DaveShearon

"Crappy Institutional High Schools"

This is the first line from Endagaget's review of a new Sony phone:

While you were stuck in your crappy institutional high school trying to find a way to sneak out during study hall, some rich kid up the street was spending his days in ivy covered halls taking classes like Depression Era Economics and the Rise of Fascism.

Sigh.

If School Systems Were Run Like IBM

The December 2004 edition of Harvard Business Review has an interview with Sam Palmsiano.  An IBMer all his career, he took over as CEO in 2002.  Faced with the need to get 200,000 employees to coordinate efforts and integrate hardware, software, consulting and services in seamless solutions to customer problems he:

a.  Commissioned a consulting study

b.  Approached the Board to sell stock so he'd have enough money

c.  Led a discussion of company values

d.  Instituted a carefully-designed management program in a controlled and steady manner, allowing sufficient time for implementation at each step along the way

Go ahead.  Think about it.  Make your choice.  Then read the rest of this post for the answer and some quotes I'd like to see made by a superintendent.

Perceptions of High School

Part of the reason public schools, and high school in particular, get trashed is that many people who write well and public were smart and went on to far more interesting experiences.  This column by Paul Graham  is an example.  A PhD in computer science from Harvard, author of books, program language designer, and painter gives some pretty good thoughts to high school students, but includes these comments:

When I ask people what they regret most about high school, they nearly all say the same thing: that they wasted so much time. If you're wondering what you're doing now that you'll regret most later, that's probably it.

and

Right now most of you feel your job in life is to be a promising college applicant. But that means you're designing your life to satisfy a process so mindless that there's a whole industry devoted to subverting it. No wonder you become cynical. The malaise you feel is the same that a producer of reality TV shows or a tobacco industry executive feels. And you don't even get paid a lot.

So what do you do? What you should not do is rebel. That's what I did, and it was a mistake. I didn't realize exactly what was happening to us, but I smelled a major rat. And so I just gave up. Obviously the world sucked, so why bother?

When I discovered that one of our teachers was herself using Cliff's Notes, it seemed par for the course. Surely it meant nothing to get a good grade in such a class.

In retrospect this was stupid. It was like someone getting fouled in a soccer game and saying, hey, you fouled me, that's against the rules, and walking off the field in indignation. Fouls happen. The thing to do when you get fouled is not to lose your cool. Just keep playing.

By putting you in this situation, society has fouled you. Yes, as you suspect, a lot of the stuff you learn in your classes is crap. And yes, as you suspect, the college admissions process is largely a charade. But like many fouls, this one was unintentional. [7] So just keep playing.

Pretty harsh.  But not undeserved.  We don't ask most kids in high school to do much that's hard.  We let them not even try, then give them opportunities to avoid real consequences.  (They didn't do home work during the year and failed?  Let's make summer school so easy they can't fail.  After all, we wouldn't want them to drop out.  Think I'm making this up?  Nope.  Happened while I was on the MNPS school board.  When I suggested to the academic council that we not make summer school available to students unless they had at least done their home work, one teacher looked at me and said, "None of them would fail if they did that.")

Schools to Blame for Overconfidence?

Prince Charles:

"What is wrong with people nowadays? Why do they all seem to think they are qualified to do things far beyond their technical capabilities. ... This is all to do with the learning culture in schools. It is a consequence of the child-centred system which admits no failure and tells people they can all be pop stars, High Court judges, brilliant TV presenters or even infinitely more competent heads of state without ever putting in the necessary effort or having abilities. It's social utopianism... ."

This from an interesting column by Mickey Kaus (hattip Instapundit).

My impression is that the British are sometimes even harder on their  educational system than Americans.  Let's see, of the possible messages for schools to send to students, which is best:

A.  You can be anything you want to be.

B.  You have strengths and opportunities and, with optimism and effort,  you can have a productive and happy life.

C.  You have weaknesses and shortcomings, and these are the most important things about you.

D.  You are a victim of your culture and deserve more than you are getting.

Ok, ok.  These are a bit skewed.  But, of all of them, I'd suggest "B" is the one we send less often.  It's also the one that carries the greatest implicit demand on schools and teachers, and on all of us to support them.  Causal connection?  I think so.

