This weekend I attended the Alternatives to Compulsory Education conference, presented by four speakers who wanted to begin a dialog about the need for alternatives and what they might look like. I am full of ideas and have decided that the best way to organize my response is to tackle each talk individually. I am hoping to be able to update this post with links to the video recordings of the talks.
The first presentation was by Cevin Soling, director of the documentary The War on Kids (available streaming on Netflix). Cevin's talk was darkly funny, deliberately provocative and radical. It really reminded me how I felt about school when I was fifteen. That's not an insult; I'm not saying his talk was like the shallow ranting of a naive teen. He validates the misery and suffering that many--most-- students feel when trapped in school. Here are some of my favorite points from the presentation, and the thoughts it prompted for me.
There is a nostalgia surrounding school, and many adults have a selective memory about their experience. There's a difference between liking school and remembering you liked it. Further, just because some people like a thing doesn't make it good. Did you like school? How did you feel about your teachers? What you were learning?
Failure is endemic to the system. Even if we created an ideal school with experienced teachers, low student:teacher ratios, and students with perfect home lives, 20-30% of students would be labeled failures. The system is set up so that there must be winners and losers, and someone has to score the worst on those standardized tests.
That point reminds me of the summer my husband taught a college physics class. This was during his grad school career. Chris is an effective teacher who worked hard to help his students understand the subject. He was given the "Distinguished Teaching Assistant" award for his dedication to his students. But because "too many of them" did so well in the class, the university re-normalized their grades to reflect an "ideal" bell curve. This curve did not reflect the rubric presented in the class syllabus. Chris and the students fought the changes, but the lowered scores remained, and Chris swore off a career as an instructor. What's the point of doing good teaching if the institution punishes your and your students' success?
Bullying is endemic to the autocratic structure of schools. We won't be rid of bullying as long as young people are legally required to attend institutions where their rights are violated and they have no power. Teachers bully students. In an environment like that, some kids will cruelly take out their aggression on other kids.
Compulsory schooling creates a monopoly on community. This is what people are really talking about when they ask homeschoolers, "What about socialization?" They don't mean that cliques and bullying are healthy ways to socialize children. They want to know how that child will experience community when all the other children are in school. The good news is that not all the children are in school, because many parents are choosing different options, then actively seeking out and creating communities.
We defang our arguments when we criticize school. Cevin criticized the TED Talk Do Schools Kill Creativity? for its polite descriptions of school's shortcomings. I know I have been guilty of this, diplomatic to a fault. Most teachers and administrators are very good, well-intentioned people. We all know what the road to Hell is paved with. But we're reluctant to offend anyone, because our relatives are teachers and all our friends send their children to school. We don't want to raise hackles lest people quit listening to us at all. I really struggle with this one.
"But Not in My School." A few teachers and administrators will admit that some schools are troubled, but assert that their school is a very nice place where students are respected. They will make these assertions even in the face of clear evidence to the contrary. The point here is that criticisms of compulsory school are not isolated examples that have been exaggerated. The problems are widespread: students are being abused, minor misbehavior is dealt with as criminal offense, rates of childhood mental illness are rising, and human beings cannot learn in these types of dysfunctional environments.
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