6 Things That Are Right With
Schools
By Tamim Ansary |
(http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/Features/Columns/?article=sixthingsmain) |
I've
been writing about school reform for the last six months and let me tell you,
on this beat you learn a lot about what's wrong with schools.
Just
last month, I was writing a column that had my brain brimming with dismal
factoids. In the middle of it, I took a day off to attend my daughter
Jessamyn's high school graduation ceremony.
There
I was in the crowded auditorium, jotting notes so I wouldn't forget to mention
in my column that 13 percent of high school students know someone who has
brought a weapon to school, and that public schools in New York are installing
metal detectors to stem the violence, and that standards are lax, teachers are
apathetic, students are out of control, and high schools are like factories in
which kids are mere products being listlessly assembled by bored workers who
hate their jobs.
Meanwhile,
students cheering for one another and their teachers surrounded me. Every time
I looked up I was reminded of the four great years Jessamyn spent at this
particular public high school, SOTA (San Francisco's School of the Arts), with
teachers like Ms. Lederer, who taught American and European history and who
hosted intensive evening tutoring sessions for all her students because she
wanted them to do well on their tests. The kids didn't have to go, but they
did, because the tutoring sessions made all the difference.
And
then I thought about my other daughter, ten-year-old Elina, who attends a
public school called San Francisco Community. It's just as good as SOTA in its
way, even though it's very different. Elina's school is an "inner-city school"
with a student body so racially mixed it has no majority, only minorities. And
what a wonderful environment of learning and growth it has turned out to be.
Man,
I must be the luckiest guy ever! I have two daughters, and they both go to
wonderful schools. Somehow I ended up living a stone's throw from the only two
good public schools in America, I thought. What are the odds of that?
Then
it struck me: Maybe the buzz is a little skewed. Maybe lots of people live a
stone's throw from a good school or two. Maybe the success stories don't get
full publicity here in the Culture of Complaint.
So
I did some research, and I found some good news out there. What's right with
America's schools? Well, let's see, we have:
1.
Inspiring teachers
I
know. It sounds like a satire. Shouldn't it be that we don't have all
those things? Well, it all comes down to examples. Yes, you can dredge up lots
of examples to show that schools are in a terrible crisis, but there are some
counterexamples too. You want to hear a few of them? Read on.
Part I: Great teachers and students
Inspiring
teachers, inspired students Is
Kim Futrell special? Sure. Is she unique? Naw ... I get lots of mail like
that.nce.
Part
II: Educating everyone
"Now,
I myself am a teacher," says Theresa. "I teach mentally handicapped students.
My success ranges from small things that we take for granted, such as being
able to buy an item in a store, to bigger things like being able to manage on
their own after graduation. I want my students to function as independently as
they can. However, when one of my students accidentally calls me ‘Mom,' that
makes my day! Then I know that my kids feel safe and that there is some of my
father in me after all!"
Father
and daughter. They both sound pretty dedicated, don't they? But they're only
fulfilling one of our core educational ideals in America: We make it our goal
to educate everyone. We don't say, "What's the point? This one's too stupid,
and that one won't amount to anything." Instead, our whole system is built on
the premise that everyone can learn and everyone's entitled to do just that.
But what about reports of lead-fisted administrators, antiquated textbooks, and rats in the cafeteria? Don't worry, folks--those aren't the only stories out there.
Part III: Fine facilities, caring administrators
But
when you get to the core of what kids are learning and how they're learning it,
Northbrook is carving a new edge--especially in its use of technology.
Northbrook
was an existing school that got transformed in the early 1990s into a model
technology school. During the remodeling, the whole place was wired top to
bottom. It opened with 400 computers for about 750 students, including 11
function-specific computer labs--multimedia, art, literacy, and so on.
The
building itself was redesigned as well. Walls went down, walls went up, and
when it was over classrooms were clustered in "pods"of five, with teachers in
each pod working as teams so they could cross-reference what they were
teaching.
