Education is a means to an end, not the end itself—at least that much is
clear from reading John Amos Comenius (1600s) who believed that
education best served the public when it was universally available and
stressed vocational training, preparing students to work in the real
world; in comparison to John Milton, who believed that education best
served the public when it catered to the elite and stressed language
arts and humanities, preparing students for leadership positions in
government. So what type of education best serves the public? Simply
put, critics of vocational education will say that it neglects the
classics in literature, art and music, and critics of classical
education will say that it is lacking in practicality. The answer is
neither because in both arguments, the end of education is not
determined by an individual student but rather by some theoretical idea
about education. Education must be voluntary and so the problem lies in
education that is driven by someone other than the individual being
educated. Whatever happened to the adage, the possibilities are
endless? In both theories, the student is viewed by his potential,
which is defined as: latent qualities or abilities that may be developed
and led to future success or usefulness. There is possible danger in
education where the end of it is determined not by the individual being
educated but by a “panel” or group doing the educating because whatever
the panel’s agenda, the student’s individuality is at risk. Language is
the primary tool we teachers use to convey useful knowledge to our
students. And so, if I were on a panel seeking a specific end, then I
would want to eliminate use of words that would validate the existence
of the individuality of the students. Foremost, I would not talk to
them about anything that had to do with their character. Their past
experiences, family, dreams and faith would not be relevant to our study
because they do not determine the end, the panel does and the panel is
not them. I would seek to change my students’ language and the way they
thought about their own character. This is precisely why parents and
some teachers view having a government imposed, national standard
unfavorably.
Character is defined as “the mental and moral qualities distinctive to
an individual, or the distinctive nature of someone.” If an individual
student’s character is on the table, then the end of education cannot be
easily predetermined and the panel is out of a job, unless their job
description is rewritten to be a more supportive, rather than
dictatorial role. However, if students are only valued for their
potential, or what some refer to as human capital, then the panel has a
real opportunity for good or for evil. The Wisconsin Department of
Public Instruction has stated, “The characteristics of students in each
school community vary greatly across the state. ...To meet these
[academic] goals, different strategies are needed that reflect student
characteristics, experiences, and cultural differences”
(
http://winss.dpi.wi.gov/winss_dm-demographics). Savvy parents and
teachers consider their students’ developing characters and not only
their potential. They vigilantly protect the formative years and avoid
premature labeling of their children and students. And, they realize
that the public is not served best when the future generation is being
educated by a distant panel but rather locally, foremost by their
parents ideally and then by their teachers who are accountable to them.
By nature, effective teachers are supportive of their students’
developing characters because they understand that character has the
most opportunity for growth during the formative years. They do not
blame their students but ultimately hold themselves accountable to their
students and work tirelessly to provide enthusiasm, positive discipline
and constructive feedback to their instruction. Their teaching is
adaptable to meet the individual needs of their students and because of
that, effective teachers are learning continually and often exploring
new possibilities of how to instruct their students better. As a
result, they are generally liked by their students who will say things
like, “Her class is hard but it is one of my favorites.” Effective
teachers resent the panel for getting in their way because they already
have plenty of work to do without it. Ineffective teachers are often
miserable at work and make other people miserable, including their
students. They do not care about their students’ developing characters
because they do not consider teaching a responsibility—to their students
or society in general, but rather a means to a paycheck. They often
blame their students and do not hold themselves accountable for lack of
discipline. Students can generally rehearse verbatim the thoughts and
opinions of their ineffective teachers but cannot tell you hardly
anything about their curriculum. They rarely give useful feedback to
students and parents are frustrated because of it. Their teaching is
not adaptable to meet the needs of their students but almost like a
script they pull out of the “September” file year after year to read to
bored students while they themselves are bored at work. You can find
them sitting at the back of the classroom with their feet up reading a
newspaper while their students fill out a worksheet with eyes fixed on
the clock. After school, sightings of them are rare. Ineffective
teachers welcome any panel who will do their job for them, and investors
with interests in human capital will jump at the chance to sit on those
panels.
