In New York City during the 1930's, my father's elementary school classrooms contained 35 to 40 students, sitting in rows, facing a teacher who gave her instruction standing in front of a chalkboard. The students' shirts and blouses were of one color: white; the suits were usually some shade of grey. Learning was highly regimented, and students were generally afraid of incurring the displeasure of the teacher.
On the one hand, my father's school experience sounds stifling, judging from his description. On the other, the "outcomes", to use contemporary jargon, of the educational methods and classroom structure of my father's childhood were in many ways superior to what we achieve nowadays. He was amused when I pointed out that in many of today's public schools, any teacher whose student desks were arranged in rows, and who failed to "circulate" throughout the classroom might receive unfavorable marks on a lesson evaluation.
The temptation to think back on American education of the period 1920-1960 with nostalgia is almost irresistible. Teachers and administrators were not enthralled by faddish theories; they taught only what we would nowadays call "content", often through rote memorization, drill, and lecture. Class discipline could be severe, but it was unequivocal and usually effective. Students and teachers wore decent clothes in the schoolhouse, and it was assumed that students would treat one another with civility and adults with respect.
It is true that schools in that period sometimes brutally reflected inequalities in the larger society. Students who were black and brown, or lived in disadvantaged areas of the country usually languished in appalling facilities. The notion of education as an instrument of social justice barely existed.
However, my purpose is not to defend nor to question traditional education methods. I am more interested in why our system of education has been in a constant state of revision over the last four decades.
In the period just mentioned (1920-1960), there was consensus about what constituted proper relations between adults and children, about what children were to learn at school, about child behavior, about the role of the school and the role of the family. It was thought that families raised children, while schools only had to educate them.
That simple formula no longer applies. The roles of schools and families are now blurred. Even if one wanted to recreate the school of our parents and grandparents, it could not be done. We no longer view authority as absolute; home discipline varies too greatly from household to household; society gamely offers too many distractions; there is disagreement about what should be taught. The naive notion that students should enter a school completely ready to learn is at odds with contemporary attitudes -- namely, that schools should nurture children -- and moreover goes against reality.
We have decided that the American school must fulfill more than just the educational needs of our children. To be fair, this is a very well-intentioned idea. And just because it would have seemed absurd a couple of generations ago does not mean that we should stop trying to address both what educators call the "affective" domain (emotions, self-esteem, etc.) and the "cognitive" (intellectual) domain. This dual mission is expected of all contemporary educators, and one has to be effective in both of these "domains" to be successful. However, it is uncertain how successful schools have been in taking on some of the responsibilities that were once squarely in the domain of family life (instilling confidence, building character and work habits, teaching good self-presentation, bolstering self-esteem, etc.).
This is why, I believe, the search for new ways to structure schools will be ongoing (or, less charitably, unending). We may find some ideas that are partly successful (charter schools, in some cases), but a sure formula will always remain just out of reach, because the educational system can not, on its own, bring about the changes in our society that would ensure long-term educational and career success for the majority of our students. It is the culture, not the school, that is most in need of reform.
On the one hand, my father's school experience sounds stifling, judging from his description. On the other, the "outcomes", to use contemporary jargon, of the educational methods and classroom structure of my father's childhood were in many ways superior to what we achieve nowadays. He was amused when I pointed out that in many of today's public schools, any teacher whose student desks were arranged in rows, and who failed to "circulate" throughout the classroom might receive unfavorable marks on a lesson evaluation.
The temptation to think back on American education of the period 1920-1960 with nostalgia is almost irresistible. Teachers and administrators were not enthralled by faddish theories; they taught only what we would nowadays call "content", often through rote memorization, drill, and lecture. Class discipline could be severe, but it was unequivocal and usually effective. Students and teachers wore decent clothes in the schoolhouse, and it was assumed that students would treat one another with civility and adults with respect.
It is true that schools in that period sometimes brutally reflected inequalities in the larger society. Students who were black and brown, or lived in disadvantaged areas of the country usually languished in appalling facilities. The notion of education as an instrument of social justice barely existed.
However, my purpose is not to defend nor to question traditional education methods. I am more interested in why our system of education has been in a constant state of revision over the last four decades.
In the period just mentioned (1920-1960), there was consensus about what constituted proper relations between adults and children, about what children were to learn at school, about child behavior, about the role of the school and the role of the family. It was thought that families raised children, while schools only had to educate them.
That simple formula no longer applies. The roles of schools and families are now blurred. Even if one wanted to recreate the school of our parents and grandparents, it could not be done. We no longer view authority as absolute; home discipline varies too greatly from household to household; society gamely offers too many distractions; there is disagreement about what should be taught. The naive notion that students should enter a school completely ready to learn is at odds with contemporary attitudes -- namely, that schools should nurture children -- and moreover goes against reality.
We have decided that the American school must fulfill more than just the educational needs of our children. To be fair, this is a very well-intentioned idea. And just because it would have seemed absurd a couple of generations ago does not mean that we should stop trying to address both what educators call the "affective" domain (emotions, self-esteem, etc.) and the "cognitive" (intellectual) domain. This dual mission is expected of all contemporary educators, and one has to be effective in both of these "domains" to be successful. However, it is uncertain how successful schools have been in taking on some of the responsibilities that were once squarely in the domain of family life (instilling confidence, building character and work habits, teaching good self-presentation, bolstering self-esteem, etc.).
This is why, I believe, the search for new ways to structure schools will be ongoing (or, less charitably, unending). We may find some ideas that are partly successful (charter schools, in some cases), but a sure formula will always remain just out of reach, because the educational system can not, on its own, bring about the changes in our society that would ensure long-term educational and career success for the majority of our students. It is the culture, not the school, that is most in need of reform.
