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.

"Smart Drugs" for Young People

Making the mistake of thinking that schooling is education can lead to a very large number of additional choices that make sense in one context but are completely different in another context. If we continue to think about schooling the way we do we will force young people to do things they are not meant to do nor do they do naturally. 

Here's a perfect example of the kind of thinking that will ultimately lead to more problems than it solves. Researchers are predicting the development and use of 'smart drugs' for 'enhancing' the memory, attention, mood, or motivation of young people.

Think about this. These are the things that 'schooling' values and requires: memory, attention, mood, and motivation. 

The fundamental underpinnings of schooling has the need to control the behavior of the 'student' in order for them to demonstrate they can repeat the desired behavior (repeat behavior and also regurgitate desired bits of content to demonstrate both paying attention and the form a learning that is valued by schooling - memory).

In fact repitition is the primary tool used to 'teach' specific subjects. 

It makes sense then  that at some point people involved with schooling would conjur up the 'bright idea' to develop drugs as a tool to enhance the things that are valued.

These same things that are valued in the current schooling system are some of the primary reasons why there are so many dropouts. The reason why mood, motivation, and attention are lacking in the schooling system is because the experience is NOT interesting nor connected to any other aspect of young people's lives. Humans have a natural ability to pay attention and be motivated when there is something that is interesting to them. People will naturally remember what they 'learned' when the experience they have is both interesting and challenging, and has some emotional component to the experience. 

Here is the article that stimulated this blog post:

Schoolchildren could be given 'smart drugs' in a bid to boost brainpower
By LAURA CLARK - Last updated at 9:32 PM on 19th September 2008

Schools will soon have to ensure all pupils have access to brain-enhancing 'smart drugs', according to officially funded experts.

They said teachers risk claims of bias against poorer children if they fail to give all pupils the same chance to take a new generation of pills which boost attention, concentration and memory.

Researchers predict that within a generation, cognition enhancing drugs - or 'cogs' - will be so advanced that parents and teachers will be able to 'manipulate biology' to enhance pupils' brainpower.

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It also predicted that within 25 years, so-called 'smart drugs' will be specific enough for pupils to choose drugs for particular mental faculties.

These could include improving memory, attention, mood or motivation.

Where are the people advocating for the interests of young people? How could we allow this thinking to continue and come to fruition. It is wrong and damaging. But without a change in thinking about the difference between schooling and education this kind of thing is almost inevitable. 

Where Did High School Come From

This blog is about building a case for redesigning our public schools. In several posts I have commented about the fact our schools are based on a model that was conceived and implemented some time around the 1870's. And it hasn't changed much. 

One thing I didn't know is where the design for high school came from. In reading the first chapter of a book called, Personalizing the High School Experience for Each Student, I have learned that it comes from a model to reach about 5% of the young people in this country - and it was developed in the 1890's. 

In a previous post I included a table that shows the graduation rates in US High Schools. Now that I understand that High School was really designed to graduate about 5% of the population I think we can reasonably say it's a miracle that more than 50% actually graduate. 

In our work we make a distinction between incremental innovation and breakthrough innovation. In a previous post I've asked the question whether schools as we know them need to be improved or redesigned. 

I hope we can see that it's time to provide support for the re-invention of public schools and to move beyond incremental improvements and get to breakthroughs. We are, or were, the innovation leader in the world. With a public school system that we have now that leadership is surely in jeopardy. 

Here's a quote from the first chapter of that book:

In the 1890s, Harvard College, a regional institute of higher education, desired to become a national university. To guide Harvard leaders in how to do this and to ensure that they would be getting students from across the country who were properly prepared to be successful in higher education, the college convened the Carnegie Commission. Yes, we're talking about that Carnegie Commission—the commission that decided that our high school students needed to earn course credits based on seat time. This 19th century concept, which is based solely on educating students who would be able to go on to Harvard, is still the basic organizing structure of our high schools in the 21st century.

