Teaching kids to play the system

Dear good students,

I went to Starbucks this morning and bought coffee and a croissant, and I’m going out to lunch today, so I think now is a good time to change the subject. (Although I was thinking, Rita, that I don’t really understand this point: “…but it's just an incentive to good behavior for the wrong reasons, since it still makes acquiring stuff for the sake of stuff the main goal of the process, and this is what seemed unsustainable and unjustifiable to me in my first post.” There didn’t seem to me to be a substantial difference between the two reasons, except that in one, I feel morally superior and retire, and in the other, I just retire. But then, at Starbucks, I thought maybe if I was motivated by an underlying conviction to virtuous thrifty spending, as opposed to just regular thrifty spending, I wouldn’t fall into the coffee trap as often.)

Speaking of the wrong reasons for doing things, I would like to turn the topic to public school education, specifically, what I should say to my child when he tells me that “my cousin stole a car and only got JuV, so it’s really not that big of a deal.” As I think all of you know, Rita and I participate in a “mentoring” program for middle school kids in low-income areas of DC. The purposes of the program is to ultimately get them out of their crappy school system (the one which, as one columnist said to those who insist Obama should put his kids in public school (myself included!) “would be a form of intellectual and social child abuse”) and into college-prep high schools, and ultimately to college. We get the kids from 6-8 pm, at the end of their 12 hour day, so I sympathize when they are less than motivated. But that’s not really the larger problem. As one told me, “I don’t LIKE school, man, why do I gotta be here?”

So, the philosophy that we (we being tutors, teachers, anyone professing to care about the education of children) are supposed to have is that we have to make these kids LIKE learning. Through good, creative teaching, attention and mentoring, these kids can change from (trouble-making) lumps on logs to the proverbial sponges that soak up information and radiate awe and interest. My response to this: WHATEVER. (Rita, I trust that if I ever run for public office on a school reform platform, this blog will be deleted? And when you are interviewed, you will tell the reporters how much I loved the little children?) So what do I say to this child, who too is busy sneaking cocoa-puffs from his backpack to his mouth to notice that I am talking to him?

“I don’t care if you like school. I didn’t like school either, especially in middle school. But you still have to DO it and you better do it well, because I am NOT taking the train all the way out here to watch you pick your nose.” I have found that this kind of guilt-trip is largely ineffective with children, as they do not have a highly developed facility for compassion. But really, there is a larger message that I want them to absorb from this, one that I think would get me kicked out of the tutoring program if I were to make explicit.

I understand what it’s like to go to crappy schools.* I know what it’s like to sit in a classroom when there is no discernible reason for my presence other than that it smells better than skipping class by hanging out in the bathroom. I remember, one time in particular, when I was assigned to “Business and Computers” in eighth grade and wasn’t allowed to switch to Home Ec. I sat, for nine weeks and watched the teacher file her nails while I fumed about not being able to bake cookies. At the end of those nine weeks, I received a D for the class. I went up to the teacher, report card in hand, and basically said, What. The. Hell.
“You didn’t turn in any work.”
“There wasn’t any work.”
“I don’t have your worksheet.”
“It’s right here.”
“Oh.”
“I’m getting straight A’s this year. I’d like an A in the class.”
“Ok.”

This utterly arbitrary assigning of grades was not a unique experience for me. Probably lots of people got C’s and D’s, who did the same amount of work as I did (which was none) and didn’t say anything, because, like my aspiring car-thief, they didn’t care enough to confront the teacher. School is stupid anyway.

So here is what I would like my kids to absorb: Yes, school, especially right now, and especially the one you are in, is stupid. But you have to learn to play the system. When teachers randomly assign grades, who gets the A? The student who has proven themself diligent and conscientious in other ways. The student who has merely expressed a desire for good grades. The student who expects good grades.

In sixth and seventh grade, I was a mediocre student. In eighth grade, in preparation for high school, when my grades would matter for getting into a good college, I decided I should get straight A’s. And that’s all it was. A decision. It required no burning of the midnight oil. It was a planned campaign to change my teachers’ conception of me from a middle-achieving student to a high-achieving student. (This was slightly harder in math class.) And this continued throughout high school.** It wasn’t until college that I learned to actually care about learning, rather than what my grades could get me. And I would say that, largely without exception, all the high-achieving students at my high school shared this same philosophy. We knew when we had to work, when we could coast, when we could cheat, and how to make our previous grades and our reputations work for us. In a lot of ways, being a good student was less work than being a mediocre student. Our teachers thought we were too smart for busy work. We got called out of class a lot for special presentations, college-meetings, and awards presentations. We got special privileges. We skipped school and drove to the beach and never got in trouble.

So, my kid can make a choice. He can make the effort to appear diligent and have his teachers worship him, or he can go to JuV. Both require the same amount of actual work (although I suspect plotting to steal a car requires more brainstorming and planning than writing a standard English composition). He just doesn’t know how to make school work for him.

Now, clearly I don’t think my mentoring program should form itself around this philosophy, just that I wish I could convince my kids that getting out of their situation is urgent enough to require this kind of mental overhaul. I don’t think my educational…structure was enviable, and I would try my hardest never to send my own children to schools where they would adopt this kind of philosophy. Learning is fun, and I wish I could have learned that earlier. But you’re lucky if you come out of a DC public alive, much less a philosopher.

*I don’t want to overstate my shared experience with DC public school kids. While Miami-Dade schools are fairly awful, I was never subject to violence, and I was never scared to go to school. I was lucky enough to be placed in advanced and gifted programs, where I was told repeatedly that I was smarter than everyone (what is up with that?), and this undoubtedly helped boost my confidence that I could use the system to my advantage. I didn’t go home to an empty house, and none of my (immediate) family members did illegal things that I aspired to. I did not start out where these kids are, and they are not going to end up where I am.

**I am over-simplifying. I took AP courses that were challenging and interesting, and I picked some of those (like Art History) because I liked the topic and wanted to learn more about it. I had some good and invested teachers, who invited me to their house for review sessions and Christmas parties. And while I was in many extra-curricular activities just for my college applications (every god damn honor society) I was also genuinely engaged in Newspaper, and would have participated regardless. But the fact remains that many AP classes I took, I chose because I knew I could pass and it would look good on my record for college (European History, Government, etc.) The positives came as a result of my already being a good student, not as motivation to love learning.

I anticipate many responses telling me I am a horrible person.

Love,
Alex