I’m trying my best to speak for a segment of teachers. If you listen and decide I’m full of crap, that’s fine. Just know that, down here in the blogosphere, we’re trying like hell to figure out how best to prepare your children. I may not be that voice that can say what teachers need to say, but teachers are begging for parent input here. Our viewpoint is worth at least a listen, yes?
So, if you think I’m a loser, find another teacher blogger to listen to. I really can deal with that. I’m about like you: I can get jealous of my peers who do better than I, but I am a grown up. I can take it gracefully. I’ve been wrong too many times in my life now to think that I have it all figured out. Plus, it’s been said that I’m completely nuts. (If you said I was nuts, I’d try to act outraged, but would secretly consider it a compliment. The list of the crazy is long and illustrious. I think being nuts kicks ass, so long as you don’t eat people.)
But I’ve also been right before, too. Again, I’m like you. I’m not completely stupid, and sometimes I do have a point.
I’m writing directly to parents because nobody in the administration, the district office, the state DOE or the Federal DOE will listen. As the layers of bureaucracy softly fold over and smother classroom practice, there’s hardly a sound. So we teacher bloggers are trying to make one. If you don’t listen either, we’re all in serious trouble. Even though the baddies at the top are working full time to keep a red alert going non-stop in our minds to the dangers kids face, your child is not the only thing at stake here. Well, actually, he’s the only thing at stake, but not in the way you think.
Those assholes at the top want to create a world, one which your child will have to live in and raise children in, in which the truly precious things will be held only by an elite few. Money, power, comfort, stability, happiness…. whatever you consider precious, your child has a better chance of getting it if he is the kind of person that is curious, wants to know things, knows how to learn things, believes in his ability to learn, and can adapt to whatever situations come his way to get what he needs and make his way in the world. They want to cheat you out of a better future for your child and his children by getting you focused on short-term, meaningless measures that THEY set.
I don’t have children personally, but I’m pretty sure being educated is helpful in the raising of future generations. Just a guess.
So here’s my first message to you:
If your child is in a public school in America, you’re not in charge here. They are so playing you. They told you that they’d take money out of your pay check every week, and then with that money they’d send your child to school for you? Sounds like a good deal, until you remember that school is a place where…
…students are trained to bodily respond to the sound of a bell, at which time they will stop the learning and thinking they were doing to do what THEY say.
… students are humiliated before their peers and chastised by authorities for mistakes.
… students are also given bad marks that become permanent for those mistakes, ensuring that, at least to their perceptions, their WHOLE LIVES are riding on every decision they make from the time they’re 14 or so. We all know this is bullshit, but our fear of the future keeps us saying so.
… students are sold millions of cans of sugary soda and greasy pizza every single day for twelve years without concern for their long-term health.
… students are suspended for acts of free speech outside of school, ensuring they learn their place.
… students have every single moment of the day dictated to them, ensuring they do not become decision makers.
… students must get written permission to go to the bathroom.
… students get adult interaction at the ratio of 30:1, all day, in rotating increments of 50 minutes.
… the books students read are chosen at the district or state level.
… the perspectives students hear are extremely limited.
… the requirements for getting a piece of paper supersede your child’s need to spend his youth learning & developing things he’s truly good at.
… teachers have less and less say over any of these conditions.
… the only parents attempting to alter these conditions are activist types, God love ‘em, but they may not speak for you.
The establishment has convinced you to send your child to that place. On your dime. Then, they told you that teachers are your enemy. Even if they’re right about us, how can you allow THEM to alienate you from the people who administer your child’s education every day? Particularly if you believe we’re evil and incompetent?
So, in this deal of spending power in exchange for your child’s education, you got seriously Punk’d. Everyone likes to think that if they ever got Punk’d, they’d show up right, and then have the good humor to laugh about it. But Zach Braff didn’t, and who could blame him? They poured paint all over his brand new Porche. We all know there are some pranks that could be done to us on the wrong day where our own behavior could be considered less than seemly. We would wish we had behaved better. Any one who won’t admit that is a lying bitch.
So, respond well. YOU GOT PUNK’D.
We’ve all been Punk’d.
What are you going to do now?
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I'm Taylor. This is my classroom. There used to be a "real" teacher behind this blog, but she nagged me all the time about not saying this and not saying that. ~all she ever did was type anyway, since my fingers are stuck together~ So I've taken over.
Yes, I'm an imitation Barbie knock-off doll. What of it? Barbie's got nothing on me! Let me take you to school.
This was good. Really good.
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Was the first Wikipedia link (to a band, not to the psychological experiment) intentional?