The United States in the 1890s was a country whose population felt that an education past the 4th grade was a waste of time for most individuals. It was a country where high school was only for those who needed the connection between elementary school and higher education. It was a country where very few women and at most 5 percent of the young men went to college. That's who our high schools were designed to educate: 5 percent of our young men. The rest of our adolescents were employed in our mills, mines, and farms.

Schooling vs Education

I've been remembering - and thinking about - the fact that words and language have a lot of power. There are studies and entire bodies of knowledge about the power of words and the connection between words and mental images and mental models. 

For many years I have considered the system of public schools in this country to be an 'education system.' It wasn't until recently when I really understood the roots of the free public school system that I understood that the network of teachers and schools in this country was not intended to be an education system - but a schooling system. 

Does it matter? What's the difference between schooling and education? 

In many dictionary definitions for school and schooling the use of the word education finds its way into the text. In the following definitions from the web I have purposefully chosen a number of the sentences that do not refer to education. This may shed some light on this subject - or it may tend to annoy people. But let's look anyway.

Form the Free Dictionary: 

school·ing (skooling) n.

1. Instruction or training given at school.
   
2. Education obtained through experience or exposure: Her tumultuous childhood was a unique schooling.
   
3. The training of a horse or a horse and rider in equitation.
   

From Webster:

Schooling \School"ing\, n.

Discipline; reproof; reprimand; as, he gave his son a good schooling. --Sir W. Scott.

School \School\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Schooled}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Schooling}.]
To tutor; to chide and admonish; to reprove; to subject to systematic discipline; to train.

 

From Wikipedia:

Education encompasses teaching and learning specific skills, and also something less tangible but more profound: the imparting of knowledge, positive judgment and well-developed wisdom. Education has as one of its fundamental aspects the imparting of culture from generation to generation (see socialization). Education means 'to draw out', facilitating realization of self-potential and latent talents of an individual. It is an application of pedagogy, a body of theoretical and applied research relating to teaching and learning and draws on many disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, computer science, linguistics, neuroscience, sociology —often more profound than they realize—though family teaching may function very informally.

In my mind understanding the difference between schooling and educating is important. One reason this is important is because the system of schooling uses discipline and extrinsic motivation as a modality and a methodology - to "motivate" young people to learn. The formation of the free public school system in the United States was intended to provide the bare minimum for the poor to become good citizens.

A system of education uses intrinsic motivation and the natural desire of humans to learn and improve. A system based on internal motivation will support a person to achieve their full potential (move towards achieving their full potential) while a system of schooling will be satisfied with a minimum standard.

A system of schooling will intend to control and use discipline when students become noisy or out of control. A system of education will be based on relationships and respect. Discipline will be something one does because it is in their best interest and not because it is enforced from outside.

From Wikipedia on Schooling: 

Schools and their teachers have always been under pressure — for instance, pressure to cover the curriculum, to perform well in comparison to other schools, and to avoid the stigma of being "soft" or "spoiling" toward students. Forms of discipline, such as control over when students will and will not speak, and normalized behaviour, such as raising one's hand to speak, are imposed in the name of greater efficiency. Practitoners of critical pedagogy point out that such disciplinary measures have no positive effect on student learning; indeed, some would argue that disciplinary practices actually detract from learning since they undermine students' individual dignity and sense of self-worth, the latter occupying a more primary role in students' hierarchy of needs.

I think one of the reasons people involved in the public schooling system experience frustration when they attempt to make changes or improve is because there is confusion between what is schooling and what is education. I believe some of this confusion is caused because there is often overlapping and contradictory goals and objectives in each 'system.' 

Anyone engaged in a process of improvements would do themselves well by understanding these distinctions and clarifying their own goals and objectives relative to each system.

Unintended Consequences

I find it quite interesting that the intended goal for the education system was to provide the poor people in the US a way to learn discipline, order and just enough of the 'basics' (reading, writing, and arithmetic) in order to be good citizens (and reduce crime).

The unintended consequences of creating the free public school system is the dumbing down of the majority of the population rather than improving the lot of the minority of the population. Literacy levels in this country have actually declined since the introduction of free public schooling. Why is that?

