The Two Tragedies of K-12 Education and their Causes

The Two Tragedies of K-12 Education and their Causes


K-12 education in this country has long been a war zone. This has produced two ongoing tragedies. Firstly, too many students, especially in "troubled" school districts and schools, do not get a formal education that prepares them for survival, college and citizenship. Secondly, too many teachers, along with their students, become either collateral damage or intentional targets in the ongoing war.

The reasons for this include:

1) social problems, with historical and economic roots, that enter into the classrooms and make teaching and learning almost impossible;

2) structural problems that have been neglected as waves of "reforms" have created chaos and stupefaction.

I will (begin to) address here only the structural problems.

Formal education is not a replacement for informal education (which includes the acquisition of the first spoken language and ethical understanding).  It is on this informal education that all else is based.

That said, formal education, though limited in scope, provides the student with access to the skills and knowledge -- and hopefully the wisdom -- that have been acquired by our species and have been formalized into disciplines. For academic subjects, the three R's are the entry points into those vast and expanding reservoirs.

A beginning point for understanding the commonsense needs of formal education may be found at

On Teaching

http://subject-teacher.blogspot.com/2013/09/on-teaching.html

Please see, in particular, the "Note added", which lists some starting requirements.

But there are also other issues, including those of:

 respect;
 purpose;
 choice;

 sequence;
 focus;
 success;
 time and pacing;
 familiarization and habituation;
 feedback and correction;

 exploration;
 application.

This is not yet one more inane list of items that teachers have to try to incorporate into their lessons.  It is a partial list of basic, commonsense requirements that have long been recognized, by humans all over the planet, as needed for formal education in structured, sequential disciplines. In academic areas, these clearly include mathematics and many of the sciences.  But there are many other fields in which the listed principles are applicable to some degree.  That said, there may be others in which they are of far less importance.
 
The purpose of this listing is not to impose these things on teachers, who may or may not find them of direct use in their work, but rather to draw attention to them and to provide a formal basis for advance for those teachers who do find these things to be useful.

More attention to these issues would make work (and so also life) easier and more meaningful for sincere students and teachers of formal, structured disciplines. Many teachers have always recognized these requirements and tried to implement them. But they have been increasingly dis-empowered and forced to do this surreptitiously.  It is time that those who wield power in K-12 education in this country acknowledge these issues. This will not happen by itself. Collective pressure from parents and teachers will be needed.

I will try to delve into these issues, in outline and in detail, later.  I have not listed them in any particular order of priority, except for the first three items. These first three are meta-educational -- but, without them, all the rest is meaningless. Also, the last two items are not afterthoughts.  They are essential -- but room needs to be made for them, without sacrificing or compromising the rest. This is not the teacher's job, primarily -- it is the job of those who design curricula.

Finally, this emphasis on structure should not be taken to be an emphasis on rigidity.  Learning and teaching are joys as well as labors. They are fluid in their very essence.  And that is what gives them their power. If one were to free these processes from the constraints that have been put on them by various rigid methodologies, students and teachers could focus instead on learning and teaching, firstly as instinctive, joyful endeavors, but secondly, also as part of valuable heritages that should not be discarded.

They might then experience some degree of liberation. They might also then have a chance to rediscover, rather naturally, these traditional requirements of the structured disciplines, if their learning and teaching involves these.

Fraternally,

Arjun (Janah)  < sjanah@aol.com >