Got to thinking about the troubles, fears and discomforts of childhood - the dark and now the humorous part. For me, that was 50 years ago. Is your memory of childhood different from mine? Maybe you weren't troubled. Girls, maybe you had a wholly different perspective on trouble. If your childhood was only 10 or 20 years in the past, maybe your trouble was more digitized or electrified.
I'm inviting you to comment on my list of childhood troubles. Suggest additional words. Help me see the other perspectives.
Teenagers striving for coolness: It’s a dangerous thing.
Shi was a good student who stayed in chronic trouble –
coming to school late, skipping classes, cracking jokes and spending much time
in ISS (in-school suspension). His
first day in high school, he got off the bus, went straight to MacDonald’s,
then arrived an hour late for classes.
Within a few weeks, the lady in the school office knew him so well that
when he finally arrived she had his late slip completed with name and date and
only had to fill in the arrival time. The breezeway between school buildings
was a noisy place where students congregated to brag about smoking, drinking
and partying. Getting to class on
time was not easy. ISS was often so full there were not enough desks. When Shi was in class he rarely paid
attention; but he always did his homework and maintained good grades.
Then his older brother was killed in the early morning hours
while involved in something no-good. “I told you it was going to end-up this
way,” his stepfather said. It was a life-changing event, but initially not in a
good way. “I wanted those people to pay for what they did,” Shi said. Angry and confused, life seemed
pointless. Hanging out with friends and wandering aimlessly around the
neighborhood, he rarely went home until late in the evening. “You’re going to
end up just like your brother,” his mother told him. Her comment fueled his
anger.
At some point, Shi realized his mother was right. He had some tough choices to make. Bad forces were pulling him down.
Fortunately, he was admitted to the Middle College at NC A&T University and
found a different peer group – students more interested in academics than in making
trouble. Now he is a senior with
an opportunity to graduate from high school with some college credits - if he
hangs-on.
Shi told this story to Dick Gordon, host of The
Story, heard daily on public radio.
“Do you worry about going back to your old ways?” Gordon was
asked him.
“Yea, it could happen.”
“Why? What could pull you away from all you have gained?”
He was silent for a moment then Shi said, “East Market
Street.”
“I don’t understand.
What’s on East Market St?”
He laughed. “All those things that nobody needs. You can get it right down there –
drugs, alcohol, sex, gangs.”
“But why would you go back to that?”
Silence again, then, “That’s where my friends are. And my family. My people. My father, my cousins and aunts and uncles. They’re all on
East Market. That’s where they do what they do. Sometimes I go there.”
Before Shi was a student at A&T’s middle college, he was
a student at Smith High School, one of four large urban high schools in Greensboro.
Smith, along with Dudley High School, serves mostly minority students. They are
Title I schools with large numbers of students living in inner city poverty. It is difficult to be either a student
or a teacher in these high schools. Last week, a Dudley student left
in-school suspension, returned to the classroom where she had been dismissed
and beat and severely injured the teacher. A student posted a photo of the teacher lying disheveled and
unconscious on the floor.
For students to succeed academically at these schools, they have to reject
the prevailing culture.
We tolerate the conditions in these failing schools because
we are isolated from them. A few miles across town from Smith High School is an
equally large but academically more successful school – Grimsley High School.
Here are the 2012 SAT results for the two schools:
Smith: 122 students tested; 802 average math and reading
scores
Grimsley: 303 students tested; 1077 average math and reading
scores
The Grimsley students are bound for UNC and other good
universities. Smith students are
mostly bound for GTCC where they will take remedial classes before they can be
admitted to real college classes.
It is far easier to point to the problem than to a
solution. Some schools are
failing, but they are the symptom (not the cause) of the real problems –
neighborhoods in economic distress, fatherless families, rampant teenage
pregnancies, gangs and hopelessness. We rarely produce enduring reform in
schools in these failed neighborhoods. We could, but it requires a long-term
commitment from very talented teachers and administrators. As Guilford County
Schools so clearly demonstrates, a principal who institutes noticeable
improvement in a failing school is on the fast track to a better assignment in
a better neighborhood. Struggling schools are not places where good teachers
want to work. Grimsley High School
has 19 teachers with National Board Certification. Smith has seven. Dudley has three.