I remember reading a book by John Gatto (former teacher of the year) called Dumbing Us Down: the hidden curriculum of compulsory schooling). I'm sorry to say that beyond 'getting it' on a superficial level I really missed the point that John was making.

Schools are designed to confuse, and to 'school' people - not educate them!

Duh. I guess I really am a slow learner. It brings tears to my eyes to re-read some of what he wrote in that book. The book I wanted to write has already been written!

Free - but Mandatory - Education

In May we visited Johannesburg, South Africa. While there we were fortunate to visit Soweto and to visit a small school. While there we learned some about Apartheid and how the whites used the education system to keep the blacks from learning much that might help them beyond being capable of much more than menial labor.

That got me to think about the origins of public schools in American. It also stimulated me to wonder if American schools were purposefully designed to keep people from learning certain things.

Over the last few weeks I have had an opportunity to explore the original foundations of free public schooling in America. What I learned has helped fill in some blank spots I've had about why things don't change in the education system.

The original founders of public schooling in American and in Britain really didn't want schools to be a place where smart people attended (or where smart people came out after being there). They wanted schools to be a place where the poor and not so smart could learn discipline and order and how to follow rules (so that society wouldn't have much crime and problems with them).

I had always thought that schools were designed to produce factory workers and good citizens. Factory workers being people that could work with their hands but not their minds and good citizens being people that could follow the rules. It wasn't until reading about these origins of public school that I've been able to see that being a 'good citizen' was the primary reason and that being a good factory worker just happened to be one of the applications of being a good citizen (and factory work was plentiful in the late 1800s and early 1900s).

At the time of creating free public schools there was an existing system and from what I read the majority of parents sent their children to school. But the school system that existed at the time (1800s through around 1870s) was made up of private schools (which were mostly religious). But schools tuitions were paid for by parents. Free public schools were created for the minority that couldn't afford to go to those religious private schools.

In the 1870's school became mandatory - law - and every state now has a law that says young people have to go to school at a certain age and must be in school until a certain age.

Over time parents began letting their children go to the free, public schools because of the money (free versus cost seems to win quite often). So now, the free, public school system is the dominant design and private schools are "only for the wealthy."

Given these early foundations it is pretty clear that changing the existing system is NOT of any priority and would take a significant change in the way of thinking by leaders. Of course there are small pockets of change. Home schooling is a movement away from the public school system. Unschooling is a movement away as well. And of course there are some schools that have bucked the trend and continue to make progress in becoming places of true learning.

More, Harder, Faster, Longer

For the past decade, Education Week has published a report called Quality Counts. The past reports have tracked state policies for improving K-12 education. This year's report is called Quality Counts 2007, From Cradle to Career and focuses on a number of different factors that states are trying in order to create a seamless education system. In this report there are ratings for every state on the chances a young person will have being successful if they go to school in that state.

I appreciate the intense effort and thinking that has gone into this report - and I feel the findings expressed in this report should generate some very valuable conversations in communities and states around the US.

My concern about a report like this - and the discussions that might follow - is that many people may decide that what is needed in order to improve education is to do what we are doing now - accept more, harder, faster or longer. My opinion about doing more of what we are doing now in the public education system is that results will only get worse.

Here's an example of a school system thinking that doing the same thing they are doing now, just more of it, will keep young people from quiting school. I think they will find, if they do this, they will only cause more young people to quit.

Durham: Keep kids in school to 18
With more teens quitting school, a debate reignites over whether North Carolina should boost its mandatory attendance age.

Here's a completely different example of a state thinking about limiting the options young people have to force them to stay in school.

Lawmakers could limit jobs for high schoolers
Data suggests that 150,000 students drop out of California's schools every year. To curb that trend, state lawmakers are looking into legislative options on such things as limiting the number of jobs for high schoolers or adding after-school tutoring. Hearings on those proposals and others will continue through March 14. The Sacramento Bee (Calif.) (free registration) (2/20)