Talking about education cannot withstand a vacuum. Just when the reading wars are subsiding, and masks have come off other versions of passion-based arguing rise to poke public education. Peruse any recent educational journal, education reporter in your local newspaper, and be prepared for oppositional values wars (oppositional meaning my side v. your side, not just red or blue).
And hypocrisy knows no bounds. The banners read “Educate, Don’t Indoctrinate”. If the subliminal message is “Indoctrinate with my doctrine only”, are we having a discussion or a demand?
What do we know?
We were forewarned. The first warning long ago was “all politics are local”. Regarding education, partisan value issues have a difficult path at the national level. Congress has little to do with schooling. It is not easier at the state level; fifty states and cats are hard to corral. Efforts at the statehouse level face tough sledding unless the governor, house/assembly, and senate are on the same page on the same day. If they are, all that follows is a one-sided story. Grass roots politics are at the county, city, town, township, and village levels and this is where the real arguments about education are being waged.
The second warning was “local schools and local rules” mean “who controls school board elections controls local schools”. School board membership has become the logical and easy target for any faction of a community active and driven enough to change local schools into their own image. Split the ballot with enough candidates, narrow the field with a primary, and run for the board in a spring election on a non-Presidential election year. The spring election is the ballot that traditionally brings out the fewest voters. And, voila! A person or persons representing a small fraction/faction with a particular agenda can be school board members. Swinging several seats and a new majority of a usual seven-member board can control local schools through local rules. Easy peasy!
What do we know about school governance?
There are 421 school districts in Wisconsin, each with its statutory school board. By statute, members are agents of the state responsible for local school governance including adherence with state rules and policies. Board membership involves attendance at the board’s regular business, committee, and special meetings. The Milwaukee Public Schools Board is an outlier with member salaries of $36,000+ and the meeting demands of a large, complex, urban district. Board work is a business in our largest district and a small, part-time job in most WI districts. Typical board members in the hundreds of small districts receive an honorarium of $2-3,000 and meeting obligations require less than 10 hours per month.
School board members typically are not prepared for the vitriol of agenda-based arguments or attacks. Most members rise from the traditional school booster groups of parents committed to educational programs for their children and their children’s peer group. Their usual challenges are how to sustain current programs with reduced state financial aid, whether to buy a new school bus this year or next, and what is an optimal class size in their schools. These are significant yet not “attack dog” issues. When the dogs are out, many boards either close up shop or cave in.
What must we remember?
At the heart of most, if not every school board discussion and decision, should be children. “How will this enhance the education of children?”, should be our constant mantra. Played large, this mantra informs everything from reading programs to school remodeling to employee salaries to football uniforms. Simply put, schooling is about children not adults.
This blog is not used to promote any point of view or specific, contemporary agenda. Rather, the blog advocates for best practices for causing all children to learn.
What do we know about educating children?
Personal inquisitiveness is a foundation for lifelong learning. The first word, personal, is essential. Most of us want to learn to know, not be told how or what to know. The intrinsic motivation of personalized learning is a powerful force for exciting children to learn and helping them persist in learning. Somethings children learn have a social context and they must engage in learning with other children. Yet, when a child feels a personalized engagement with what is being learned, a child is more likely to learn and remember.
Inquisitive is the operant word in personalized education. To inquire is to ask a question. It says, “I want to know about this”. Its synonyms are equally powerful. To explore. To investigate. To examine. To analyze. To inquire opens the door for learning with a question leading to all sorts of new information and experiences. To inquire retains a personal control of the learning as what unfolds may not be of interest or significance. To inquire about something opens the door to ask about something else. Life is full of inquiry. We want children to be inquisitive. When we start with this purpose, untold possibilities for significant learning emerge. Without inquisitiveness, we are training puppets of our thinking.
The ability to inquire should be a bedrock in child education. We know –
- Inquisitiveness is innate. The interest to know, if not the need to know, is within every child.
- Inquisitiveness is to wonder and “I wonder …” is the beginning of an adventure.
- Inquisitiveness is unbiased. A child learns the winds that will fill their personal sails and there are many winds.
- Inquisitiveness leads to exploration and invention and creation. Our world needs exploring, inventive, and creative people.
- Inquisitiveness allows individuals to grow and develop and to share. “I wonder…” initiates learning that frequently results in “Hey, did you know …”. Then, our children begin to educate others.
We learn more about inquisitiveness by addressing what it is not. To not want a child to be inquisitive is to insist she –
- Accept what she is told without question.
- Ignores options and possibilities.
- Considers all things she is told as facts whether true of not.
- Abandons the joy of being surprised.
What do we want for our children?
“I want our children to be wiser and braver than me and prepared to meet the unknowns they will encounter.”
This is both a personal statement and one that I hear from many of my generation. We Baby Boomers had our whack at the world. In hindsight and with the judgments of successor generations, Boomers had some significant successes and left some very significant messes. After studying, I found the same to be true of predecessor generations.
I am proud of our local schools where inquiry and exploration are prized and supported. Our purpose is to provide all children with opportunities for learning. We would rather our children are reading and learning broadly so that when asked “What do you think about…?”, or “Show us what you have learned?”, they will give informed and insightful responses and performances and not parrot back limited incantations of what they were told. Their 21st century requires no less.
Children are great people, and we assist them to be great adults through the type of education we provide in their formative years. I tell all but my bachelor bird loving friends, if you want parrots, raise birds. I tell my school board colleagues, if you want a braver and wiser next generation, don’t educate them like parrots. And resist anyone who wants to make a classroom into a parrot factory.