No, that wasn’t intentional. Thanks so much for pointing that out, H. I think I’ve fixed it. Always seem to miss something in every post.
Very well said. The only thing I worry about with the line of thinking you offer is that I truly believe that we do need universal public education, just as America needs universal health coverage. It’s entirely too easy to take a too-strict Libertarian approach with this line of thinking and end up in a situation that’s no different because only the wealthy get educated.
That said, we do need better flexibility in the systems we provide and a deeper understanding from the public the the job of the teacher is to help students learn to think critically and know where to find more knowledge, not to drum fifteen million useless facts in students heads. We need citizens who can think algorithmically and systemically, not drones who can barely do math with their shoes on.
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I think your heart is in the right place, but be careful not to write off all administrators as paper-pushing bureaucrats. Sure, many are (especially once you get beyond the school level…). But some of us do give a crap. We remember being in the classroom, miss it every day, and have kids for whom we’re trying to make the System a better place.
Discovered your blog via Dan Meyer and I’ll be back for sure!
– Scott
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Agreed. As long as you, as an administrator, can agree not to be threatened by teachers, parents, and students talking to one another.
Administrators who want to be in this conversation in a genuine way are, of course, welcome. But they come in as peers to *all* other stakeholders, including students, or not at all.
I’m just tired of being forced to choose between administrators and students, and will side with students every time. Unless I already knew the situation myself & knew differently with my own eyes.
Otherwise, if I know the student, I will probably side with them in doubt. My admin has lied to me too many times.
Maybe it’s not like that everywhere.
It’s been like this everywhere that I’ve taught. The students know how it stacks up, and they are rightfully cynical. My administrator is a good one, but she still has to answer to those above her. And there are always those people “above”.
I just loved this post.
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Nice post, Taylor. Austin’s comment hits a living question for me – and I’m not typically libertarian, and do believe in universal health care – and that question is: do the results of 12 years of schooling justify the theory that it’s a public good?
I’d love to find data on what all of us adults retain from those 12 years, what we use from those 12 years, and (this one is not quantifiable) what we developmentally lost as “opportunity costs” from having those 12 years taken from us.
Me? I can’t with confidence multiply or divide fractions, remember the periodic table, do any geometry or algebra, or remember any book I read in school (okay, I vaguely remember a couple). And I don’t suffer from any of these inabilities.
I can read and write, granted. I can critically think. But I’m not sure I got that from school. I think I got that from the times I dropped out of college to independently drill into some writers college skimmed over too quickly – Plato, Nietzsche, Homer, Wilde, Keats, Marx, Darwin, Freud, Lacan, Foucault, more.
I also think I got that critical thinking ability from discussions with other thoughtful friends in coffee houses, at campsites, on front porches.
So maybe I’m wrong, but maybe not: but maybe schooling just lasts far too long. Maybe they should teach us basic maths, reading, etc, and turn us loose to follow our curiosities in whatever directions they take us, maybe with adults and other fellow travelers to provide the conversations about those curiosities.
Funny thing is, more and more mainstream “experts” are calling for ending high school earlier.
What do you think, Taylor?
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Another administrator weighing in on your post. I agree with much of what you say and I have the same concern for students and for public education. But, as Scott said – the are administrators out there who do care – and who left the classroom (which I miss every day) – to fight for the very things you write about. There are also teachers – and I face them every day – who do the humiliating of students and who want those students who make mistakes punished permanently. And those teachers do not like when administration tries to support the kids. The concerns you raise are not a school admin v. teacher – they are part of a difference in belief/philosophy about what public education should be about – and there are people in all positons of education on both sides.
As a parent, I guess this letter was written to me, along with the ending call “What are you going to do now?”
But I don’t have an answer, with the possible exception of immediately removing my child from that awful public school and placing him in a private one instead. Is that what I should do? I don’t know. What are all you teachers and administrators going to do now?
Ben, I ask myself that every day. That’s why I reached out to you, the parent. So we can talk and try to figure this thing out. I contend that most of the people above me (the few administrators reading this blog, and other like minded ones aside) are not very helpful, and government bureaucracies administrating schools are downright harmful.
Thanks for commenting.
As for the private school, that *could* be an option, depending on the school.
[Here's an open letter from Taylor the Teacher to Mommy bloggers and another one, a fantastic one, for American parents...]
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Ben…I don’t think the teachers and administrators know any better then the parents sooooo… We start talking to each other instead of demanding answers from each other. Even if we just start sharing stories…
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@Ben: unschool? Home-school? Just read an interesting post by a guy whose children have never stepped foot in a school, and are fine and functional adults now.
