Why Schools Fail...Part 1

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about the educational system. While I would like to tell you that I left education 100% because I wanted to become a nurse, the reality is that the percentage is more like 60%, still a majority, but nothing to write home about. Most people guess that you leave teaching because of the kids. I tell a college classmate that I used to teach middle and high school, and they automatically give me a look and a nod-it's as if to say, "oh, yeah-I get it. I'd be here too if I'd had to deal with teenagers." I cannot reiterate this point enough-most teachers do not leave education because of their students, and I certainly did not. If it had just been me and my "kids", it probably would've been enough to stay. The students, the teenagers in my case, were loved with every bit of my being, just like that of a parent and a child. A few of the boys even called me their second mom, because I would nag and get onto them just like their mother! They knew though that it only meant I cared. I taught a lot of good kids, in third grade and then in middle and high school. There is no such thing as a bad kid, and if there was ever a child I encountered that I thought fit the bill, I felt way different when I understood why they were acting out. No, teachers leave because of policy, politics, funding and administration-weave those undeniably and irrevocably together, and you have yourself one hot mess (and not in the good Kesha way!). 

I tell Barrett that if money were no object, I'd start my own charter or private school. It would be a high school only to start with, and would focus on meeting kids where they are at to encourage learning. I would have vocational connections and programs galore, preparing kids for the real world, and honing in on what they are good at, not forcing them to all learn the same way. I would have intensive college and career advising, and classes would cater to the biological gender differences in the way that boys vs. girls learn (the topic of my well-received Master's thesis). Yes, if money were no object and I didn't have a family to devote time to (and wasn't 60% more interested in healthcare), I could be a true crusader for education. The problem is though, that I'd have to start from the ground up. I could romanticize the idea of running a school as an administrator, but their hands are usually quite tied when it comes to some things too. No, I'd have to begin my own school, Academy West (as it is named in my head), recruit the best teachers, and make my plan for education work. And believe you me, if I thought that it was doable, I would. I would be competition for my 2 former employers, and throw out what they did wrong and combine the things they did right.

It is my belief that if you were a school, and you could hire good teachers (the kind that care about making learning interesting), and then turn a subject matter fully and completely over to them...yeah-you'd have some good teaching going on. I mean, tell them the standards, we know how to align that stuff, and give them some funds to choose their own curriculum to use for the next few years (it should be updated at least every five in my opinion), and you would be on your way to accomplishing everything you set out to do: teachers that are excited to teach and students that are excited to learn (and the unspoken goal: excellent test scores!).  This is very rash, I know-actually putting teaching in the hands of the teachers. Mistake #1 that even the "best" schools make, is letting other people choose the materials teachers use, and then forcing the teachers to use them. Let me put it to you like this. Let's say that you make a world-class apple pie (just go with me here). You sometimes change up your recipe, and each time your pie is downright delicious. Now, I'm going to tell you that I am going to buy the ingredients for you, and the pie plate and roller. I am going to supply you with everything you need (oh, you can thank me later), but you should know that I bought you the cheapest ingredients I could find, slightly used even (but there should maybe still be enough), and I want you to use this recipe I found over here that takes some of the special spices out because there just isn't time, and I want you to make your world-class apple pies. I expect you to make them, and for them to be every bit as delicious as they always have been. If you are grinning while you read, it is likely because you realize the absurdity of my analogy. The apple pies were only world-class because the baker had baking them down to an art. Do you follow? This is what happens in education. Teachers are given limited (sometimes no) supplies and told to teach the specific things (learning objectives) that they need to, without any of the resources to make great teaching happen. Sure, you have had great teachers, or your kids have...and in the utmost unpolitically correct fashion I will say that yes, I was one of the good ones. 

Do you know how they did it? Well, I can tell you that 40 hours a week does not make good lesson plans, not when those 40 hours are full of instruction time and various other duties as assigned (and there are always other duties). I can tell you that a measly few hundred a year (if I was lucky) to run an entire department full of 5 teachers and at least 8 different courses was not even close to being enough to do hands-on science, the way that science is correctly taught. I can also tell you that I had no qualms claiming the $500/year teacher tax write-off for supplies every year I taught, because in all reality I spent between $50-150 each month on my classroom. That's an average of $100 each month, including summers (when I usually spent even more to restock stuff), and I can tell you that it is not even close to being an overstatement that I spent at least $1,200 per year, each year on materials to help make my teaching come alive. I am not talking fancy curriculum here (though I drooled over the catalogs), I am talking simple things, like the ingredients for multiple science experiments, art supplies to make learning connections, and basic necessities, like dry-erase markers (You have to hoard those, because the schools give you some, but come about March, their supply is all gone!). Good teachers are only good because they pour their hearts, energy, time and money into being good...often leaving not much for their families that they come home too. 

People who make decisions about curriculum are often not even educators. Board members that work at local factories and businesses decide which spelling program the school should use. Then they decide if it is cost-effective. They decide that if new math books are needed this year, the 15 year-old health books will have to wait. All the while never asking the teachers. Because heaven forbid that the people actually using the material day in and day out should get to help select it, vote on it, have some sort of a say. No, the teachers are usually sent to a boring training to learn the new curriculum they are told they have to teach, and the powers that be think the teachers should be grateful-after-all they finally got something new. Teachers are resourceful creatures. Take them to a school budget meeting, and they will tell you the things that can be skimped on, and the things that are a waste of money, and the things that absolutely should be of higher quality. I could rant about poor curriculum all day, but this is enough for now. Mistake #1 that the educational system makes: taking teaching decisions away from the teachers.