Making the Grade

My writing shows a bad attitude about school, right? Guess what I grew up to be? A teacher! Seems like a strange choice, except for one thing; I love learning. I read as soon as I could. I absorbed conversations and radio shows and newscasts. I studied bugs and maps and tree leaves. I hugged music close, humming and then singing lyrics as I memorized them. I really WANTED to love school - but couldn't. It was big and scary, filled with too much noise, a few mean people and too many strange rules. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't fun. Learning should be fun! Over the years I had many wonderful teachers, teachers who really worked hard to make the mandated curriculum interesting, and to reach every child, and to assist students in achieving their highest potential. But I chaffed and squirmed and agonized as I counted down single hour, every single day, from first grade through twelfth.

I didn't do well on tests. I had a hard time following directions. I couldn't track what was going on in class. My first grade teacher wrote this on my first report card: "Student could improve in school if she would stop staring out the window."

But I didn't.

Old School

Rows? Check.
Books? Check.
Flag? Check.
Books for reading? Check.
Paper for writing? Check.
Boards for teacher to write on? Check.
Teacher standing in the front of the class talking and waving a stick? Check.
Students stuck in hard seats with awkard tables for hours on end trying to pay attention? Check.
Yawn.

Lab rat, or scientist?

Here was my dilemma in First Grade: I couldn't understand why my parents, who up to this point had shown me quite a bit of interest and affection, would summarily send me out of the house each weekday in stiff and pinchy clothing to attend school. Public education, it seemed to me, was a troubling, ill-advised social experiment based on the correctional facilities model. What could I have possibly done in my little, brief life that would warrant this punishing treatment? All day, with little reprieve, I had to walk in lines silently, I had to sit in awkward wooden desk/chairs for hours, motionless, and I had to produce products with chubby pencils and flimsy dulled paper that were low quality and worthless to teacher and student alike. ( License plates would have been a better choice for manufacture, as they required a better skill set and had a longer term purpose.)

Well, if there was to be no pardon, I had to find a way to survive the school year. Instead of feeling like a victim in this clinical trial, I would become an insider, an observer, an agent. I watched, took notes and made judgments. The first thing I noticed was the bulletin boards. All wrong! Overcrowded, asymmetrical and too generic. And the scripted alphabet strips on army green tag board across the front of the class HAD to go. The smells in the class should be attended to, as well as the temperature. And frankly, the attire of most of the students and the majority of the staff was unappealing and ill-fitting. So much could be done to improve the classroom climate! Why was I the only one who seemed aware of these shortcomings?! My fellow interred prisoners seemed better equipped to integrate into the system. I balked at the outset, and remained skeptical, if not downright aggrieved, throughout my education sentence.

Run, Spot, Run

I ran away from school on the first day of First Grade. Even though I had a nice, new white dress with a poufy slip to wear, and nice, new black Mary Jane’s to walk in, and a cute, older (2nd grade) boy to walk with - I didn't want to go to school. I had never been to day care, or preschool, or kindergarten. I had never been in camps or clubs or organized sports. I had simply grown up in a house with mom, dad and brother, and played with a few pals who lived on my street, and read by myself or watched TV with my family. I was ill prepared for the structure, bustle, crowds, noise and especially the rules of public education. Why stand in line? Why sit at an assigned (uncomfortable) desk? Why not talk when I wanted to talk? Why not eat when I wanted? Why move only when a bell said move? I didn't understand any of it. I didn't like any of it. So when that bell said move out to recess - I moved; out, across the field, over the fence and up into a tree. I nestled into the branches of an old olive tree and watched the clouds make puppies and ships. I stayed there a good, long time, planning never to return to school. 

Books in a Box

I was already a successful reader when I started school, so it came as no surprise that reading was my favorite subject. I especially liked our Books in a Box, provided by SRA Reading Laboratories  (Don H. Parker). These leveled materials allowed me to race through reading time, moving up the colored, labeled levels of ability. Not great literature, true - but a good way to gain independent progress. Titles such as MR. ZIP AND THE U.S. MAIL, POLICEMAN PAUL and TEXAS PETE: LITTLE COWBOY might not have been the types of books I would normally seek out on my own, but the stories were quick and light, like Jello for my brain. I would have been happy to read in class all day long. Forget P.E., recess or math. Math I didn't care for at all, unless it was used to add up all my reading scores.

See Spot Run

"New Math", a trend in the Sixties, was joined by an 'Old Reading' push for phonics, 1^st introduced in the 1880’s. Out with the old - in with the ... older! Sputnik launched, and the Look-Say / Whole Language method of reading came under scrutiny and soon schools across the U.S. were immersed in phonetic reading lessons, the likes of which hadn't been in public education favor for over 30 years. Again, we witnessed a push to teach in a different way, seemingly sans planning, training, research or a shared vision with teachers, students or parents. For two decades the public schools pushed for phonemic awareness, practically demonizing whole language approaches for literacy. Then, just as suddenly as it had become the favored method of decoding, phonics disappeared - and whole language was back. No "Dick and Jane" novels, mind you, but Basal Readers hit the scene as the 'it' books for America.  I was fortunate, I believe, to have grown up in a whole language household. I was read to daily, and books were my constant companions. No one ever had me sound out works; it was, "Look-Say" all the way. I listened and watched as my parents read me stories; Winnie the Pooh, Kipling's Just So stories and some Robert Louis Stevenson poetry. Their dedication and enthusiasm for literature enticed me into committing the random letters on the page into meaningful words. TaDa – another avid reader was born!

Adding It All Up

I wanted my first blog post to be the "How Many Teachers" Joke because it points out convoluted educating can be. In the joke, a teacher wants to instruct a class on a very simple, straightforward process: changing a light bulb. But the many shifts, trends, fads, and directives handed down each school year make the most simplistic instruction a tangled, convoluted stream of effort. Frustrating, yes. Effective, no.

I was a victim of this type of governmental / societal interference back in the 1960's. Sputnik had Americans all bunched up, and there was a race between Russia and America to fling satellites up into the sky NOW! As a country, it was decided all school children needed to become scientists and mathematicians quickly - so New Math was born. Abstract, theoretical and obscure - new math challenged teachers, overwhelmed students and frustrated parents. It was my first experience in the public schools systems reactionary approach to real or imagined shortcomings. When in doubt, throw it out and bring in something shiny and new - even if it is untested, unsubstantiated and unproductive. I still am hindered by a decade of math instruction that attempted to teach axiomatic set theory to students before they had learned their multiplication tables! I swear that’s why it takes me so much time to factor tips at restaurants – really!