We have been committed to a deeply wrong way of thinking in our society, a model that I think is killing us educationally and literally. I have been stewing about it for quite some time, until I have built up quite a head of steam. So here goes for a rant:
Both the educational system and the health system are built on the factory model, a model that is as antiquated and as useful these days as a Model A Ford (however fond you may be of Model A's). For the purposes of simplicity I'll focus this post on education, but I may go for Part Two on healthcare at some point.
The basic idea of the factory model is that if you input the unassembled raw material, you turn out handy finished widgets at the far end, ready for whatever you are producing them to accomplish.
These are the assumptions inherent in a factory model:
- All incoming raw material will meet the standards of production by the end of the factory process
- A standardized process, or small collection of standardized processes, is adequate to producing the end product.
- Factory workers can be organized to do a standardized task at each station, and can be held accountable for a certain output on a certain timetable. [Or a machine can be programmed to do it more efficiently and effectively than a human worker.]
- The factory workers' tasks are prescribed by those who oversee the system from the 10,000-foot level. If the workers do what the overseers prescribe, they will unfailingly accomplish the objective.
- The widgets produced by the factory are just that: widgets; they are not agents with any say in the process, but are being operated on by the process.
- And a final underlying assumption that I find most abhorrent: human beings can be processed like objects.
Humans pursue the factory model of education worldwide, with some logic to support their approach. After all, were it not at least mildly effective, we would not use it. Children do learn to read and write and do math in factory model systems.
What increasingly discourages me is the fact that we unthinkingly settle for a factory model that addresses skills, but not true education. The deeper, more intangible and more valuable things that make us humans such wonderful beings are either brushed over or ignored altogether, because no one knows how to effectively address those in a factory model. There are just too many widgets passing through the factory, and no programming sufficient to address the intangible human things, to adequately accomplish the deeper parts of education.
What increasingly discourages me is the fact that we unthinkingly settle for a factory model that addresses skills, but not true education. The deeper, more intangible and more valuable things that make us humans such wonderful beings are either brushed over or ignored altogether, because no one knows how to effectively address those in a factory model. There are just too many widgets passing through the factory, and no programming sufficient to address the intangible human things, to adequately accomplish the deeper parts of education.
What are those intangible things? These are the conversations between teacher and student about who we are in this universe, what makes humans different (more than just biologically) from all other living things. These are the interactions about what makes something valuable on this planet and how we fit into that, what altruism is and how humanity and altruism can and should be linked, what deeper beliefs and values underlie our responsibilities to other humans, and our responsibilities to other living organisms and to the environment. These are the things of true education. They can't be standardized, tested, and made into accountability points.
We have settled. We've settled for those things which we can measure, while ignoring the fact they don't matter as much as the things that we can't measure. And we are spending more and more time on objectives, widget-making processes, the mechanization of education, and attempts at testing our product for quality control all along the way and at the far end. This is not just disappointing; it is evil, and we will reap what we have sown as humanity spirals out further and further into the insane, destructive behaviors we see reflected in the madness of the news stories today.
We have settled. We've settled for those things which we can measure, while ignoring the fact they don't matter as much as the things that we can't measure. And we are spending more and more time on objectives, widget-making processes, the mechanization of education, and attempts at testing our product for quality control all along the way and at the far end. This is not just disappointing; it is evil, and we will reap what we have sown as humanity spirals out further and further into the insane, destructive behaviors we see reflected in the madness of the news stories today.
And that is not all.
There is a dilemma regarding the widgets that don't meet our assumptions. We have in mind an idea of children that meet the norm, and for them the factory model may seem to work at least to some degree. But what about the child that is different? The child that has learning disabilities, or behavioral challenges, or mental health issues, or physical challenges, or emotional wounds that go so deep that they are walled off from learning? The school system (i.e. "the factory") has made a stab at trying to address these needs, but often doesn't get there. Here and there the "widget" falls through the cracks onto the floor, or gets mangled in the machinery, or has a meltdown in some chamber of the factory system. This is so painful.
And then what about the child that is ready to go faster, higher, deeper than the machine of the factory has been set up to go? The conveyor belt is only going to go just one speed, the cooker will only get just so hot, and the extra beauties that could be included to customize the widget are ignored because the efficiency of the factory model says, "We can't stop to add these, can't build in a detour in the machine." It all goes one speed, does one thing, and leaves out others. There is no mechanism in the factory model to adequately customize for giftedness. If we're looking at norms, gearing the machinery for the middle part of the bell curve of humanity, the ends of that bell curve get chopped off. "Sorry, we can't handle you. Just fall into line with the others."
And then what about the child that is ready to go faster, higher, deeper than the machine of the factory has been set up to go? The conveyor belt is only going to go just one speed, the cooker will only get just so hot, and the extra beauties that could be included to customize the widget are ignored because the efficiency of the factory model says, "We can't stop to add these, can't build in a detour in the machine." It all goes one speed, does one thing, and leaves out others. There is no mechanism in the factory model to adequately customize for giftedness. If we're looking at norms, gearing the machinery for the middle part of the bell curve of humanity, the ends of that bell curve get chopped off. "Sorry, we can't handle you. Just fall into line with the others."
And that is not all. The next one is the one that is making me madder and madder these days:
When you view education as a factory system, you deprofessionalize the widget-makers. Teachers are no longer the professionals, the experts who can decide just how to meet the needs of their students, how to teach and reteach the content as needed, how and when to take a break for the really important conversations that need to be had about humanity, and current events, and family situations, and what is really important in life. The prescribed curriculum and testing schedules are bearing down on them, the accountability measures (well-meaning, but so misguided; can we reference the mechanisms of NCLB, Common Core and other federal initiatives?) rest on them as a heavy weight that obliterates their freedom as thinking, creative human beings to actually spend their days educating (not just teaching or training) their students.