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As a public school kid (now older middle age) I have to say I experienced much of what you describe in your post. However, my own experience with my two sons in public schools has made me realize that just because a school is public, doesn’t mean it can’t be first rate. The dedication of the teachers and admins in the face of ludicrous state/local/federal regs is amazing, and the professionalism of most is remarkable. We have dealt with our share of religious intolerance, bullying, and lack of understanding, but given that we’re in a decidedly non-cosmopolitan setting (rural mountain state), it’s to be expected. The most telling aspect of all of this is the boys complain that vacations are too long: they want to get back to school. I suspect this will change when they move to a larger school, but our experience has demonstrated that it is possible for public schools to break out of the mold of producing bored sheeple.
Despite the fact that I agree with much of this post, I take issue with how it is expressed. You can call me “old school” but opinions expressed with obscenities have zero chance of any traction in the real world.
We can place hope in the fact that with the advent of blogging, the environment of public education is changing. It will become increasingly difficult to ignore these issues.
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@Steve (by the way, I checked your site from the CommentLuv link and like it much), I can’t say I agree with you on this one.
I think of very influential political comedians like Bill Maher and George Carlin, who gain much traction in their gonzo way (and speaking of gonzo, Hunter Thompson can’t be called tractionless back in th day).
I love Taylor’s spunk and naval language. Maybe it’s the army vet in me. Or maybe it’s the English teacher
Clay Burell’s last blog post..Social Networks as a Political Force for Education (and, More Students 2.0 Sought)
@CaptBob I agree there are some good public schools, but I think it’s a mistake to think that because, largely due to the dedication of a few professionals, the system is managing in places to hobble along that the system itself isn’t broken. I still wonder how much *better off* kids in good schools could be if the system didn’t discourage individuality & creativity.
@steve I appreciate your point of view, and believe me, I’ve heard it before. I do have this in response, in addition to clay’s comments:
One of the reasons for this being a *personal* blog about teaching is that I get absolutely sick of the expectation that teachers are either miracle working saints (picture the blue birds following Taylor around holding up her dress lest it get muddy) OR they’re lazy and incompetent OR they’re all maniacs who want to molest kids and give them drugs.
We are people. This is a personal blog. I’m sure there are many parents in this world who never cuss, or drink, or listen to Eminem, but I know there are many who do.
We’re just like everyone else, for the most part. I want to convey that here. So I have to be myself.
Arguably, my *real* self shouldn’t cuss, but my blogging persona will reflect the truth until I stop cussing in real life.
Also, what, exactly, for you, constitutes the “real world” that I should be trying to gain traction in? Because I don’t (obviously) cuss at school, and nobody listens to me there. In fact, pitiful as it is (particularly if you ask Google), the amount of influence I have here is greater by truckloads than the voice I have in the school.
Scary, I know. And wrong.
But true.
Just had to be a dittohead and echo Taylor’s sentiments about being sick of the teacher stereotypes.
Teachers are people.
Not angels, not saints, not martyrs, not demons.
Hard-working people trying to get by like everyone else.
Besides, if there wasn’t a purpose to cussing, it wouldn’t be part of our language. Don’t neuter your language, embrace it!
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Word.
I guess I should have known that I would step into this.
Believe me, I am not a buttoned-down language cop demanding that everyone watch their words. Sometimes the nasty invective infused in a screed of moral indignation is just what we need. I’ve noticed it with James Kunstler at Ted Talks and find the intensity of his presentation effective because it matches the seriousness of the problem he is addressing. Though I wonder if the title of his website advances his message.
@Taylor if you were intending to shout in anger and let the asperity of your message knock parents off their feet, than I guess I couldn’t take issue. After all, I was just reading through blogs and made my remarks without knowing the true intent of your blog or this post. mea culpa/my bad
When I speak of the “real world”, I mean the world that runs our schools. Like it or not, it’s state legislatures, superintendents and boards of education that run the show. Changes, reforms, gimmicks and gizmos come and go, but the administration of public schools remains the same. If it is a safe guess that no force (no matter how necessary) is going to push them off their perch, and those of us concerned about education have to play our game in their world.
But citizen media and teacher media (blogs) throws a new player into that game. The established media no longer have a monopoly on the public conversation about schools. As each of us carve out our niche in that conversation, we each shape the “expectations” of all of us. How long will our personal blogs remain personal?
@Clay I’ve loved George Carlin ever since I memorized his AM/FM album in the 70s and have used his “Millennium Man” in my history classes. But I don’t know if George ever wants anything to really change, he just comes along every once in a while and uses his spectacular gift with language to highlight the lunacy of the human experience. So if we are riffing with each other on the absurdities of our position in a system that is in dire need of massive overhaul, then I’m right with you. But, like George Carlin, those are conversations that have a particular place, perhaps accompanied by good friends and cold beverages. Given their public nature however, I honestly don’t know if blogs can be such a place.
