Throughout my career as a high school principal, every dinner conversation was consumed with discussions about the problems I was encountering leading a large comprehensive high school. In the midst of one of these dinner conversations, my son made a comment that crystallized for me how students view schools in the United States. I cannot remember what I was saying about schools, but I do recall my son saying in exasperation, “Hey Dad, it’s high school.” If I could paraphrase my son’s succinct analysis of secondary education in America, it would go something like this:
Dad, relax. Stop getting so upset with student apathy towards learning, teacher indifference towards professional growth, the misplaced priorities of parents, the political moves of Superintendents and Boards of Education, and all the athletic events you have to attend. What high school is all about is what happens before and after school, during lunchtime, passing periods and on weekends. It has nothing to do with what happens in classrooms. Students understand this; teachers understand this; parents understand this. The only one that doesn’t seem to get it is you—so lighten up, it’s only high school.
My son’s glib analysis of schooling in America masks a deep divide between the realities of contemporary classroom learning and the kinds of schools students would like to attend. In the eyes of students, they learn best within a classroom where teachers allow them to work in groups and openly discuss their feelings and perceptions; students express dissatisfaction with a classroom where they sit all day and simply read textbooks. Students look for teachers who are patient and willing to provide additional explanations and help for the rough patches in class. Most importantly, students want adults throughout the school to respect and empower their individual talents, abilities, personalities, and cultural backgrounds.
The list of qualities students would like to see in the schools they attend can be reduced to one recommendation: We learn best when our emotions and affiliations are considered to be as important as intellectual development. There were moments in the history of the U.S. schooling when educators made valiant efforts to formulate curricula and school configurations accommodating the social and emotional as well as the intellectual development of the child. These educators, however, were unable to stand up to the vocational and social mobility goals of schooling.
Not only were these brief interludes into educating the whole child quickly discarded by efficiency-minded administrators, but the theories and practices associated with progressive approaches to schooling received the unshakable label of being too soft to produce graduates who could compete in a global economy. Instead of John Dewey’s hope for democracy in education, policymakers and school administrators opted for a configuration of schooling more suited to producing a compliant workforce and obedient consumers rather than the realization of the democratic and humanistic ideals proclaimed in school mission statements.
Alan C. Jones 