At this point, for children born in these zones of failure,
it is a matter of individual strength. Shi found strength and clarity about his
future in the nick of time. Mothers and fathers must fight for the safety and
well being of their children. The power has to come from within: one mother,
one father, one teenager at a time. It is easy to think we are disconnected
from these people and their stories. Shi is a voice on the radio. The beaten
teacher becomes a statistic. His attacker’s picture in the paper is just
another criminal on the other side of town. But we are not disconnected people
with separate stories. Their stories are a part of our stories – stories with
no real ending, stories that flow together into a larger and unfinished book.
Three year old Sarah brought to me a piece of paper on
which she had written:
X T O
T X O
O T X
“Daddy, Daddy,” she said. “Look what I wrote.”
I looked at it and smiled. “That’s good writing. I’m
proud of you,” I said.
“Would you like me to read it to you?” she asked.
“Sure.”
Sarah pointed to the top line and said, “That says
‘Daddy’.” Then she pointed to the second line and said, “That says ‘Sarah’.”
Pointing to the last line she said, “That says ‘Maxie’.”
“That’s great. Now you’re writing and reading words.”
“Yea, I’m going to read them to Mom.”
I truly was impressed.
Sarah did not know all the letters and knew nothing about spelling, but
at three years old she understood some important aspects of how printed
language works. She knew that -
○Writing
is a means of communicating. Spoken
words are represented by written symbols.
○Words
are comprised of letters, not numbers or other symbols.
○The
same letters can be arranged in different orders to produce different words.
○Print
is read from the top of a page to the bottom of the page.
Young
children have remarkable abilities to learn language simply by mimicking the
language at home. That natural language ability applies to written language
when there is plenty of written language around home to be mimicked. My children had that opportunity. They were
read to daily from birth. There were
hundreds of children’s books in our home. Scattered around the floors and
furniture, a book was always within reach. By age three, Sarah had heard her
favorite stories read so many times, usually on someone’s lap with a finger
pointing to the words, she could pretend-read them to her younger brother.
Instruments
for writing and drawing were equally pervasive. It began with a fat crayon
tucked in a small fist making circles, loops and line. In a few months abstract
art became recognizable figures. Incomplete figures became more complete.
Scribbles became letters and, by age three, letters were arranged in a
deliberate order that demonstrated some of the proper conventions of writing.
By the
end of kindergarten, Sarah could write and spell a dozen or so words - mostly
proper nouns - the names of family, friends and pets. In 1986, kindergarten
children were not pushed beyond that level of skill. Independent reading and
the writing of sentences were saved for first grade.
First
grade and, to some extent, second grade were not particularly good school years
for Sarah. The contentofreading and writing was tedious and boring. The short, simple
stories with limited vocabulary were bland. Near the end of second grade, she
got her hands on a Judy Blume book, It’s Not the End of the World, a
chapter book about divorce for older readers. I’ll never know why she was
attracted to that book, but she read it, perhaps because of something she
feared. Maybe she knew a classmate whose
parents were getting divorced.
My
daughter’s early experience with written language illustrates that a child can
go, within two years, from being a non-reader in kindergarten to an independent
reader who can read a lengthy book with a complicated story. It can happen
quickly, even when school-based instruction is not particularly useful or
interesting.
There are obvious limits to what can be inferred from
this story. Sarah is only one child and does not represent all children. Gender
and genetics could a factor. However, there are well known principles in this
story that everyone should understand:
●Humans
are biologically programmed to learn language early in life. The longer it is
delayed, the harder it gets.
●Home
and family are key factors. In a language-rich home, learning language happens
naturally without formal teaching.
●Compared
to a language-rich home, the language of school can be both technical and
limited. Teachers will likely encourage listening and reading while
discouraging talking and limiting writing.
●Mothers,
fathers, siblings, extended family and neighbors are the first and most
powerful teachers. They provide the language playground young children inhabit.
Generalizing the value of family literacy beyond my
personal experiences is problematic. A fourth of our nation’s children live in
poverty - the highest percentage in any industrialized country. I am an
educated man with the means and desire to raise my children in a literate home.
