Curriculum

In case you missed it, the draft version of the new Common Core Standards for K-12 education came out last month. The document was developed by the commissioners of education of 48 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, (Alaska and Texas, to answer your question), and its purpose is to set uniform academic expectations for public education across the entire country. According to the authors, "the draft standards... seek to provide a clear and consistent framework to prepare our children for college and the workforce." They "define the knowledge and skills students should have within their K-12 education careers so that they will graduate high school able to succeed in entry-level, credit-bearing academic college courses and in workforce training programs."

Whether or not this is a laudable goal will be discussed in a moment, but make no mistake that it is a major paradigm shift. Public education as we know it has been around in this country for about 150 years - the first compulsory attendance laws were passed in the mid-1850's - and during that time curricular control has always been in the hands of local or, at most, state educational authorities. Over the last 50 years or so, the federal government has made efforts to control the outcomes of public education (the ubiquitous testing of the No Child Left Behind act is the most recent example, but such efforts date back at least as far as Sputnik), but never before have they attempted to control the inputs. To put this in perspective, it is akin to the difference between having an annual checkup to make sure you are staying healthy, and having someone dictate what you must eat and do in order to be healthy.

Now, to be fair, a lot of people do a lousy job keeping themselves healthy, and they would probably benefit from someone telling them what to eat and do. Similarly, local educational authorities have not exactly done a fantastic job of educating our kids over the last couple of centuries, and having common, cohesive expectations is very likely to help fix that. The problem is that in our culture we value autonomy. If people want to sit on the couch all day watching reality television and eating Big Macs only to die young from heart disease and diabetes, then they have the right to do that. The question is, does this autonomy extend to education? Is it a good idea for the federal government to kick the local authorities off the couch and make them go for a jog, or is that a violation of some deeply-held belief in local control and, more broadly, states' rights? Does Kansas have the right to teach creationism (oh, sorry, I mean intelligent design), or should the feds step in and prevent such folly?

To be honest, at first this seemed like a no-brainer to me. Of course there should be common standards. In an enlightened democracy (hey, we're getting there), the quality of your education should not depend on where you happen to grow up. Also, Kansas should not be allowed to decide for itself what constitutes science.

Then, on Monday, I toured my county's brand new high school for the arts. Housed in a beautifully restored and updated old theater building in the scrappy little downtown area of the county seat, this school represents the creative vision and superhuman effort of many, many people. For over an hour, I listened to the school's principal passionately defending the idea of a school for the arts against my hostile witness-type questioning. (You may not be surprised to learn that I tend to take an oppositional stance in just about any discussion. I'd like to tell you that this is a way to get all the information, but the truth is I just like to argue.) As I did, I began to wonder what the impact of top-down curriculum development would be on a school like that. Would they be permitted some kind of exemption? Or (more likely) would they be expected to meet all the standards for a typical high school and fit in their arts education, the core of their mission, around it? As it stands now, that is more or less what they do, but because the curriculum is state-mandated they have (perhaps) more flexibility than they would have (probably) under a federally-mandated curriculum. Would these new standards mean the end of schools like that, either actually or effectively?

Well, from there it's just a slippery slope, isn't it? I suddenly remembered what a disaster the intrusion of "standards" into early childhood education has been. Instead of play-based preschools and kindergartens where children experiment with activities that interest them and spend most of their time moving around, now we have four- and five-year-olds at desks being told to sit still and color inside the lines. This in spite of an ongoing stream of pretty conclusive research suggesting that young children need active, imaginative play to grow up into healthy adults. There is really no reason, then, to believe that the research on the value of arts education will be heeded any more. Or technical education. Or any other alternative path to adulthood.

And, for me, that's really the issue. One size does not fit all. Again and again, research has demonstrated that different kids learn different ways, and that to reach them we must have a wide array of flexible options for teaching them. Common core standards are fine in theory, but in practice will they mean a loss of that flexibility? Will the subjects considered "core" be taught at the expense of other things that are equally important for healthy development? The answer is probably yes. Treating kids as individuals is a lot of work. Expensive, too. Easier, and cheaper, to just give everyone the same thing and then test them on it.

Properly implemented, the common core standards could be a great thing indeed. But when was the last time anything in education was properly implemented? I'm nervous about this. Really nervous.

Grades

Sometime over the past year, while I was not paying attention, Lucy started bringing home papers with actual grades on them. Not smiley face stickers, which were the extent of the grading in kindergarten, or comments like, "good work!" or even corrections to mistakes, which sometimes happened in first grade. But actual percentage scores, obtained by way of a grading rubric and often translated into a letter. And if you think that she has not noticed this, then I can only say that I wish you were right.

As you have probably worked out for yourself by now, I am a college mathematics professor. This job, like all jobs, has its own set of joys and frustrations. The joys are probably obvious: the times when students get excited about the subject, have breakthroughs of understanding, ask (and answer) interesting questions, that sort of thing. Many of the frustrations are simply the complementary experiences: when students are bored, or uninterested, or frustrated themselves. But perhaps the principal frustration of my job is the almost universal fact that students work for grades. Even students who genuinely value learning for its own sake, and these are considerably less common than I might hope, usually aim their efforts not at learning itself but at earning good grades.

