I wrote this article a year ago (4/3/11). It was the second of a five part series with the title Policies, Politicians, and School Reform. I am reprinting it today because many of the negative consequences I mentioned in the article are beginning to become more apparent: More children are coming to school hungry. More families are losing their homes. More parents are losing their jobs.More children are living and sleep with their parents in cars. And all this is especially true in states like Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, where their governors gave huge tax breaks to the rich corporations. It is apparent that the current Tea Party-Republican' trickle-down economic policies that has dominate our lives for the past 12 years aren't working. It's time to get rid of them. The article follows:
As promised, today I will address one of the common myths in education: The classroom teacher plays the most important role in educating children.
This is false. Most of a child’s learning, which begins before birth, takes place outside of school. (Do the math!) In fact, the pre-school years (birth to ages four/five) are considered to be the most important periods for developing the prerequisites for later learning success. They include early literacy (reading and writing skills), pre-math skills (sequencing, conservation, spatial skills, numbers sense, numeration…), metacognition, self-confidence, self-esteem, creativity, and many others.
The current national education slogan “Every Child Can Learn” is the wrong perspective of a correct concept. It excludes the vast and important types of knowledge and skills a child acquired since birth. “Every Child Has Learned and Will Continue Learning” is a more accurate and informative view of this concept. It is also more useful because “what a child learned,” more than anything else, always determines “what a child will be taught.”
Although most of us, who have never taught in a classroom, would like to believe that America’s children go to school with “bright eyes and bushy tails” – eager, ready, and prepared to learn – nothing can be further from the truth. Yes, most students fit this description, but an ever growing number do not: They include children, whose homes are their family cars; children of domestic and sexual abuse, child with parents in jail; children, who are constantly being moved from one foster home to another; children, whose parents are drug addicts; children, whose nightly sleep are always interrupted by fights between parents, or one parent abusing the other, or police visits that culminates with one parent going to jail; And the list goes on and on. However, regardless of the types of knowledge and skills the child acquired, the essential point here remains true: Most of a child’s learning takes place outside of school, and the content of their learning determines when, where, what, why, and how the child will be taught: Negative “lessons learned” will need to be replaced by positive lessons. Positive “lessons learned” will need to be reinforced with more positive lessons, but there is a growing problem here: Many of the fundamental positive beliefs that children learn from their parents and their teachers are no longer reinforced by the communities, the states, and the nation. And that makes the lessons difficult to teach. For example, how can a teacher honestly tell a child “If you work hard, you will get ahead,” when he’s on the verge of loosing a portion of his salary and some of his benefits – despite his hard work? How can he convince this child, whose home in foreclosure because his hard working parents, who also told him “If you work hard, you will get ahead,” are now unemployed?
Yes, many of us can recall a special teacher that played a significant role in our lives. Perhaps, it was the teacher that saw a special talent in us that no one else saw. And yes, for some of us that were less fortunate than others, the teachers might have been the only ones that believed in us. However, when most of us think back to our school days, we also remember parents that provided structure and discipline in a nurtured, loving, encouraging environment. We remember communities that provided the support and security for us to grow and develop. Most importantly, we remembered a time when positive lessons taught to us by our parents and teachers were reinforced throughout society: “If you work hard, you will get ahead" wasn’t just a possible outcome; it was the most likely outcome.
In tomorrow’s blog (Policies, Politicians, and School Reform --Part 3), I will the second myth in education: Schools should hire the best and the brightest teachers.