But poverty does not have to be an obstacle to literacy. It is not costly. Literacy is a cultural tradition, not unlike
the kind of food we eat. Words,
sentences, stories, poems and information are free to anyone who chooses to
avail them. All parents possess life stories. They own points of view, ideas,
songs, rhymes and information to be shared. We have access to libraries with a
deeper and longer view of culture. With
these possessions parents can build a language world that leads children to
literacy.
Read for yourself. Read to our children.
Take dictation from children and let them watch as their words become print.
Let them trace their words. Soon, they
will be reading and writing to us. Soon they will become the newest member of a
literate community.
In a presentation to our Greensboro College faculty,
Chaplain Robert Brewer shared information about the spiritual lives of our
students. Over 60% feel the college supports their spiritual life (important note – we are a
small, Methodist affiliated college). In addition to reporting on our students,
Chaplain Brewer shared information from national studies of the spiritual life
of college students. He seemed
dismayed. I was not surprised.
Religious affiliation of college students declines during
the college years. According to a survey of several thousand students, only 11%
entered college claiming no religious affiliation, but 24% left college
claiming no religious affiliation. Christian students showed confusion and
ambivalence toward their faith.
They associated Christianity with good values and principles, but also
believed Christians are judgmental, hypocritical, anti-gay and too involved in
politics. Other studies of college-age Christians found their core beliefs can be reduced to "being nice", and that being nice entitles
them to comfort and happiness. The studies also showed that college students
find their Christian faith does not help them withstand the “storms” of life,
and that it is a faith that does not last beyond high school.
My response to the chaplain was that he was describing a
stage of life that should not surprise him. After all, the studies focused on a time in life where young
people step outside their familiar circle of family and friends and embark on a
spiritual journey with new powers of reasoning that make it easy to be skeptical
of absolutes and confused by the contradictions in their faith. After all, his own
report acknowledged that the faith of childhood does not prepare young adults
for complex concepts like forgiveness, loving your enemies, compassion,
sacrifice, concern for others and justice.
Let me personalize this:
Nine years old: I lay on my back in the grass, sunlight
fading away, a sliver of moon above the eastern horizon, a few early stars
glimmering in the violet sky. Where was God? Maybe the stars were portals in the dome of the universe
and, if I had a spaceship, I could get close enough to see through a portal
into heaven. The preacher said God was watching over us and could see all that
we do, that if we had faith in Him and did our best, we would go to
heaven. Where was heaven? On the other side of the dome? On Sunday mornings, we pursued God and
heaven. Days ended with homage to
the pursuit. Mom knelt by my bed as I prayed. “Now I lay me down to
sleep . . . if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to
take.” Rote speaking, difficult to
ponder.
Going to church was a weekly ritual. We all went to church,
and I mean ALL - mom, dad, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. Church was
about sin and salvation. Sermons were pointed and fierce. Backsliding within
the family was easily recognized and much talked about.
I wanted to be in the circle and safe from Hell. But I
wasn’t always good. I stole candy bars from the service station on the corner. And prayed about it. I wanted to be made new and better. After being
immersed in the baptismal waters, I checked my status the next day. I pinched
my arm, wiggled my toes and waited for God’s voice to confirm that I was a new
boy. An inkling of confusion came upon me when I could not discern any
difference. From that day until now, life has been occasional moments of
holiness interrupting a steady-state of non-holiness and backsliding.
My spiritual journey took its first detour during my college
years when I became un-churched. I might be wrong, but I think that is the way
it has to happen for some of us. We have to step
outside the circle of what we have inherited and find out where we really
belong. Maybe some of us belong
within our spiritual inheritance, but I don’t think we know until we step
outside of it and test it’s strength. College empowered me to be more fearless
about matters of faith.
Many in my family would say I have lost my faith. I have
long since accepted my spiritual state.
Backsliding is now someone else’s term. I’m not a holy person, but I find spirituality, sometimes in
a church, but often in a book, or in colors and textures of the earth and the
sound and feel of water and wind. I have known people of many different faiths,
Christian and non-Christian. I have friends who never speak of religious faith,
but in their capacity for love and forgiveness I sense something strong and
good. In the places I have been and the people I know, I am confident I belong to
something bigger and more eternal than myself. That may not be satisfactory for you, but that’s between you and God.