In a perfect world, of course, grades would reflect learning. But even if grades reflected precisely the learning that we hope to evaluate (which they do not, the world not yet being perfect), there is a fundamental difference of approach between learning for its own sake and learning to earn a grade. Grades are the mother of all extrinsic motivators (money, I suppose, being the father), and like other extrinsic motivators they teach students to look outward, rather than inward, for their rewards.

Young children understand that learning is an intrinsically rewarding activity. Infants learn to walk, toddlers learn to draw, preschoolers learn to count, and kindergartners learn to read, all because those things are fun to learn and interesting to be able to do. Then, suddenly, we start grading them. In the space of less than one academic year, children are no longer proudly announcing their new skills, they are proudly announcing their grades. Or, in some cases, not so proudly. And what is a grade, really? A grade is a summary judgment of a person's ability and achievement, distilled, usually, into a single character. How absurd is that? I mean, come on! Twenty years of multiple intelligence theory and this is still the best we can do?

I am publicly on record as being against assessment, at least the excessively quantitative forms of assessment that are currently so popular in education. But not all forms of assessment are created equal. Qualitative feedback helps students learn, and helps them hold onto the enjoyment of learning that comes so naturally at the beginning. All grades do is encourage students to become obsessed with performance, and discouraged if they do not perform well. And I can tell you from experience that when students enjoy learning, the entire process of education is more rewarding, and more successful, for everyone.

I am not naive enough to believe that we can eliminate grades at the college level, at least not in my lifetime. I have my doubts about the high school level, too. But could we not, at the very least, stop grading children in elementary school? Could we postpone, just for a few years, squelching the joy kids take in learning? Because it is painful to watch a child begin to worry about grades, but it is hard to fight and damn near impossible to correct later.

Motivation

When I was in elementary school, if you were naughty you went to the principal's office. What happened there I never knew, because I was never naughty. Well, I never got caught being naughty, anyway. Ask my brother. While you're at it, ask him what went on in the principal's office.

Anyway, children today still get sent to the principal's office, but, like almost everything else about elementary school, the process has gotten significantly more complicated in the intervening 20 (OK, 30) years. At Old Forge Elementary, for example, they have the stoplight system. Here's how it works: each child has a clothespin with his or her name on it, and in the classroom there is a big poster of something resembling a large traffic light. All the children (clothespins) start the day on green. When a child is naughty, he (his clothespin) moves to yellow. If he shapes up, he moves back to green; if not, he stays on yellow. If he gets worse, he moves to red. If he punches the teacher in the nose, he goes to the principal's office. Or something like that.

At the end of the day, the teacher puts a stamp in each child's Behavior Folder (yep). The color of the stamp corresponds to the color on which the child (clothespin) ended the day. Regardless of the color of the stamp, the child's parent must sign the BF each night to show that she has seen the stamp. At the end of the week, children who got green stamps all week get to choose from the Prize Box (yep). The Prize Box is stocked with all manner of rejected Happy Meal toys, all of which are highly coveted by my non-Happy-Meal-eating children.

I told you. Complicated.

However, I'm pretty used to this by now. The kids come home, dump their backpacks in the kitchen, and make for the snacks. I unload the backpacks, sort out the multitude of forms, homework, and advertisements for soccer teams, and sign the BF. At this point, if I may say so, I could do it with my eyes closed. And apparently that's just about what I was doing, until one day two weeks ago. I was mid-sort, mid-snack negotiation, just lowering the pen to sign Ben's BF, when I stopped. Looked. Frowned. Squinted. What WAS that? It didn't look like it usually did.

It was a yellow stamp. I'd never seen one before.

Well.

There was a second yellow that week, and two more last week. This means that in addition to being subjected to (presumably) embarrassment in front of his peers and (definitely) interrogation by his parents, Ben did not get to choose a prize either week. This was definitely a Big Deal. And, indeed, this week he has all green stamps and is excited that he will get to choose a prize. So it works, right? Not so fast.

Here's the thing: this kind of behavior modification program relies heavily, perhaps exclusively, on extrinsic motivation. In other words, the kid is behaving because of what he gets, or doesn't get, from the outside world as a result. Research shows that this works great on little kids, which is undoubtedly why it's so popular in places where there are a lot of kids to control (like elementary schools). The problem is that it stops working as kids get older and, worse, teaches them that they deserve to be rewarded for doing the right thing.