What
sets Northbrook apart, however, is not its powerhouse facilities per se, but
those facilities in the context of the school's demographics. This is not a
school for rich kids; its students are mostly from low-income Hispanic
neighborhoods. Principal Laura Schumann told me, "The kids who come here are
street-smart. If you put them in a gritty urban setting, they fit in. But when
they walk into this school, they could just as easily be in any privileged
school in any wealthy suburb."
Schumann
goes on to say, "This is a middle school. We try not to be a mini high school.
Students at this age have real emotional needs. The transition from grade five
to grade six is huge. They're going from elementary school to middle school and
they have all the physical and emotional changes that are going on at this
age." Ah yes, the werewolf age. I remember it well: "Yikes! Who's that in the
mirror? Oh no! I'm growing hair!"
So,
at Northbrook, working in a building filled with 21st-century technology is a
staff that puts a lot of effort into giving students old-fashioned personal
attention and emotional support.
Technology
and sensitivity together--big deal. That's not unique. I could have written
about
Hawthorne Elementary School in Oakland, or the Open Charter
Magnet School in Los Angeles, or any of a dozen others that fell out of the
computer when I searched the Internet for "good things about schools."
Part IV: Plenty of choices
Not
quite. Under the umbrella of the public schools there's a lot of ferment.
In
the early 1990s, for example, a New York City group called New Visions for
Public Schools launched a drive to build a string of new schools. First, they
solicited 15,000 ideas (count 'em: 15 thousand!) about what makes a good public
school--from parents, students, community groups, teachers, and others. Out of
this mulch came 40 New Vision schools scattered throughout the city. Are they
achieving fantastic results? I don't know; that's not my point. I do know that
they represent a gamut of choices. Take a look at some of their areas of
concentration:
Strong
arts focus?
Bread and Roses Integrated Arts High School.
Real-life
focus, lots of internships?
Banana Kelly's School of Learning through Community Building.
The
Socratic method?
Humanities Prep.
A
curriculum centered on field trips that use the city as a classroom?
Bridges to Brooklyn Academy.
A
second chance for high school dropouts with jobs and kids of their own?
Cascades Learning Center High School, where extended hours and evening classes
are the norm.
The
list goes on. Forty schools, each one small and personal, each one organized
around a different theme. Of course, 40 little schools in a city of teeming
millions isn't much--but then again it's not anything. And there could be more.
Almost every state now has the charter-school option going. People can propose
whatever type of school they think would be perfect: more rigorous, more open,
more classical, less classical, whatever. And if they can get a district
interested, they can get public money to start and run it.
Other
options
That's
what Suzy Price of Monmouth, Oregon, did. When she and her husband moved to
Oregon from the East Coast, the public school choices failed to impress, so
Price decided to school her own children at home. (Price had a teaching
credential and lots of teaching experience.)
Price's
neighbors quickly noticed what an asset they had living next door and they
formed a little home schooling co-op with Price as a member. By 1983 the co-op
had eight members, and they said, "What the hey, let's go all the way."
So
they bought a house, remodeled it to work as a school building, called it the
Luckiamute School (after a local Native American tribe), hung out a shingle,
and charged (below-market) tuition. Pretty soon the school had 50
students--which was as big as they wanted it to get.
When
you have a school that tiny, and all the families know one another, you can do
things that aren't possible in a big institution, public or private.
One
year, the kids studied the Lewis and Clark expedition. Then when summer came
around, the parents coordinated their vacations and the whole school spent a
week and a half following in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark, hiking part of
the trail and going down the same rivers in canoes. Now that's what I call a
field trip.
When
you focus on school reform (and even when you don't), you keep hearing about
the Good Old Days. But let's not forget that time marches on. Someday, these
will be the Good Old Days.
Don't
you wish we lived here now? Hey, wait: We do live here now. And isn't that
something to celebrate?
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