Fourth Generation Teacher

What Schools Could Be – if politicians and reformers and profiteers didn’t get in the middle…schools could be student-driven, teacher-constructed.

What if colleges didn’t set high school curriculum and legislators didn’t set required classes? What if the experts were given free rein to reinvent schools?

This is the premise of Dintersmith’s book…all from the point-of-view of the outsider…someone who’s got more money and time than most of us, and the means to travel and learn. He traveled to every state in the nation, and visited exemplary schools. He saw innovations in action, and he watched…

He is enamored with tech and STEM, and occasionally STEAM. He loves him some cool whiz-bang stuff. I tried to find myself in some of his enthusiasm and I seldom did. He mentioned literacy once, and literature once, I think. One school in North Carolina organized itself into fields of study:

o   Biology, Health, Public Administration

o   Executive Leadership, Entrepreneurship

o   Technology, Advanced Manufacturing

o   Math, Engineering, Technology, Science

o   School of Arts and Technology.

I looked at his examples, and I could not find myself in this organization…And that made me sad.

I appreciated his disdain for tests and test scores…he reminded his readers that American schools teach that which is easy to test and to measure, not what’s important to learn. I was cheering him along in these sections of the book…He’s quick to point out that high school curriculum leads to admissions tests for colleges, not for any life-long passions for learning and doing, and we both mourn that. “College-ready content in our schools has grown like Kudzu, with AP courses leading the way.” He wonders why our K12 experience is only to get us ready for the tests to get into college…and he seriously questions the burdens many of us carry for our college experiences…he says 2.8 million adults aged 60 or older are still paying off their college loans. Does anyone need a college degree that badly? Truly?

So, it’s time for something new…something daring. Something counter-intuitive. Like trusting students with their own learning. Letting their passions lead learning. Trusting creativity. Finding internships and mentorships, apprenticeships, job-shadowing. Finding passion in learning, not just filling in the blanks.

As someone outside of education, he can be outrageous…he asks WHY we need calculus? Especially when our cell phones have the technology to solve calculus problems faster than we can.

As someone outside of education, he can rake leaders over the coals: Kansas’s Brownback, Wisconsin’s Scott Walker. Michelle Rhee…he is not impressed with drill-and-test, or cut your way to prosperity schemes. Not a fan of AP courses or tests. He wants real investments in education…but man, does he love him some fancy technology.

In his visit to OK, he visits what he calls, Creative Oklahoma, stateofcreatifity.com…a friend pointed out that’s the A+ Schools model that incorporates the arts into all disciplines…

The book is worth the price if you care about education and really DO want to help students learn to be passionate, confident adults. The examples of innovations from around the country should inspire some deep conversations about what schools could be…should be…can be. Are, in enlightened pockets.

My favorite quote came from his visit to a school in Hawaii, where the leaders constantly ask themselves, their faculty, and their students: “What does quality look like in your discipline?” What if that was the mission of every district, every school, every department in our country? What if that drove our work in the classroom? Our students’ work? What does quality look like?

BUT, I did not see myself in many of his cool schools with all their technology. It makes me sad to think that schools NOW are not reaching the needs and interests of our students, and I’m equally sad imagining a future where schools ignore other groups of students…

I bought copies of this book for my two state legislators. They’re more expensive than the legal limit to be considered as gifts. So, like works of art in local museums, they will be on permanent loan. Truly, policy makers could learn as much in this book as educators.

“Systems are hard to change. The model is entrenched.”

TFA “ recruit[s] people who excelled in conventional school and want the same for their students…unquestioned commitment to academic hoop-jumping.”

“If state legislators think test scores are so important, they should release their own.”

“Test scores tell us little, charter schools are a mixed bag, and college is a crap shoot. Doing obsolete things better will hardly carry us over the water.”

“Our education system locks in cycles of privilege and poverty/”

“Education should prepare children for life, but we have it backward. We prepare children’s lives for school.”

“NCLB took away teachers’ confidence.”