The Best Way to Improve the Literacy Rate in America

Poverty is not an accident. Like slavery and apartheid it is man-made and can be removed by the actions of human beings.  ~Nelson Mandela

A while back, I was reading about a Stanford University study about brain waves and how different teaching methods affect reading development. They looked at brain waves as teachers worked to teach their students to read and their findings were actually the opposite of what I would have expected.

Of course, I've never tried to teach children how to read, and I never will, but there are a lot of preschool and kindergarten teachers out there who are expected to, despite the overwhelming evidence that early reading instruction actually damages a child's reading future. What I do, what is appropriate for children under seven, is read to them, write down the stories they tell me, play stories with them, tell stories as they happen, encourage dramatic play, write the rules we make together and post them on the wall where we can all reverently "read" them, and make sure there are always books among our loose parts.

This Stanford study talks about things like phonics and whole words and the rest of the stuff direct instruction focused teachers do with the children in their charge. So let me be clear, this wasn't a study about how children best learn to read, but rather on how teachers can best "teach" children to read in schools. This is the kind of research that Carol Black equates to studying the orca whales at Sea World and claiming to understand orca whales, but that's not the point of this post.

As I reflected on what I'd read, I thought about how high stakes standardized testing is increasingly narrowing our public school curricula to the point that they we focus almost exclusively on math and literacy. Then I asked myself: what problem are we trying to solve, especially when it comes to literacy? So I looked it up. I checked several sources. There are lots of different ways to measure literacy, but most agree that our average literacy rate, as compared to other nations, has declined over the past couple decades, a timeframe that matches exactly with the advent of No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, Common Core and other federal interventions into our public schools. Perhaps these efforts aren't hurting our literacy rates, but they are failing to reverse the trend.

I'm not saying we shouldn't do anything; I'm just saying that we appear to be doing it wrong.

Meanwhile, tracking quite closely to the illiteracy rate, one in five American children now live in poverty. I'd like to suggest that instead turning our educational system upside down and spending billions on unproven efforts that may actually be eroding our children's ability and desire to read, maybe we should spend our billions on doing something about the 22 percent of our children (and fully 50 percent of public school students) who go to bed hungry each night. We know that poverty is directly linked to lack of success in school. There is nothing we could do that would have a greater impact on education in America.

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If The Time for School Is At An End, Then What's Next?

Yesterday's post, in which I asserted that The Time for School is at an End, prompted many readers to ask some version of the question, Okay, but what do we replace it with? I have a lot of ideas about this, which I expect to share over the course of the next few days and weeks. This morning I'm republishing a post from a couple years ago in which I sketched of one aspect of how we might want move forward with a much needed transformation. That we need something beyond an overhaul, I think, is without question, but what that's going to be requires a discussion, one that includes all of us. I don't imagine there will be one solution, but rather one that is woven from many threads into a single fabric. In that spirit, I offer this thread for consideration.

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I often write here as a critic of normal schools with their compulsory top-down, standardized curricula that devalue the interests of our youngest citizens in favor of adults deciding what, when and how children are to learn. It's a system that flies in the face of what we know about how human beings are designed to learn, a product of the Industrial Revolution that has continued more or less unchanged to this day, perpetuated by habit rather than an ongoing, rigorous application of the science. The evidence is clear that if we truly want well-educated citizens, ones capable of thinking for themselves, of questioning authority, of standing up for their beliefs and values, people who are sociable, motivated and able to work well with others, then we would have long ago transformed our schools into places where children direct their own learning.

Sometimes I like to imagine what that would mean. More and more Americans are opting out all together, choosing a version of homeschooling or un-schooling that works for their families. Others have sought out alternative private schools that employ, say, the Waldorf method or Reggio Emilia or perhaps even the democratic free school model of places like the Sudbury Valley School. These are all fine ways for individuals to opt out of normal public education, but there is a limit to how many of us can afford the price, either in terms of time or money. No, it seems to me that a real transformation of education in America, one that includes all children, must be a public one: well-educated citizens are a public good, one that is vital to every citizen in that it is the only guarantee of our grand experiment in self-governance. So what I'm thinking about here is a true transformation of public education, which, I believe, is necessary if our democracy is to continue to thrive.

