’s bored as a result and likely consuming a good amount of his teacher’s limited energy to keep him from distracting his nearby classmates.

What’s his teacher to do? This kid is at serious risk of being recommended for ADHD medication, and I would argue, the main reason being that he was not inspired to learn to read. This kid is more driven to physical activity right now but was forced through instruction that went totally against his learning instinct. Plus, of course, the fact that his child body is screaming at him to keep moving and this option is not available to him.

Now let’s look at another type of child. I can bring many faces to mind of 2nd grade learners who were highly engaged in classroom style learning and could thoughtfully converse on sophisticated topics, who struggled to “learn” to read. These kids were actually very invested, but their brains just would not cooperate. These kids were NOT READY to be forced through reading instruction and would likely pick up the skill very efficiently when their brains were ready for it.

Unfortunatley, these children were often pulled from those subjects considered less valuable such as art and music where they excelled, to practice those boring decodables. They had high-level thinking skills and used these to contrast themselves with the other “smart” kids in class. What do you think was the typical conclusion? And so begins the systematic dismantling of authentic self-esteem.

I encourage all educators and parents to read this article about how wrong and damaging it is for us to create educational models and pacing guides around the concept of “average.” Here’s an excerpt:

Up until 2002, Rose reports that brain scientists believed that in brain imaging—the use of various techniques to directly or indirectly image brain structure—there was such a thing as an “average brain.”

But Michael Miller, a UC Santa Barbara professor, began to study how the human brain retrieves memory and realized there was no single brain that looked like this mythical average. “We each have unique ways that our brains retrieve information and create memory,” Rose reported.

This has not just played out in neuroscience, but in every advancement and every field, he adds. In education, this is particularly harmful to students because it affects pacing guides, textbooks and how states measure who achieves—and who fails.

You can draw your own conclusions about how damaging it is to the individual to be forced into a one-size-fits-all box. How for teachers this leads to a focus on classroom management rather than relationship with each unique student. I know most educators have the best intentions and are just trying to level the playing field , but by doing so, we’re harming the delicate psyche of so many of our children.

Though it’s already been proven that “average” doesn’t exist, it seems we’re determined to create it. Is this really what we want? Is this really how we create a better world? Through the mediocrity of average? By trying to make sure everyone learns the same thing at the same time instead of appreciating and nurturing the endless nuances of the human population and the beautiful diversity of contributions we have the potential for?

We’re social creatures that rely on each other for survival. I believe we each come wired for a unique contribution to reinforce this interdependence. Is there a way to offer education so that it enhances and encourages individuality? Yes. And it’s far more efficient both in creating effective learning outcomes and use of resources.

Unfortunately, we’d be toppling a bureaucratic beast and cornerstone of our current economy to make the switch. Not to mention demanding a complete cultural shift, which is usually slow and cumbersome. Doesn’t mean you can’t choose a better way for your family. Visit the Alliance for Self-Directed Education if you’re ready to explore approaches that will actually honor your unique child’s strengths and help them develop authentic confidence in their real world skills.

Learning Your Limits: Homework Part Two

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Part Two 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?

The importance of learning.

Does homework communicate the importance of learning? This one is a bit complex. Let’s start with that word, “learning.” Just what is learning?

Humans are wired for learning. It’s our adaptable brain that has kept our species on this planet for so long. We’re born learners. It’s crucial for our survival. Am I being redundant? I just really want to drive this home. Humans learn. It’s what we do. Unfortunately, sometimes what we learn is that it’s unwise, even painful to follow our own learning instinct.

I’ll say it again. Children learn through play. Does homework feel like play? Maybe to some. For those kids who love homework, more power to you! There’s a good chance you possess the type of intelligence our culture values and your school experience will be less painful than most. But you may also want to pay attention to whether you really love the work itself or whether you’re into it to win your teacher’s favor or to demonstrate your academic superiority?

Before getting to the root of homework evil #2, I’ve got to veer down a rabbit hole a moment to explain some deterrents of play:

Unfortunately, we no longer trust our children to their own devices when it comes to play. We’ve become suspicious of children in general and think that if allowed to direct their own time, they’ll be naughty. That somehow it’s the nature of children to create trouble, so we must fill every moment with an adult directed activity. And it’s true that children will break things (rarely to purposely annoy the adults in their lives,) hurt themselves, make messes, etc. but is there learning to be gleaned from such instances?

Or our kids just seem incapable of directing their own play. Is it any wonder? Most have never really had the opportunity to just allow their imagination to guide their activities. With their days filled with school during which their level of compliance determines their worth, daydreaming and creativity are at best not valued, and even have the potential to be punished, is it any wonder that most shut down that imaginative capacity? Throw in the never-ending digital content at their fingertips and our children have little incentive to tap into their inner resources for entertainment. Maybe I’ll do another post on the power of boredom—a lost inspiration.

Another detractor from play is the very real lack of safety and playmates. No longer do our children have the freedom to free range (this is even illegal in many states) through the neighborhood in packs. We don’t have the tight knit communities we used to have where we knew and cared about our neighbors and everyone was looking out for the local kids. This “village” if you will, where kids could walk out their front door and quickly find other kids to play with and there was less fear of predators because there was safety in numbers and more familiar adults to approach in case of trouble.

So I don’t want to appear naïve of these obstacles to free play, but in the best case scenario, kids would have the freedom to direct their own learning after school. They’d build and tear down forts, use magnifying glasses to start fires, poke at insects, and play in the mud, discovering how the world works and developing problem-solving skills. They’d climb trees and sometimes fall out of them, learning what hurts and developing a better sense of their bodies. They’d play make believe and practice different social roles, developing their communication skills, empathy, and boundaries. They’d fall down often, both literally and figuratively, and learn how to pick themselves back up, developing risk tolerance and resilience. Is this learning? Is it important learning?

Homework displaces playtime. So does it communicate the importance of learning? Oh, it most certainly does.  Children learn that moving their bodies is less important than reading storyless decodables. They learn that spending time developing relationships is less important than practicing math facts. They learn that their self-chosen projects are less important than school projects. They learn that school’s values trump their own. They learn that hard work is more important than self-care. They learn that their own judgment is not to be trusted. They learn they’re incapable of making sound decisions.  They learn to suppress their intuition.

Oh, the importance of learning!

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!

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.