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@Steve,
Well-written response, and I don’t want to get too sucked into this conversation because I find it fairly moot – people will write what and how they write, attract attention and create ripples accordingly, all in ways beyond control or predictability – but….
Carlin’s ‘conversations” are on YouTube, embedded in blogs (including political ones with very hefty readership like Crooks and Liars), and a million such public places. Carlin’s subjective motivational state is nothing either of us can do more than speculate on, and it’s irrelevant to the question of effecting change, anyway, I’d argue. More to my tastes are questions of how communication and expression might intangibly lead to action in people who, without a forceful read of Taylor or watch of Carlin, might not get pissed enough to, I dunno, vote or something.
Doesn’t matter if Taylor wants or doesn’t want people to do anything. Her writing will make the difference in reader actions, worldview, etc regardless. Or won’t.
Not meaning to attack, but to start by saying “I’m not a language cop,” and conclude by saying “I honestly don’t know if blogs can be…a place” for salty, demotic expression – doesn’t the conclusion belie the intro?
Peace, though, Steve. I sound like an ass here, but I’m really just a guy wanting to brew his morning coffee
Clay Burell’s last blog post..Social Networks as a Political Force for Education (and, More Students 2.0 Sought)
Oh what the hey. I’ll share the post I wrote, “To Curse or Not to Curse: On Teaching the F-Bomb and Other Colorful Words” for anybody who cares.
I had fun writing it. I’d only change one word: I said we need a “New Ten Commandments” for the 21st century.
Now I would strike the authoritarian word “Commandments” from that post, and substitute the far more democratic “Principles.”
But that’s just good old modern me.
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I would venture to say that a lot of high school kids share the same thoughts as you originally posted WHILE they are in school. However, I find it amazing each year when I speak w/ recent graduates and hear that they truly enjoyed their high school experience. Once out into the real world or college they look back and miss the challenges and fun of high school, the relationships they had with various adults that they interacted with every day for 4 years, even the comfort of knowing that there were rules and regulations in place to guide them in making socially appropriate decisions.
For instance, one of our school rules is “no cell phone use”. Kids HATE this rule and think it is just mean administrators trying to make them conform to their arbitrary rules. I found that after speaking w/ these 14-18 year olds, that they truly don’t realize that using cell phones in public is rude and annoying to other people. Where else would they learn this “life-lesson” unless their parents take them aside and teach them this. Tell you the truth, I don’t have a lot of faith in the majority of parents when it comes to this lesson. I’m relieved that the schools take action and at least attempt to teach this lesson, along with many others.
True there are a lot of problems w/ the public school system and a lot of things need to be changed, but its not all negative and it does work for a great deal of students.
I constantly hear the “why do we have to learn this?” or the “why do I have to take four years of xxx”? I always consider my own experience. I HATED science during my years in high school. Despite this, I took 4 years of it b/c I was forced to, just like the majority of students are forced to take certain classes in order to earn a little piece of paper at the end of four years. However, I went to college and got stuck in a science class and found that I actually remembered some material that I was “forced” to learn in high school. Little by little I found that I was very interested in the content and four years later I graduated as a chemistry teacher! If I wasn’t forced to take the classes in high school I would have made my own choices (as an inexperienced 14-18 year old), learned what I wanted to learn, avoided stuff I decided I wasn’t interested in, and would have missed out on a topic that took time to grow on my but is now my passion.
I believe that all students need to be exposed to some rules and limitations and content and not all 14-18 year olds are experienced enough to make decisions that will affect their future life. We do need some sort of system in place to guide them in these areas and like it was mentioned in many previous comments, there are a great number of teachers and administrators out there that are working to make the best possible decisions for these students and should be commended and not criticized for all of the problems in the public school system.
When it comes to the education of my children, I’m kind of like Zach Braff. I don’t like being punk’d.
I have three children. Two in a public elementary school and a fifth grader I am homeschooling this year. I’m homeschooling her because school was zapping the joy right out of learning, she wasn’t being challenged intellectually or academically, and the administration just didn’t get it. I just can’t wait for them to make sense of it all. Most importantly, my daughter cannot wait.
I plan on homeschooling the other two by the fall now that I’ve got my sea-legs. Neverthess, I consider myself a reluctant homeschooler. I wanted the public school system to work for us, I really did. It just wasn’t happening.
