Before I began writing full time, I spent a couple years teaching in a rather rough urban area. To illustrate: one of the campus cops also worked a nearby street as a part of an undercover prostitution sting. Students were regularly subjected to lock-downs, security checks, fights, and administrative drama. The majority of teachers worked hard but were under a tremendous amount of stress.
It wasn’t an easy job, but I came away with memorable experiences and some insight about the nature of learning and the education system as a whole. Here’s what I discovered:
1. Failure must be a choice. When I began teaching, I wanted to tell my students that failure was not an option. The problem is that, for anyone capable of independent thought, failure must be an option. When you tell a thinking person that they cannot fail, you’re saying, “I will try to control you and force you to succeed by my definition. If you still don’t meet those standards, I’ll lower the bar until you do.” An effective teacher wants her students to make it. But, ultimately, people must choose success on their own.
2. Learning rarely occurs in the absence of respect. In all my time spent observing other teachers, I noticed that respect is the key to creating a workable mentor/mentee relationship. People don’t need to like someone to learn from them. But, without mutual respect, knowledge can rarely be transferred.
3. Compulsion breeds chaos. Compulsory education is the biggest problem with the way high schools are run. If learning was a choice, most students would decide to continue their schooling. Instead of attending against their will and lowering the quality of lessons for everyone else, people who did not want to go to school would find employment or vocational training. Don’t think we really “force” students to attend? Think again. In the area where I worked, parents of habitually absent students were called and told they had to attend a mandatory meeting. They were threatened with fines and visits from the police if their son / daughter didn’t continue going to school. Forcing capable teenagers to learn by sitting at a desk and meeting our arbitrary requirements for eight hours a day is just crazy.
4. Reading is the foundation for learning. When I met my first class of ninth graders, many admitted that they had never read a complete book before. Ten years of schooling and not a single book…Yikes! [click to continue…]
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