As we approach the start of
another school year let’s consider some wisdom from our old friend
Socrates.
The power to learn is present in everyone’s soul.
Socrates located learning in the
soul. He and his contemporaries viewed the soul as the essence of the human. For
the Greeks, the soul included the functions of reason, emotions and “appetites”
(desires). For Socrates, the soul was the engine of learning. This is not a modern idea. At least in the domain of secular
education, the soul is out of bounds.
The brain is the body’s organ responsible for learning. I am a student of modern
education. I believe in the
usefulness of modern theory and practice about teaching and learning. It
provides scientific information about how teachers teach and learners learn.
Would-be teachers are advised to study it carefully. I also believe Socrates was correct in indentifying the soul
as the agent that powers learning.
We are, regardless of age, in
charge of our own learning. Good
teachers draw students’ attention to their lessons. They ignite memory,
understanding and action. Good teachers control many aspects of learning, but
they do not control the soul of a student. It is difficult to connect with a
soul that is fearful or depleted. If the body is hungry or is lacking sleep,
learning is impeded. If the mind is distracted or addled by desire, learning is
delayed. Learning happens under the conditions of hope, curiosity and a
yearning to understand. Teaching
based on authority and technique may have short-term benefits for some, but
true teaching reaches deeper and balances reasoning, emotions and
appetites. True teaching empowers
the soul to continue learning in the absence of the teacher.
Here is the larger context of Socrates’ statement about
learning and the soul:
The power to learn is present in everyone’s soul. The
instrument with which each learns is like an eye that cannot be turned around
from darkness to light without turning the whole body. . . Education takes for
granted that sight is there but that it isn’t turned the right way or looking
where it ought to look, and it tries to redirect it appropriately.
Notice the turning from darkness to light metaphor - from
blindness to seeing, from ignorance to understanding. Notice the reference to turning the whole body, which
explains why schooling in ancient Greece began with physical training and the
arts. And finally, learning is
re-directive. The soul that
believes it is on the right path and has no need for more knowledge is not the
learning soul.
Another piece of wisdom from Socrates:
The virtue of reason seems to belong above all to something
more divine, which never loses its power but is either useful and beneficial or
useless and harmful, depending on the way it is turned.
Socrates refers
to our ability to reason as a divine endowment - but with qualification. Our endowed
reasoning can become either a beneficial tool or a harmful tool, “depending on
the way it is turned”. Socrates
placed the responsibility for directing and nurturing the soul on parents and
educators:
Good education and upbringing, when
they are preserved, produce good natures, and useful natures, who are in turn
well educated and grow up better than their predecessors . . . Those in charge
must cling to education and see that it isn’t corrupted without their noticing
it.
It is a vital
responsibility we have. It leaves me mystified. I have tried to be a good
parent. My children have become good adults, but I think I was lucky to have
children born with “good natures”. The outcome of my teaching has been
mixed. I’ve helped many children
improve their reading and writing. Many of my college students have become good
teachers with enduring careers.
But I admit: I have lost many souls. Students have not always been
attentive. Their minds have wandered. I have no evidence of their turning.
Think about
that. And more frightfully, think about the indirect but harmful results of education:
weapons of mass destruction and deceit, clever but greedy souls manipulating
laws and economies, obfuscating technologies, industry destroying the natural
order, and a soulless culture addicted to entertainment.
If you object
to the inclusion of the soul as the agent of learning, then you must find some
other comparable concept or mechanism that empowers learners to learn. And to seek the good
in themselve and others.
The quotes are
from Plato’s Republic, (1992),
translated by G.M.A. Grube, published by Hackett Publishing Co., Indianapolis,
Indiana.
Hacker makes at least two
main points: (1) The current algebra curriculum has little practical relevance
for students, except for the 5% entering the work-force in careers like
producing animated movies, developing investment strategies or setting airline
ticket prices. (2) Proficiency in algebra is a major stumbling block to high
school graduation and success in college.