If the Stoplight/Behavior Folder/Prize Box setup were the only one of its kind at Old Forge, I could probably overlook it. But it's not. Indeed, far from it. In addition to the BF there is the BUG (Being Unusually Good) award, in which a student who is especially kind to another student gets a lollipop and a certificate. The Golden Table award, in which a student who exhibits "good character" (the subject of a whole other post, let me assure you) gets to eat lunch on the cafeteria stage while wearing a medal. The Leopard Dollar system, in which students earn pretend money for doing things like their homework. Their homework! The Perfect Attendance award, in which a student with perfect attendance in a given month gets a certificate, some Leopard Dollars, and an invitation to an ice cream party. I could go on.

The trouble with all this is that it teaches kids that they should expect to be materially rewarded for doing the right thing, and that, if they are not, there is really no reason to do it. Even worse, it makes whatever provides a material reward appear to be the right thing to do. Can you think of any examples of behavior governed by that kind of skewed code of ethics in our recent history? Gee, let me think.

I'm not saying that the global financial crisis is Old Forge elementary school's fault. At least, not exactly. But I am saying that raising kids who respond primarily to extrinsic motivators is a bad idea. Really bad. Instead of, "here's your prize!" how about, "you should be really proud of yourself for behaving so well!" Or instead of, "here's your perfect attendance certificate," how about, "I'll bet you learned a lot this month since you were in school every day." Or instead of, "have a lollipop for being so nice!" how about, "doesn't it make you feel good when you help someone else?" No Happy Meal toys required.

T Plus Two

Ben started kindergarten on Thursday.

Like virtually everything else, the experience of sending number two off to school was completely different from the first time around. I just couldn't seem to get worked up about it. Indeed, over the last few weeks quite a few people (who apparently actually read what I write here) have asked when I plan to post something about this, and I had started to feel a little guilty about not giving Ben's departure the same maternal angst that I so generously lavished on Lucy's. Right up to Wednesday night, I was completely cavalier about the whole thing. Even on Thursday morning, I was busily making special lunches and snapping first day pictures without a care in the world.

Because it was his first day, I drove him to school, and we chatted happily the whole way. I parked and walked him in. We found his seat, and he got out his brand new 24-pack of crayons, the one he wasn't going to have to share with his sister. He started to draw.

I said, "I can stay for a few minutes, but then I'm going to have to go to work."

He said, "Bye."

So I gave him a kiss and left. Wow, that was easy.

I walked back to my car, got in, and burst into tears.

Which is exactly what happened the morning I dropped Lucy off for the first time, except that this time I wasn't expecting it. This time it was kind of like when you stand up and whack the back of your head on something you didn't realize was there. Part of the resultant pain is from the whack, but part of it is just surprise, your brain going, "what was THAT? I didn't know there was something behind me!"

I cried all the way to work, absently wondering what was going on. Through meetings and lunch and more meetings, I sniffled and wondered. When I got home, I was greeted with enthusiastic hugs and stories of the first day, and I realized that I had not been worried about him. That wasn't it. What, then?

It wasn't until the next day, after the kids were at school and John was at work and I was getting ready to do my usual Friday morning chores, that it hit me: I'm alone here. It's over.

So that's what this is about, I thought. I don't have little kids anymore. I have... big kids. Schoolkids.

I haven't been home alone on a weekday in over seven years. It's very... quiet. I vacuumed the whole house without once stopping to play with legos or fix a transformer. For some reason, it took twice as long as usual. This is going to take some getting used to.

Party Favors

I don't mean to be ungracious, but really, what is up with party favors these days? When I think, "party favor," I think, "balloon," or maybe, "ziplock baggie filled with cheap, unnecessary plastic objects that will break within 48 hours and be in the landfill by next week." Although I'm not exactly a fan of this kind of party favor, it is at least on a scale appropriate to the observation of an elementary school birthday.

Lately, however, it seems like party favors are escalating. Lucy has been bringing home from the seemingly unending stream of birthday parties she attends a series of "favors" that, in my opinion, would more accurately be termed "gifts." Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that in our culture it is the birthday child who is supposed to get the gifts, not the guests. Maybe I'm old-fashioned (OK, I'm old-fashioned) but it seems to me that the party itself is the gift to the guests. Imagine if, every time I had a dinner party, I not only served the guests dinner, wine, and dessert, but sent them home with tote bags full of jewelry and toenail polish. Absurd, right? Yet that's what happens at these parties.

Recent party favors have included tee shirts, flip-flops, picture frames, dolls, even live potted plants. And actually, none of these things would be so bad if they came alone. ("Here's your cute little potted geranium to remember Suzie's birthday!" I'm down with that.) The trouble is that they come grouped into increasingly larger containers. First came the paper gift bag, full of stuff. Next came the cloth tote bag, correspondingly full. Most recently, Lucy actually brought home a bucket full of favors. That's right, a bucket. Stickers, activity books, stuffed animals, clothing, makeup (yes, makeup), pens and pencils, and, of course, candy. Always candy.

Fellow parents, I am begging you! Stop this madness. Kids don't need more stuff. They need to have fun playing with each other, and that is what you are so generously giving them when you invite them to your child's birthday party. Skip the bucket, OK? We'll all be happier in the long run.