When we deprofessionalize teaching, either from the outside or the inside of the profession, all of society will suffer.
When we deprofessionalize teaching, either from the outside or the inside of the profession, all of society will suffer.
In my state the stream of people going into training for the education profession--if you can call it a "profession" anymore in the public arena--has been drying up. The shortage has begun. Why would you want to enter a profession where you are a treated as a widget-maker and placed under incredible and constant pressures, criticisms and limiting factors and policies? In my state school districts can't find enough credentialed teachers to hire, and are again beginning to throw interns into classrooms to sink or swim with groups of students. I'm a huge fan of new teachers with all their energy, dedication, idealism and love for their students. But if my kid were in a classroom with an inexperienced, non-credentialed, sink-or-swim teacher candidate who was trying to teach without an experienced mentor at his/her side on a daily basis, I would be frantic. I have one shot, ONE shot, at getting it right with my child, and a whole year can make a difference. In two shakes we are going to be in a crisis situation in my state for credentialed, experienced, professionally capable teachers in the public school system.
Let me share a bit of my experience in a private, denominationally-supported school system, as a comparison point. In our system we have had an approved curriculum chosen by a regional committee made up of teachers, and teachers can request a variance if they support their request with a good educational rationale. Teachers are the professionals, deciding how and on what schedule to teach the content. In my classrooms we did standardized testing once a year, and the test results were reviewed simply to provide information, not to rate us as professionals or to decide how much funding our schools would get. My colleagues and I assumed each child was different, and it was my job as a professional to find or devise solutions for helping each student to learn and grow, not only academically, but also personally. If I saw a need to stop for half a day and tend to something that was a human issue for my students, I had the freedom to do that. I was the professional, and we were all in that room to learn together. A "teachable moment" might distract us from the planned curriculum, but that was all right. We ended the year--all of us--one year more educated.
If I were to choose a metaphor for what happens in my denomination's system of private schooling, I would not reference a factory model. I would say it's more like tending a garden in which it's my job as a teacher to help each young plant--and the students are not all carrots, or tomatoes, or daisies or peach trees; they're a mix of whatever pops up in your garden each year--to thrive and grow and bear fruit. That kind of freedom and meaningful work is what has made it a joy and satisfaction for me to walk into my classroom each day.
I'm not a widget-maker who has to keep up with the conveyer belt and do the prescribed task year-in and year-out in automatic repetitive mode, but a professional teacher who changes my approach yearly to meet the need of the students, and to reflect my own quest for professional growth and effectiveness. I am a diagnostician in the educational sense. A sage. A seeker. A dedicated director, fertilizer, loyal audience and cheering squad for my students.
I'm not a widget-maker who has to keep up with the conveyer belt and do the prescribed task year-in and year-out in automatic repetitive mode, but a professional teacher who changes my approach yearly to meet the need of the students, and to reflect my own quest for professional growth and effectiveness. I am a diagnostician in the educational sense. A sage. A seeker. A dedicated director, fertilizer, loyal audience and cheering squad for my students.
The data, by the way, document that the "garden" approach not only produces good fruit in our school system's students. But the students (and we are not selective, so there are all kinds of students of all kinds of backgrounds in our schools) score academically above the national norms on standardized tests, and that gap widens with every year that those students continue to attend our schools. Our students do very well, and much higher percentages of them go on to college and beyond to graduate schools, than the national norms. These are things to be proud of, and to investigate more closely.
Having said that, my heart still aches for the public school system in our country. It is full of precious teachers and students who struggle under a multi-layered burden loaded onto them by the factory model. People in power who are not educators (politicians and business moguls with the influence of money) are continuing to operate from the factory model. Non-educators are directing our educational system, deciding how it will be resourced, and using the system to their own ends. I don't see society turning from the factory model any time soon; those in power have bought in so thoroughly to that mindset. Is there any rescue possible?
Let me finish with a quote that has guided my educational philosophy and experience for a long time. This comes from Ellen White, who wrote a great deal about education during the first 50 years of my church's history. This (below) is what I don't see us accomplishing in our society. We could do better, even where we are not free to include the faith-related themes referred to in this quote. These core values are what we should be aspiring to accomplish in educating the coming generations:
Every human being, created in the image of God, is endowed with a power akin to that of the Creator-- individuality, power to think and to do. The men in whom this power is developed are the men who bear responsibilities, who are leaders in enterprise, and who influence character. It is the work of true education to develop this power, to train the youth to be thinkers, and not mere reflectors of other men's thought.
Instead of confining their study to that which men have said or written, let students be directed to the sources of truth, to the vast fields opened for research in nature and revelation. Let them contemplate the great facts of duty and destiny, and the mind will expand and strengthen. Instead of educated weaklings, institutions of learning may send forth men strong to think and to act, men who are masters and not slaves of circumstances, men who possess breadth of mind, clearness of thought, and the courage of their convictions.
Such an education provides more than mental discipline; it provides more than physical training. It strengthens the character, so that truth and uprightness are not sacrificed to selfish desire or worldly ambition. It fortifies the mind against evil. Instead of some master passion becoming a power to destroy, every motive and desire are brought into conformity to the great principles of right.
Gives me goosebumps. That is true education.
