Do Schools Harm Children?

Some friends of mine are engaged in instigating a really important conversation in their community. Minority parents and students have been attempting to show how the schools are profiling certain young people as potential gang members and forcing them in one way or another to leave school – primarily to improve their drop-out and graduation numbers.

As many as 100 young people have already left one of the schools through these means.

The conversation that has begun is about developing something that will although these young people an opportunity to experience more of life and achieve some or all of their goals – while removing the typecasting and stigma of an ‘uneducated’ person.

I applaud this and really, truly hope that something good can come of it. It even looks like some school personnel are willing to participate in this conversation.

I know it’s hard as someone involved in the schooling system to continue to want to do good – and do the best you can – while all around you there are challenges and criticisms about what’s going on. Much of what’s going on is not your fault. At the same time much of what is going on is actually harming young people.

Do Schools Harm Young People?

The following is part of a note I wrote to my friends in this community. This is the first time I’ve been public in this explicit a way with one of the most important insights I’ve had about schools and schooling.

I am only posting one side of the conversation here. I am not including the many emails that have gone back and forth about why this kind of thing happens (profiling and forced drop-outs) but I am posting my response which refers to how and why I believe some of this activity might come about. I am open to any and all comments and further conversation about this.

Here’s part of my email:

One of the clearest and most powerful ways I can communicate about how schooling and education are different is by using the example of American Indian Boarding Schools. The methodologies used in those schools are the very same methodologies used in every public school in the United States today – in varying degrees and some less than others. We really have to understand that public schools are not healthy for young people. They never were intended to do anything like what we have talked about and what you are talking about doing this evening and with the entire community inclusion and transformation process.

The same tactics and intentions were used in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, to destroy existing native cultures and South Africa during apartheid to control and limit blacks from getting anywhere beyond the ghettos. Schools are tools for white oppressors to dominate and control the poor, native people and people of color – and anyone from another culture.

No one that I know would admit to this publicly. That’s one reason why I’m only copying a few of you.

A few of the tactics that are evident (and this is not an exhaustive list) in the use of schools to destroy people and cultures are:

• taking responsibility away from the parents and family
• separating children from their homes and their parents
• forcing the use of another and non-familiar language (English)
• not allowing elements of existing cultures to be present – be it language, dress, or cultural idiosyncrasies
• celebrating sameness and removing difference
• corporal punishment and force for non-compliance
• grading, ranking, dividing, profiling, and segregating children by achievement or any criteria
• a forced and controlled curriculum
• mandatory attendance
• separating the school from the rest of the community (insulating the school from the community)
• social injustice and inequity

The racial profiling that has been discussed that is happening Capital is likely happening in every school everywhere to some degree or another. This is a natural part of the “schooling” process and one of the reasons I have harped on making this distinction so hard. Needless to say it’s harmful to individuals and ultimately very harmful to society.

What Miguel has suggested for the conversation this evening – and for the larger conversation – is about helping young people feel wanted and to feel a part of something that helps them develop their own identities and self-expression while in the context of learning and serving. These few concepts are anti-thetical to school and schooling and CANNOT be a part of what we know of as school. Something else has to be created to do that.

There is one more thing for this short rave. The young people that are being pushed out and/or dropping out are the smart ones. I doubt that many people around them can see how smart they really are (although John G made reference to this in one of his emails). These young people deserve our respect and our best thinking and resources.

This conversation you will be having this evening and the ones that follow could be the most important conversations any of us have ever had. The seeds for brilliance are there.

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