Hacker’s proposed revision of the math curriculum would
involve better teaching of practical math for our personal and professional
lives. Instead of pure algebra and
calculus, students would be taught the history of math and how math is applied
to professions. The standard math
achievement (for the 95% who will never directly apply algebra) would be mastery
of basic math needed for personal finance, measuring, estimation, and “citizen
statistics” (understanding the reliability of numbers and how we use numbers to
describe important issues).
Many who oppose Hacker’s view argue that algebra plays an
important role in developing reasoning and problem solving skills. They suggest
it is a form of mental training. Like an athlete who lifts weights to improve physical performance, students study advanced forms of intellectual
disciplines to improve thinking and reasoning. I’m not sure about the accuracy
of this analogy. The brain is not
a muscle. But, if we’re going to have schools, we should aim to develop
advanced thinking skills. We don’t
just need advanced thinking skills for work, we need them to solve complex
problems at home and in our personal lives. I doubt we can develop those skills without putting students
through a rigorous math curriculum.
The debate should not be about whether or not to teach
algebra, or to whom. We can teach
math to young children in ways that lead to success in algebra. Children
manipulate objects to solve problems. They sort, group, count and rearrange
things when adding and subtracting and learning geometry. Algebra is the use of
symbols to represent unknowns in math problems. In the equation x + 2 = 7, “x” represents the unknown. Algebraic
reasoning allows us to find the numeric value of “x”. Algebra is thinking
symbolically about the physical realities of the universe. Sal Kahn provides a more
thorough and inspiring explanation in his introduction to algebra.
Here is a relevant story from my recent observation of
kindergarten mathematics:
A teacher began a
math unit with a pretest that required her 20 kindergarteners to solve two
types of problems: (1) If I have 3 apples and you have 4 apples, how many
apples do we have together? (2) If together we have 5 apples, and you have 3
apples, how many apples do I have?
She read the problems to the students and gave them paper apples to help
work the problems. Five students solved the first problem, but only 1 of 20
solved the second problem.
After several days
of practicing similar problems, always using objects to arrange, group, add and
subtract, the teacher gave another test. Eighteen of 19 students solved the
first problem and 11 of the 19 students solved the second problem.
The teacher was
disappointed in the results, but I was surprised by how many students solved
both problems. Some of the
students were only 5 years old. Previously, kindergartener math instruction
taught children only to recognize numbers and count objects. Addition and subtraction were first
grade math. In 2012, good kindergarten teachers show children how to add and
subtract by thinking “algebraically”. The children do it surprisingly well if the teacher demonstrates
the process and provides plenty of practice.
We should rethink
the context and method of teaching algebra. Without the manipulation of objects and without the
application of algebra to the real world, many students will miss its purpose -
to think logically about how the universe works.
Algebra is not the
only tool for abstract reasoning. Grammar is an abstraction of language. “Subject + predicate = sentence” is an
abstraction of a simple sentence structure. Obviously, we can learn and use
language rather well without knowing its grammatical structures and principles;
but, learning grammar and using it to fine-tune our use language is relatively
easy as long students are capable of thinking abstractly about language. Failing
grades in grammar results from the same flawed teaching methods that makes
algebra difficult to learn – instruction that relies too much on the students’
memory of “rules” and not enough on students’ understanding of the relationships
among things.
The highest level of
schooling, whether it occurs in high school, college, university or graduate
school, should produce learners who can think and reason abstractly. Algebra and grammar are tools of
abstract reasoning and we’ve got to teach those disciplines at the times and in
the manner that nurture thinking, reasoning, and abstracting about the natural
and human world. Teaching algebra
in the context of real objects and real-world problems must be added to
drilling students in proper mathematical procedures. Teaching grammar in the context of meaningful and
interesting language is the only effective way to teach grammar. But we cannot set a precise deadline by
which all students show mastery of these abstract disciplines. We must allow for the natural
variations in human ability. Believing that all students can apply abstract
reasoning (without the use of real objects or meaningful language) by a
particular age is the flawed belief of people who never mastered algebra or grammar.
