What are We Really Teaching in School?
Yesterday, there was an article in the Indianapolis Star about graduation rates for young men in Indiana and, more specifically in Indianapolis Schools. It was really sad to read. I wasn't surprised to find that young black men had a 36% on time graduation rate. I was surprised to find that young white men had a 26% on time graduation rate. That means that 64% of young black men and 74% of young white men in this urban school system will be looking for jobs with no high school diploma.
The state numbers aren't very good either, with 42% of young black men and 71% of young white men graduating on time. Nationally, 47% of young black men graduated, and the national numbers weren't quoted for whites. This is from a study by Johns Hopkins University.
What is amazing to me is that these numbers, especially for white men are getting consistently worse in urban areas, and seem to be degrading at slower rates in many rural areas. The study indicates that the fate of black men and their engagement in school depends on the "systemic opportunities provided in your state and community". This seems to me to be a very high level oversimplification of the problem.
Yes, the economic opportunities available in a state and community are major determiners of whether young people can see reasons to stay in school. If the elders in my community who have high school educations are unemployed and hanging out with those who dropped out, then this is discouraging. However, this is far from the only, or major reason for school failure by men, and, for that matter, women. We really need to look at this from a different perspective.
Actually, it might be interesting to look at education as a product, and to young people as consumers. As an industry, schools are at a major disadvantage in trying to cater to their customers, primarily because their product offerings are largely determined by politicians. In my opinion, they run around like elephants in china shops setting policies about something they know little if nothing about and create really strange strategies.
Then, they hold the schools accountable for failing while trying to implement poorly conceived, sometimes insane, product mixes. In my opinion, there are an incredible number of unintended negative side effects of the political dictatorship of educational processes. We are finding that over half of the consumers of the product of Urban education walk away as soon as they have the opportunity. On the average, about 30% walk away, even in areas where opportunities do exist.
An any other service industry, service companies keep a close pulse on the satisfaction of their customers with their product, and are able to adjust their offerings based on direct customer feedback. Of course there are some governmental regulations in most industries, but not enough to undermine customer satisfaction significantly. So here are some questions we might want to consider:
- For boys, what is the effect of spending many hours a week for the first six or seven years of my customer experience being taught by someone of the opposite gender?
- For black boys, what is the effect of being taught by someone of the opposite gender, and for the most part, another race? For Everyone:
- How motivating is it for me to have to go to school for 7 hours a day, perhaps be on a bus for another 1.5 hours, then have to complete 3 hours of homework at night?
- What is the effect on my connection to the school and the educational process to have to sit down for at least a week a year to take a test to see what I have learned so far?
- What is the additional effect if I have done poorly on one or more of those tests.
-
- What happens as the result of my having to do extra work to pass it next time, especially if I don't?
- What is the effect of my having reduced opportunities for self expression in the areas of music, art, and physical recreation as the result of school budget priorities focused on getting me to pass that test?
- What is the effect of my having little or no choice about my time during my adolescence when I need to develop my abilities to choose?
- What is the effect of my being trapped in this kind of system for 12 years of my life?
- How does my being involved in the system described above affect my perceptions of being a significant human being?
- How does it affect my perceptions of being a capable human being?
- How does it affect my perceptions of being an influential human being?
Just some thoughts for us to consider....
