© 2013 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. The other day someone complained, “I just want us to go back to quality education like when I was in public school.” That assumes schools forty years ago were better than now. We certainly spend more money per student now and have many more administrators. Often it is these “experts” who have gone mad controlling teachers. Does that make education better? No, the ultra-administrative school setting does not improve education; rather, it destroys the heart of good teaching.
Were schools better in the past? I do not trust revisionist thinking so I spent a day in the library reading archived newspapers to see what was said years ago. Newspapers years ago proclaimed: the public schools are failing because Russia got Sputnik into space ahead of us. In the 1930s, “They are not teaching enough Latin and Greek.” Earlier it was the same story; education was always better thirty to forty years ago and not now.
The major problems in today’s public schools are two-fold: public perception and the proliferation of administrative accountability routines. In our popular media there is consensus that schools are failing because some students fail and others do not perform well. The media notion is that when students are not successful it is entirely caused by teachers just not teaching right.
The real test of teaching is not if someone fails, rather why some students fail. If students fail because of a lack of motivation or hard work, that is the parent’s domain. Schools cannot educate students who do not wish to learn. There are three general populations in schools: there are those students who come to school wishing to learn. They are almost always successful.
The middle group are students who come to school insistent they will not learn. When they come determined to not learn they are almost always successful at that. And, there are the students who are amenable to learning but only if teachers teach to their specific learning interests. They decide when and if to learn.
Almost all of our societal angst concentrates on students who do not wish to learn. Consider: can we force students to learn? Imagine if cattle prods were used. “What is the capital of South Dakota?” Wrong. Zap. That might work in the short term, but they will be flinchy about learning forever. And, there would be that messy business about human rights.
The second problem is the effect over the last thirty years of the rapidly expanding administration. In the 1960s there were few administrators. How did they know if teachers were good? The principal walked into classes and talked with parents and students. The principal knew who was good and who needed help.
We no longer trust principals to administer, they instead coordinate legions of experts who spend their time trying to find things to justify their employment. Most teachers would really like the bloated administration to leave them alone to teach since that is their role.
Teachers say the administrative experts who cannot themselves teach assume all teachers are the same and all students are the same. They want each teacher to listen to them rather than concentrating on educating students. There has been a tsunami of accountability tests in the last twenty years that trump real teaching.
Everyone now spends almost all of their time in concern for the administrative tests rather than student learning. What the students need is to quit spending the entire year getting ready for the teacher accountability tests and just spend it learning.
An example of goofy experts: a teacher was called to a meeting with an expert who said, “Do not use the SF basal readers.” The teacher shrugged, “OK, do you have a different basal for me to use?”
“No,” the expert said.
“But you want me to use a basal as I teach reading?” the teacher asked.
“Of course,” The expert answered, “Just do not use the SF basal you are using right now.”
No wonder teachers cringe when the experts show up. They are overwhelmed with well-paid experts who cannot hit water from a boat. They know that politically every student in America must be above average or there will be hell to pay.
Dr. Michael Swickard is co-host of radio talk show News New Mexico 6 to 9 a.m. Monday - Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. Email: michael@swickard.com
