A Former Teacher's Concern

1907 School Teachers

 The Value of a college education is not learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think.

Albert Einstein

Recently, we attended our grandnieces high school graduation preparty.  We are so proud of them.  We are also enjoying hearing from friends about their grandchildren's graduations, and younger friends sharing the dilemma for their kids of selecting the college they want to attend.  The quote by Einstein, as well as the interest in young kids we know, caused me to take a fresh look at education.

Fresh out of college, I taught grade school in a small Kansas town, followed by teaching high school English in cities in New York state and Massachusetts.  My public-school teaching ended when I graduated from Law School, but I have retained an interest in education.  I am aware of the difficulties of remote teaching during covid, and I was curious to update information about the recovery in education that has followed.

There is no question that Covid impacted education, nor that it continues to require new thinking about meeting the challenges of a different world.  However, we should not forget that criticism existed prior to Covid.  In 2015, Education Week posted criticisms:  Parents not involved enough, classroom too crowded to provide individual attention to students, use of technology leading students to expect entertainment, and fewer than 40% having mastered reading and math.  For some students, the article described a "School-to-Prison Pipeline for students lacking an adequate education.

Although teachers expressed the likelihood that top students would be able to go on to college and do well, they described some students as being lost. Explanations included declining to hold kids back even if they were unable to meet minimal standards, and requiring State Test Standards that force teachers to go forward despite the need to help students go back and fill in the gaps in their knowledge before going forward with new learning.  In addition, teachers found some parents too lax in accountability, and perhaps surprisingly, cell phones in classrooms were not always about interruption from other student's calls but also interruptions from parents calling. 

My research found many reasons for poor learning.  In cities, one of the complaints is overcrowding.  Teachers have so many students that providing individual help is nearly impossible.  This is not only frustrating to teachers but also discouraging for students who need help and feel helpless about the lack of opportunity to find it.

Many students are unlikely to seek help, and unless there are ways to push them to their full potential, they will only fall further behind.  Unfortunately, not all families are able or willing to help, not only because they lack the time or the skills, but also because some do not see the importance of their responsibility to be a part of their children's education, declining to enforce discipline at home or even making excuses for their children's lack of effort at school.

The effort to avoid making children feel inadequate by giving every child a trophy may have been well intentioned, but the result created a false sense of success.  Just as passing kids along when they have not learned enough to build to the next level leaves them even more likely to continue failing.  These problems existed even before Covid, but the lack of classroom teaching during all those months certainly made things worse for most students.

Next week's blog will explore whether lessons were learned and changes were made to education because of Covid.

 f.n.   The tallest woman in the back row is my great aunt, Anna Marie Beck, teacher, three times elected County Superintendent, and employed in the Education Department in Topeka (State Capital).