You would think that the best solution would be to hire effective
teachers and fire ineffective ones, rather than try to assume a common,
national standard. As an example, I taught Junior English at Davis High
School in Kaysville, Utah. Students who attend this school are often
parented by a father with a steady job and a mother who has the option
of staying at home to raise the children. At the time I taught there,
92% of the student body claimed membership in a church community. The
result is students are getting what they need at home to succeed in
school including but not limited to: good nourishment, a comfortable
place to sleep, the security a father can provide and the nurturing a
mother can provide and vice versa, as well as association with friends
who share their same values and beliefs. As a result, Davis High School
is naturally competitive in Academics, Football, Theater, Debate,
Cheerleading, etc. It is a great place to work as a teacher and many of
my colleagues there are effective mentors and teachers who play an
active role in deciding, along with the administrators who is hired to
teach at their school. At the time however, looking at my fall
schedule, it was apparent that the football team had practice early in
the day and so my 1st and 2nd period classes were usually comprised of
Theater and Debate students while the football players filled the desks
in my 3rd and 4th period classes, after their practice. You would
expect a teacher in my situation to exercise her common sense and not
teach classics like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn the same way to
the Theater kids as I would to the football players, right? I would
hope so because it should go without saying that a Theater kid is going
to react to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn very differently than a
football player after two hours of morning practice, generally speaking.
And they did react and learn very differently and that is not an
observation that a distant panel would be able to make or assess.
By neglecting to eliminate ineffective teachers, you discourage
effective teachers from making your school their professional home. My
first year teaching was not at Davis High School but 32 miles south at
Hillcrest High School in Midvale, Utah. I was the new teacher in an
English department where I was one of the few not tenured and so I was
assigned to be the Debate Coach, even though I had no debate experience.
This came as a surprise because when I interviewed for the job,
“Debate Coach” was not in the job description but was added after I had
accepted the English teaching position. This was probably due to the
fact that Debate requires many additional unpaid, after school hours and
the tenured teachers cared less about who was qualified to coach debate
and cared more about clocking out for the day. If any one of them had
taken an interest in the hiring of a new English teacher/Debate Coach, I
probably would not have been hired because I had no experience with
Debate. The principal admitted this to me a month or so after I was
hired. This was not a result of a shortage of applicants qualified to
coach Debate but a direct result of a shortage of interest on the part
of the English Department in the hiring of a new teacher/coach. I was
also assigned to teach two 10th Grade English classes where only 1-2
students in these particular classes spoke English fluently and none as
a first language. The remaining 40 (approximately) students struggled
to speak English. Since I was not ESL endorsed and my class sizes
exceeded the allotted number, I was told by the Department Chair not to
mention anything about this to anyone outside the school. Coaching
Debate alone would have eaten all my time in preparation, then add those
10th Grade English classes, which were really ESL classes. I had taken
Spanish in college but was instructed to only speak to my students in
English because I was not ESL endorsed. I could have really used a
mentor at the school to help me gain experience that first year but as a
teacher there, I felt completely alone and unsupported. The English
Department at the time was comprised of mostly ineffective teachers.
Routinely, I heard these teachers refer to their students as “little
shits” and I felt insulted and ignored whenever I tried to propose ways
to make improvements to our department, which is why I left my job at
the school at the end of my first year. These problems were not the
result of a lack of resources as much as they were the result of a lack
of effective teachers. It matters less the amount of money a school has
and matters much more the teachers a school has.
While employed at Davis High School, I also taught after school hours
part-time at a third school, Solstice Residential Treatment Center.
This private school understands the important distinction between
students’ characters as it relates to their potential and the inefficacy
of imposing a common, national standard on individual students. From
solsticesrtc.com,
“Solstice specializes in the provision of gender-specific treatment for
female adolescents who struggle with a variety of presenting problems
such as: addiction and substance abuse, eating disorders, self harm,
suicidal ideation, trauma, adoption and attachment issues, family
conflict, etc. We have developed a clinically intensive program based
on the specific needs we know these young women have.”
Solstice RTC is located about five and a half miles from Davis High
School in Layton, Utah. The Wisconsin Department of Public Education is
correct in their assessment that “characteristics in each school
community vary across the state...” Being a good teacher in each of
these schools required an enormous amount of adaptability and a keen
interest in my students’ characters as it related to their potential.
Educators do not have that same adaptability under a common, national
standard, which inherently by simple geography cannot encompass the
variability of students within a school community. In other words, how
would a national panel be able to write curriculum that would fit such
varied needs of individual students within proximity as close as a 5
mile radius? They would either have to design a curriculum that targets
a specific potential set within groups of school communities while
ignoring the needs of students within those same communities or they
would have to create something that best serves only the lowest
performing students, bringing everyone down to the least common
denominator in order to level the playing field. They can’t afford to
look at students’ characters because then the end is predicated on the
student rather than the panel and so they do everything they can to
diminish the role of character in a students’ learning and focus instead
on human capital. Sadly, the result is less teaching of language arts
and humanities and less students realizing their exceptional characters.
Add a panel of educators or policy makers with a hidden agenda that
most likely will not have the students’ characters best interest in mind
and that is tragic.
~Alicia Walters former Utah Teacher