If we get rid of schools as we know them, it seems to me that we will still need something "like" schools, safe places for our children to spend their days. Unless this transformation in education comes as a part of a wider transformation in our society, one that does not require so many two-income families, "schools" will need to continue to serve this function. Indeed, I reckon that the school facilities that we've already built will work just fine as a starting point: large buildings with lots of room and, typically, with a fairly substantial amount of land surrounding them.

Neighborhood children of all ages would arrive at these "schools" in the mornings just as they do today and, as in the democratic free-school model, they would be free to pursue their own interests throughout the day with the support of "teachers" whose jobs would be re-defined to more closely resemble that of professional play-workers, adults who spend their days loitering with intent, not intervening or directing, but available to step in, minimally, when needed.

There would, of course, continue to be the cafeteria, a place where professional cooks prepare and serve meals, the difference being that these kitchens would be open to the children to participate as their age and interests (e.g., chopping, stirring, measuring, serving) allow under the guidance of the kitchen staff. Likewise, there would be a garden and greenhouse tended by professional gardeners charged with supplying the kitchen, and who would also likewise make room for children interested in any or all aspects of that process. There would be a functioning workshop where professional carpenters would build the furniture and other items needed by the school, another place where children of all ages are welcome. These transformed schools would be home to musicians and other artists, mechanics, engineers, computer scientists, psychologists, athletes, handy(wo)men, nurses, custodians, accountants, yoga masters, and other specialists, each going about their real work while also always making space for young apprentices of all ages, role-modeling, supporting, and teaching, allowing the children to explore as their ages and interests dictate.

But, of course, the children would not be limited. If a group of kids take an interest in, for instance, building a rocket, the more experienced children (which would likely most often be the oldest, but not always) would lead, while the adults would be there to help with locating information or securing materials.

These "schools" would not just be for children. Neighborhood seniors, for instance, would also be invited on campus to spend all of part of their days, sharing their skills and wisdom, while also participating in meals and serving as audiences for dramatic and musical performances. In the evenings, parents would be encouraged to not just fetch their kid and rush off, but to rather spend their evenings there, together with other families, dining, dancing, reading in the library, or puttering around the workshop or garden, and otherwise hanging out with their neighbors, creating community.

Each neighborhood school would be "owned" by the neighborhood, in the way that our cooperative school is owned by the parents who enroll their children. Each household would have an equal voice in how their school operates, managing the funds to best serve their community, democratically creating a school that most perfectly reflects the aspirations and dreams of the people who live there.

These transformed schools would be, like our democracy itself, grand experiments, each one continually evolving to serve the needs and interests of the neighborhood, and especially the children. I envision them as standing at the hearts of their neighborhoods, around-the-clock gathering places, based not on commerce, but upon the shared interests of the people who live in the community: places that serve as models of real self-governance in action. I imagine that children who are raised in this type of environment will grow into the sorts of citizens we most need.

This is just a thumbnail sketch of one of the ways I see transformed public education in America. There is so much more to talk about. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

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Education When Time For School Is At An End HURRAY !!

Over the course of the last 70 years or so, our expectations of children have changed dramatically. In many ways we perceive them as less competent. As a society we have lowered our expectations of what they are capable of doing in the world. They no longer walk themselves to school. None of them carry pocket knives, and for that matter, are kept far away from most tools. And even if you trust your own child to be home alone as you run a quick neighborhood errand, the wider society considers you neglectful because, of course, children younger than, say, about 15, are perpetually on the verge of stupidly killing themselves (or being killed by nameless, faceless others) if left for even the briefest moment without adult supervision. Or so our urban legends about childhood would have it. As a result, our children are growing up in a world scrubbed of risk, challenge, hurt feelings, and failure because, as we've come to believe, they are not capable of handling it.