As much as I wish there was a better alternative, I can’t seem to find one. I’ve got a fifth grader capable of algebra, fascinated by history and science, learning Latin, and studying philosophy. At school was she being prepped for a mind-numbing, low-expectation, standardized test and reading droll abridged stories from a textbook. Math was a schizofrenic waste of time and history was practically non-existent.
For us, homeschooling has been the antitode to the black hole school had become. Not because her teachers didn’t care, not because the classrooms didn’t have the resources, and not because I didn’t do my very best to work with the powers that be to change things.
My youngest are in kindergarten and second grade. I have time to turn things around for them. For my fifth grader, however, it was really now or never. It had to be this year or she might have been lost. She may never have become the person she’s destined to be.
Teacher’s have the power to make that kind of life-changing difference in a child’s life, but I would argue that parents have the responsibility to make it happen.
Parents, if it’s not happening at school for your child right now, do something about it. Your child is counting on you.
This is part of the reason we’re homeschooling ALL THE WAY!!
I had to stumble this on to family.
I took my kids out of school and it wasn’t because of the teachers.
In fact, We were at the school and the teacher invited my son back to the class room to say hello to his ex-class. Yesterday, I had seen the teacher and gave over unopened Christmas candy red sprinkles. I figure with Valentine’s Day they might use it in the class.
The whole school is full of wonderful teachers. However, I really could not figure out how to motivate other parents to become involved.
It seems most of them sat out front to pick up their kid and voiced complaints to each other but never acted.
Good Luck!
I hope you reach the parent.
With me, I refused to sign my sons’ work because I felt my son is responsible for his planner! I fought the school on other levels. I thought they took too much out of my son’s hands. I was required to sign way to much crap.
I thought the teachers should send home the childs’ work with messages of encouragement to volunteer.
See if you can send friendly form letters home opening up the door of communication with the parents of your students. OFTEN! Don’t just assume one invitation will do.
Today, We had to be dragged back to the classroom before we really felt we should be there as guests. Then, We rushed out ASAP.
Fawn
I do of course agree one of the toughest jobs i have as a father is teaching my boys to think 4 themselves aginst what i concider to be the greatest disinformation center in the world in no way am i slamming edumacation but with fed. control one is olny taught what they want you to think (civil war…………slavery…….right ?????)
don’t worry about slamming edumacation, that’s what i’m here for.
if you feel that way, why are your kids in public schools? there must be a better way.
lets be honest im a soldier not a teacher and just like the teacher greatly underpaid 4 my service and dont know that privet school is any diffrent same gov. control
It’s for reasons exactly like these that we choose to homeschool. We don’t want our kids in that kind of system, but I feel really sorry for the families and kids who are in that system. And, misunderstanding homeschooling, many of them don’t understand why we homeschool…and…why our homeschooling style looks nothing.like.school!
This post is good, but it can be overwhelming … the school system needs fixing, but to say it is shattered drains away the hope. Parents need to address concerns in smaller pieces, in hoping to build together a larger truth. One thing that I try to bring to my children is outside influences that can build upon what they learn in school, and what they learn from me. I have an art background, and I find culture to be sorely lacking in the schools, and I think a website like http://www.artsology.com can help bring culture (appealing to kids in a FUN way) into their lives in a positive way … parents, please tell us about the “artsology” discoveries that you’ve found, so we can pool together our resources!
After being publicly schooled my husband and I chose to homeschool our children. Not because all teachers are bad or the enemy . We both had teachers that were special to us. It is that as you have posted the system is flawed. I truly hope that is fixable because there are so many children who have no other choice but to be in those schools.
I hope your voice continues to be heard.
Leticia
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Hey , you have a very good blog, its excellent information about education. You have done a great job, i read many blogs earlier about this topic.
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Taylor, I just happened on your blog. I am the parent of two kids in a supposedly great public school in New Orleans and I am frustrated and disappointed by the experience. This is how I think of it. Say you found a beautiful forest and you were walking through it, smelling and seeing and hearing everything, stopping to enjoy and explore. All of a sudden a robot gnome with a whiny mechanical voice is buzzing around your head, repeating, “8 times 6 EQUALS? 8 times 6 EQUALS?” You are expected to tear your attention away from the forest immediately. Worst of all, after a while, you become convinced that “8 times 6 equals” is in fact important … and the forest becomes, in your mind, an irritating obstacle.
Carry on.
“students are trained to bodily respond to the sound of a bell, at which time they will stop the learning and thinking they were doing to do what THEY say. ”
I remember feeling that way when I was in school, good blogpost.
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Classes at school play no more a major role in the intellectual development of your kids, but besides them there are various things that further enhance this development.
A great part of the time spent with your kid can be used more efficiently and with good results for education and for the strengthening of your parent – kid relationship.