“Change them signs, two at a time . . . Change them signs, two
at a time,” Ms. Collins’ Georgia drawl echoed off the concrete walls as she walked
up and down the isles of her algebra class. She bent over James’ left shoulder as she squintedat his ciphering through her
wire-rimmed glasses. Suddenly, she jumped back, pointed at his
paper and said, “Boy, I told you.“ She began pounding rhythmically with both
hands on his shoulders. “Change them signs, to at a time . . . Change them signs,
two at a time.” The students behind them suppressed their snickers as James’
face turned beet red.
In 1966, Ms. Collins, a legendary spinster, was Marion High
School’s most eccentric teacher.
No one crossed paths with Ms. Collins, nor failed to do her homework,
nor willingly offered a solution to an algebra problem (except of Mason the Bully).
Her poundings on boys’ backs were more embarrassing than
painful. But then there was her
ruler. If the back-pounding didn’t
get a boy’s attention, she might grab a hand, turn it palm up with fingers bent
backwards and rap the exposed palm with her ruler. That hurt.
One day she approached Wally Childers and raised her hands
to commence pounding. Wally was a
big guy, one of the tallest in the class, head and shoulders taller than Ms.
Collins. Just as she got to him, he jumped up, flew over his desk and jumped an
empty desk between himself in the door.
He was gone in a split second, never again to attend Ms. Collins
algebra class.
She was an intimidating teacher who knew the textbook
forwards and backwards. Rumor had
it that she was math whiz, that she could calculate the cost of her groceries
faster than the cash register, but her instruction was strict and un-inspiring
– strictly limited to solving the equations and proofs by the book. If the book’s instruction was not enough
for a student, Ms. Collins could only resort to her chants and threats. Though I was an
A/B algebra student, the point of the mathematical abstractions was
missed. The point of being in her
class was simply to be correct and avoid getting embarrassed.
I would like to think that math instruction for high school
students has changed over the past forty years. In all likelihood, few math
teachers are physically beating algebra into their students; but they are still
struggling to make math relevant and interesting to students, and few of them
can offer much more than the explanations already present in the textbooks.
Fortunately, any modern day student with access to a
computer has an alternative teacher.
His name is Sal Kahn. Eight
years ago, Kahn offered online math tutoring to his younger cousin. His lessons were highly successful. When
he got more requests for tutoring, he began posting them on YouTube. Now, there are over 2000 of his lessons
on-line, each of them getting at least 20,000 hits. In 2009, Kahn quit his job as a hedge fund analyst and devoted
himself full-time to developing his YouTube channel. With support from outside
sources (including Bill Gates), Kahn and his high-tech employees are developing
Kahn Academy as a web site that ties together his YouTube videos with practice
activities and record keeping systems that allow any student or teacher to use
the resources free of charge.
His use of technology is relatively simple – video screen
capture of his desktop, a drawing program, and a microphone to capture his
voice. His explanations are
systematic, clear and precise. In
terms of method, his explanations of a math concept and process are coupled
with careful descriptions of the logic. But, since the lessons are on-line, the
learner can listen to them repeatedly if necessary without risking teacher
frustration or wrath. With the
additional use of the practice activities, the learner can check his accuracy
and understanding. The record keeping system tracks performance and offers
token rewards.
If you have read some of my previous blogs, you know how
skeptical I am of the value of schooling.
There many reasons for that skepticism, most of which have to do with
the inconsistent quality of the instruction, the difficulty of providing
instruction that matches each student’s ability to learn, and the lack of
support for schools from families and communities.
There is a 20 year-old argument over how technology is going
to change schooling. The Kahn
Academy is a good example of how it might. Via the internet, the clear and inspiring instruction of one
lone teacher can reach any student, any time. That’s not to suggest that millions
of students suffer through poor teaching can simply walk away from school and
get what they miss on-line. After
all, the face-to-face human element of good teaching cannot be easily
duplicated on-line. I won’t live long enough to collect on this bet, but I will
wager you that 50 years from now, thanks to technology, schooling probably won’t look anything like
it does today.
Got to thinking about the troubles, fears and discomforts of childhood - the dark and now the humorous part. For me, that was 50 years ago. Is your memory of childhood different from mine? Maybe you weren't troubled. Girls, maybe you had a wholly different perspective on trouble. If your childhood was only 10 or 20 years in the past, maybe your trouble was more digitized or electrified.
