Doing School

As a teacher mom, I often find myself telling Emery how to do school (I say telling because he never asks). For example, his ELA teacher has an assignment where students are to read for 20 minutes four to five times a week and log their reading time, # of pages read, and some sort of response (find and define a word you didn’t know, summarize what you read, etc.) Okay, so it’s not as bad as Accelerated Reader, but this approach, to me, doesn’t promote a love of reading either—it’s just more school work. I’d rather students journal once a week on what they read outside of school or even just talk about it. They read enough for learning in school, already, in my opinion. I see this assignment as a way of monitoring reading—don’t get me wrong, the best way to improve comprehension and vocabulary is through reading . . . but the point of this post is to share with you how I modified this assignment for my own purposes and to teach Emery how to do school.

Therefore, he reads throughout the week, but he writes all of his logs on Sunday. I know, this approach could be seen as procrastination, but if he’s doing his twenty minutes of reading in the car, it’s a little inconvenient to pull out his reading log and record the metaphors in the twenty pages he read. I guess it’s more about me and my desire that he not feel the urge to enter a reading log entry every time he reads. I know what I like as a teacher, and I just assume all teachers appreciate the same efforts (I know this is not true and narrow-minded of me).

But there are other examples as well. I encourage him to bring copies of his KidsDiscovery on topics that they are studying in Social Studies. I tell him to occasionally record extra entries or put forth a little thought into his presentations—but I must add, I have never done his work for him except once when he had to embroider a Christmas tree parabola for math.

There clearly is a set of rules that accompany being successful in school. For the most part, one must be quiet, follow directions, sit still for long periods of time, and be well-organized. Creativity, independent thought, and messiness are discouraged. A few years ago, I read Doing School: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed-Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students by Denise Clark Pope. In this study (which is quite readable), Pope follows five high school students attempting to achieve academic and extracurricular success. She reveals the short cuts, tricks, and often disturbing attempts these students undertake to meet their academic goals.

I just finished (this morning, which is why my post is late, I read most of yesterday) Walter Kirn’s Lost in the Meritocracy: The Undereducation of an Overachiever. Talk about someone who “did” school. In fact, when he lost sight of “doing school” which I’m beginning to realize means cheating, taking short cuts, buttering up one’s teachers, and in many cases, taking drugs and using alcohol (which Kirn takes to extremes). There’s an interesting lesson that “doing school” leads to breakdowns, despair, and really not much fun at all.

Is there any hope at all? I can see now why some parents turn to unlearning—which reminds me, I need to review Anderson’s latest book.