“When you win you’re reborn, when you lose you die a little bit.” This is a quote from George Allen, a former football coach who never had a losing season. I picked this quote because after reading about the state of California deciding to go back on its requirement for 8th graders to take Algebra. I have felt for many years that the educational system is literally and figuratively killing our children. From the hopelessness of some kids in the inner cities, to the honor students in Palo Alto jumping in front of trains. Although I don’t have any hard data to prove it, my gut tells me that most of the people who have walked into schools and shot innocent students, teachers, administrators and others have been students who didn’t “fit in” or may have been bullied. What I am trying to say is that in the educational systems rush to “leave no child behind”, they are leaving more behind than ever. The message is clear from the first day that you attend school that you have to go to college, (not just a community college), but a 4 year college, and that everything you do must in some way set you on a path towards a 4 year university. The A to G requirements. The message is also very clear that if you don’t accomplish these goals you are a “loser”, and that you can never be part of “successful society” if you don’t go to college.
I think back to my children’s first day of kindergarten and every single child in those classes believed that they would be a success. That they could accomplish anything if they believed they could and were given the opportunity. Then what happens. God forbid some kids don’t mature or develop at the same rate and may not learn at the same rate, or even worse may not desire to learn the adopted curriculum. Research indicates that there are many types of intelligence, academic being one of them, but others include mechanical, interpersonal, artistic, special-linguistic and naturalist. So the school system slowly separates the “winners” who as George Allen says are reborn, from the “losers” who as he also says die a little bit. In the real world there are a whole spectrum of jobs between “digging ditches” (which by the way I have done more than my share of) all the way to “brain surgery”. Ask the guy who repairs your car, answers your ambulance call, cuts your hair, teaches your children, works in your dentists’ office, or sells you your car, if he or she thinks that they are “losers”. I heard on the news last week that 47% of current college graduates are working in jobs that don’t require a college degree and that 30% of that group are working in jobs that don’t even require a high school diploma. So are these kids who graduated from college “losers”? Of course they aren’t just as all the people who dedicate themselves to whatever profession they choose are not losers. The problem is that we continue to try and drive square pegs into round holes, when what we should be doing is determining what shape each kid is and giving him or her the skills they need to find the hole that they will fit into.
I am not in any way trying to say we shouldn’t educate our children with the basic academic skills that they will need to be successful in whatever they chose to do, but that we recognize that every child has a unique skill set and what the school system should be doing is determining what that skill set is and then adding to it the additional skills that all children will need to survive as they grow older. We should celebrate their unique skills and build the child’s self esteem by honoring what they are good at, not trying to make every kid fit into a neat little A to G box. We may also find that many social problems of isolation may never start if we truly celebrate the unique gifts of each child. I hope we seriously remember this each time we scold a child who can assemble and disassemble a stapler with precision accuracy, or a child who can resolve conflicts on the playground or in the hallways, or the child who can bring into the home or classroom two of every kind of bug on the grounds. I also hope that everyday in our lives we recognize that every job that someone performs is important, and that if the person performing it takes pride in what they are doing that person is a “winner” and is reborn each day.
Randy Logue, Hollister
