A tiny five year old looks at the big yellow school bus coming down her street. Her mother sings “The Wheels on the Bus,” but all the little girl does is cry. It’s not that she is afraid of leaving her mother. It’s not that she gets bullied by the bigger kids. It’s that when she gets to school, she is forced to become a different person. She can no longer exuberantly explore toys or ideas. She is forced to sit at a desk. She has to be still. She feels bored and antsy. She likes playing with her toys – making up stories for her dolls to act out, playing teacher with her dolls, building with her blocks. However, everyone tells her that this is fun not education.
Education, schmeducation. Today, Americans focus on grades, on statistics, on being “correct”. Every few semesters, my students read the Jean Anyon piece, “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work.” This piece discusses four different social classes and posits, using a sample of five schools, a theory that schools in various socio-economic classes teach those skills which help to perpetuate the cycle of remaining in the same class. Every year, in rereading this essay, I get to the “Middle-class school”, where the importance of education lies in getting the “right” answer, and the validity of using standardized tests to assess students becomes a question. In fact, according to Anyon’s theory, it is the middle-class school, not the two upper classes (Affluent Professional and Executive Elite) who see education as teaching children to find the “right” answer. One child discusses that information goes into the brain as though it is in “cold storage” to be used for later. Regardless of the socio-economic class in which a child goes to school, American schools today focus on the idea of obtaining the correct answer on a bubble test. This brings down the level of education for all children, regardless of economic class.
Sure, many people can argue, and correctly, that “No Child Left Behind” has failed children in many ways. However, is that truly the only failure? American middle-, upper-middle-, and upper-class parents place a great deal of pressure on their children to always be “advanced.” What is “advanced”? Is intelligence truly quantifiable? All children, even the most developmentally handicapped, are advanced in some way. However, at every stage, parents look at their children to determine whether they are advanced or not.
In The Trouble with Boys, the author, Peg Tyre, posits that the skills that girls tend to exhibit – the ability to sit still, the ability to be quiet and compliant in the classroom – are rewarded as the skills that lead to an “advanced” education. Parents push their children to learn fast, to move fast, to grow up fast. In order for a child to be “prepared,” parents want three year olds to be reading off flash cards and to be doing homework dittos, to prove that they are indeed getting ready for kindergarten. Kindergartens today, according to Tyre, expect five and six year olds to be able to complete tasks that children in my generation were learning in second grade. In a misguided attempt to teach children these skills of correct-answer-finding, Americans are pushing their children beyond their physical and mental maturity levels at a young age. In fact, this pushing, this inability to allow children to develop naturally through play, creates a disinterest in learning that, according to Tyre, causes children in these academic preschools to fall behind by the fourth grade. In addition, it quashes intellectual curiosity.
What about the eight month old who looks at a plastic box for blocks and sees it as a step to climb? In a classroom, this type of thinking is discouraged. The use is inappropriate. However, what is the child truly doing? The child is using creativity as well as problem-solving skills to do what she wants. In addition, the child is exploring her world. Exploration is the key to learning. Exploration is removed from learning when parents and teachers fail to see the intelligence of a child that falls outside the parameters of academics.
Many educators in higher education bemoan the loss of intellectual curiosity among their students. By the time young people reach college, they have found that this “right answer” mentality is so ingrained in them that they fear the ability to think for themselves. They fear the opportunity to expand their knowledge base. They are so mired in “grades” and “GPA” and “success” that they have lost the curiosity that is the foundation of these very things.
Parents are partly at fault. Everywhere a mother takes her child, other parents comment – he’s slow, she’s fast, look what he can’t do, ohmigosh, did you see that she did???? These comments establish competition regarding children’s development at such a young age that children no longer know anything but this continuous cycle of do, grow up, not enough, do more. Parents no longer wish for their children to play for the sake of fun. Look at the toys in a toy store. Children can choose from objects that enhance gross motor skills, fine motor skills, development of language, reading skills, tactile skills. The list goes on. However, few toys are deemed suitable just for fun.
Fun isn’t in the vocabulary of American children. The word is apparently not intellectually advanced enough. In NutureShock, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman discuss programs regarding self-directed play and its importance in the learning process. Indeed, they include research that discusses the important role of play in helping children explore their world and process the information that they garner. Between the removal of play from various early childhood academic programs and the requirement that all children conform to certain social behaviors that may not be natural to them, schools and parents are quashing the desire to form intellectual curiosity.
Many years ago, I babysat over a weekend for a family. Their little 5-year-old son had activities planned throughout the weekend. He had an art class and playdates. His days were scheduled within a minute of wakeup to bedtime. At one point, while driving to his art class at 8am on a Saturday morning, he turned to me and said, “I wanna go fishin’. Please? Daddy sometimes takes me fishin’ over there,” and he pointed to the pond we were driving past. To this day, over ten years later, his little voice rings in my ear causes me to feel heartbroken at having to tell him, “No. You have your art class now. Maybe daddy can take you another day.” Part of me wishes i could go back in time. Sure, art is great for kids to learn. Kids should be engaged in art and music and math and science. However, when these become work instead of fun, children no longer gain from them, only hurt. Fishing teaches – it teaches patience, appreciation of nature, understanding of how life comes and goes. Art is intended to do the same thing. Why is it that American parents seem to think that their children can only learn within a structured setting with a teacher?
Americans – parents and teachers – need to rethink education. Education at the early ages impacts learning at the later ages. Removing the desire to learn through exploration can create generations of children who attain good grades with no understanding or caring as to how they received them or why. Education should teach curiosity, not squash it like a bug. Education should teach. Today’s education doesn’t necessarily do this – regardless of socio-economic class, regardless of gender, regardless of age. Today’s education needs to get back to the roots of stimulating not suffocating children and young adults. Grades may be important for things like college and, potentially, jobs. However, what good are those grades if you blindly stumble through life without trying to explore your world? Get out there, young people. Get out and explore. Explore the world and learn. Be curious. Be brave.
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