David Brooks' column in the New York Times yesterday contained this castigation of schools:

There is something chivalric and archaic about this form of political courage. Churchill and Thatcher had it, so did T.R. But today it is disdained in schools, where gentler virtues are held dear.

He goes on to say:

This is not the golden age of manliness, but Schwarzenegger, Giuliani and McCain are three of the most popular figures in America today.

Generally, I attack broad swipes at schools, but I'm not so sure this time. It's certainly not the golden age of manliness. Seen any commercials lately? Sitcoms?

As for schools, I don't know. MNPS used to have "Demonstrates courage" as one component of its character education program. However, I found that on a search of the MNPS web site under the "Core Curriculum" guidelines and, since we've abandoned Core, I don't suppose those are still applicable. I didnt' see anything else on a current character education program, but I suspect we have one.

That doesn't answer the larger question as to whether schools encourage or discourage the kind of courage exhibited by Mssrs. Giuliani, Schwarzenegger, and McCain: the courage to take a stance that's not politically acceptable to a vocal, loud group and stick with it. There, I suspect schools are like the rest of society, very ambivalent about real, indepedent courage when they actually have it in their midst.

Clipped Wings

I always am interested in the casual references to what public schools are like and what they do that appear when writers are really focused on another subject. From the 3-star letter in today's Tennessean:

We clip their wings by placing them in an educational system that stifles academic achievement by slowing fast track and less-able learners with a rigid, socially based grade system.

Hmmm. Do I hear a meme aborning? See "Best Way to Close the Gap? Hold the Top Back!"

UPDATE: Not on the topic of holding the high-achievers back (although the "hopeless geek" reference does relate to the feelings of some of the high-achievers) see this from today's Instapundit (key section in bold):

THE XXIVth LEGION is defending America. This is my favorite bit. Yes, I am a hopeless geek.

How hopeless a geek am I? Hopeless enough that in high school two friends and I made complete Roman legionary kits (including hand-riveted "lorica segmentata" armor of the type you see in the photos above) for the Latin Convention. The equipment was pretty authentic, though our swords -- bootlegged via a shop at Oak Ridge National Lab -- were laser-cut series 440 stainless steel, making them the only part of our outfit that was clearly superior to the real thing. I don't know what happened to mine, but it was quite a piece of metal. Thanks to reader Paul Music for sending these.

UPDATE: Hey, some people are making this stuff pay! This looks better than the stuff we made, but then for $500 it ought to.

ANOTHER UPDATE: This looks pretty cool. I'm pretty sure it's the book I read in Junior High that got me interested in the subject.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Clyde Spicer emails: "I guess that post tells us how much times have changed. Today, if you tried to take a replica sword to a high school, you'd likely be expelled under the 'zero tolerance' rules that many districts have implemented." Yeah. Jeez.

Zero tolerance was a high-level policy approach to a problem with discipline and safety that other policies had created in schools. Taking judgment and the need to improve school cultures out of play is rarely, if ever, a good idea.

"Public Schools" as a metaphor

Mark Steyn's May 23 column in the Chicago Sun Times (hat tip to Instapundit) was about Iraq, not public schools. He argues for an approach that he calls "asymmetrical federalism" -- not all provinces would necessarily have the same governance structure or political powers. As he notes, this is an alien concept to Americans, but not to the British; Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and England are not governed the same, nor do they all have the same political powers. But his political point is not what I want to focus on. Instead, I'd like to highlight his next to the last paragraph:

We need more of that. The best bulwark against tyranny is a population that knows the benefits of freedom, as the Iraqi Kurds do. Don't make the mistake of turning Iraq into a dysfunctional American public school, where the smart guys get held down to the low standards of the misfits and in the end they all get the same social promotion anyway. Let's get on with giving the Kurdish and Shia areas elected governors and practical sovereignty, province by province.

(emphasis supplied)

He uses public schools as a metaphor for dysfunctional rewards to non-achievers without a hint of irony or apology, and with every expectation that his readers will both "get it" and agree. This is part of what those of us who want schools to improve have to fight: many opinion leaders have pigeon-holed our schools in that part of their brain labeled "examples of governmental failure." We've got to replace this image with one of work, effort, rigor, engagement, and achievement, as well as nurturance and guidance. And we've got to do it openly, publicly, and in conjunction with our communities and local politcal leadership. That's the only way to establish the ownership and pride in our schools that has to exist if they are to survive.