At the same time, and perhaps partly as a result of this cultural paranoia, we've placed unreasonable expectations on our children, especially our youngest children in the form of schooling. We are institutionalizing our children at younger and younger ages. They are spending more and more time in "school" and less and less time playing, while being subjected to greater and greater academic expectations. Today, more than 80 percent of kindergarten teachers expect five year olds to be reading. In 1998, that number was 30 percent, and in 1950 that number was approaching zero. That our literacy rate hasn't budged over the past half century despite these developmentally inappropriate expectations tells us that our early literacy efforts, at best, have no impact, but there is ample evidence that this phenomenon is taking a mental health toll on our children, with one in five children between the ages of 3-17 struggling with a diagnosable mental illness, mostly in the form of anxiety and depression, much of which can be linked to these pressures.

These dynamics represent bookends of fear that are crushing our youth. We're afraid they are going to be hurt so we've dramatically restricted them. We're afraid of them falling behind so we reign them to carts in academic coal mines. It's almost as if our greatest fear is of childhood itself . . . or children, or liberty, or play.

From where I sit, the time for school is at an end. We have clearly reached a point of diminishing, dramatically diminishing, returns. For most children, most of the time, school is a place where they can be safely warehoused and made to nose the grindstone in a way that is contrary to what large majorities of scientists and psychologists tell us is appropriate. This is the same phenomenon we're seeing with environmental denialism. We, as a society, are so committed to our habit of schools that we struggle to even consider a world without them, the most common knee-jerk question being, "But without schools, what will the children do while their parents are off at work?"

It's a central question, a question about caring for the children more than "education," an important question that has been answered in different ways by different societies throughout human history. Most prime of life adults have pretty much always worked productively in useful ways, this is nothing new in human evolution, and while birth mothers may have traditionally shouldered a somewhat larger share of the burden of child care, a substantial part was handled by the wider community, the village. Instead of ghettoizing child care into out-of-the-way, low paying, low prestige corners, most prior human civilizations have placed caring for the children at the center of life, creating communities in which children were included, in which caring for them was the responsibility of us all, and in which they were free to have a childhood, under the watchful eyes and loving hearts of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and neighbors. It's from living in a community that we learn what we most need to learn, from a wide variety of adults and other children, the lessons of working together, of being personable, of asking a lot of questions, of taking responsibility, and, when ready, and not necessarily waiting until the arbitrary age of 18 or 21, to assume our own productive, useful work.

We are currently a long way from achieving anything like that vision, but it is nevertheless the way forward, not just for children, but for all of us. If this change is to happen, it won't come from on high, but rather must bubble up from us, from individuals choosing to place caring for our children at the center of our lives. Indeed, it's already happening with more and more parents opting for homeschooling, unschooling, cooperatives, and democratic free schools. There is a lot of irrational fear to overcome. There is a lot of science denialism to overcome. There are a lot of addictive habits to break. And there are economic realities that make it seem insurmountable. But we know what to do and that is to create community, to find it, to nurture it. It can begin to happen in libraries and on playgrounds, in work places and nursing homes. It can begin in our schools and churches; where sports are played, where music is made, and where dancing is happening. It starts when we seek to make space for children everywhere that community is happening. It starts with learning to trust more people, including children, because trust is the greatest antidote to fear.

If there ever was a time for schools, it's at an end. When we bring the children back into the center of our lives, we will once more have the kinds of communities in which we can all thrive, together.

(I've written a follow up post in which I sketch out one idea for how a future without schools could look.)

I've published a book! If you are interested in ordering Teacher Tom's First Book, click here. Thank you!

I put a lot of time and effort into this blog. If you'd like to support me please consider a small contribution to the cause. Thank you!