learning to learn

After sixteen years in the classroom, I still love teaching.  I do find myself, however, trying to put my finger on how “things” have changed.  I don’t consider myself a cynic, but I think the general view of the purpose of education has changed.  When I was a student, in my early years of teaching, and even now I fundamentally believe that learning, that education, is an end unto itself.  Becoming learned, becoming educated makes one a better person, opens up doors of insight into other people, cultures and times, and allows one to move through the world connected to the big picture.  

Over time, a shift has occurred.   Education - taking classes , reading a book, earning a degree – is now viewed as a necessary step towards earning a living, checking off the prerequisites in order to get the job and earn the bucks.  Learning for learning sakes is a foreign concept, and school respond by forming career academies, pre-vocational programs of study, and focusing on testing and graduation rates.  

I think about the AP English course I used to teach.  It was supposed to be difficult, and the fun came in that students (and parents!) knew that it would challenge them to think, to discuss, to realize there was no "right" answer but there were "good answers" based upon text and logic.   Parents would routinely tell me they wanted their students challenged, even if that meant they didn't earn an A in the course.  Students did the reading so they could participate in class, and stump their classmates (and ideally their teacher!).  By the time I left Lathrop, my students tended to be much more interested in "getting the points for an A" as opposed to learning for a love a learning.  Yes, this is a gross generalization, but overall I do believe it reflects a shift in our society.

I think what troubles me most isn't that students have made the shift, but that I feel like our education system has capitulated and encouraged that approach to education.  The counselors at many schools are much more about checking boxes than creating a love of learning and real education.   In their favor, they are responding the wishes of many parents and the culture of testing and scores trumping learning.  A class like AP English isn't viewed as a place to really learn about the world and how literature creates a broader understanding of the human condition.  A class like AP English is a 5 point A, a bump in a transcript to catch the attention of colleges or earn a scholarship, a way to earn credit and have an advantage over others.  Now I'm not naive enough to believe that these perks weren't always factors in AP English, but they used to supplement the basic idea that "AP English is good for you."  It was like eating your spinach or drinking milk - not always the tastiest but the necessary steps you took for a healthy body and healthy mind.

My epiphany has actually made me feel better, because now I have a context for understanding.  This shift explains why it wasn't fun to teach our last class for teaching interns, who saw our course as nothing more than a hoop to jump through.  This shift explains why my stomach turned inside out during course registrations.  

I am not one to blame "these young people" for the world in which they live.  I do believe that part of the job of education is to meet the needs of the community and world.  It saddens me however, that education isn't valued and that schools themselves are perpetuating the change.

During the last few political cycles we've had candidates trumpeting that "they're just like us."  I remember thinking, "I don't want a president or senator who is as dumb as most of us.  I want the smartest, most educated leaders we can find."  I hate to think we're moving from a the current view of education as the necessary evil to education as a hindrance.

And where do I fit, as an educator, into all of this??  And what does this mean for my kids and their world?  I might need to make them read "The Outsider" by Colin Wilson.  Somehow I want to instill the idea that it's okay for them to pursue education, learning as a means to improving their own lives.  Even if they are in a world that questions that premise.

"Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn."

~Benjamin Franklin