More and more I have adolescent clients who tell me they are just so bored with school. They feel the subjects don’t apply to them. The teachers are not inspiring. Very few of their courses seem to have anything to do with their current world, and for some, their goals. Yes, teens have goals and our high schools are just not addressing them. Teaching, for the most part, is antiquated in both subject and style.
For example, if your kids asked you why they had to learn Algebra 2, how many of you can give a productive answer? Not most of us. The National Center for Education and Economy, the NCEE, through a Georgetown University study, reports only 5% of occupations utilize Algebra 2. The author of this abstract report on Google, Linda Rosen, CEO of “Change the Equation (whatever that is) feels that giving kids low expectations in math is injurious to their future career and that we have to raise the bar. She then goes on to say that the NCEE is concerned that many high school students cannot even clear the existing low bar. So what does this mean? First, for the 5% of you who need Algebra 2 in for your careers, go for it. But what it really says is that the way we teach math is not working. If a student c cannot see how something is applicable to their lives they tune out.
The Burbank School system in CA finally started doing something about this and began a program two years ago dedicated to showing students how math actually applies to life. It is much more than memorizing some formulas and applying them to a problem. I loudly applaud Burbank for being progressive and recognizing, finally, that kids hate math because they cannot do it and cannot see how it is useful to things they do.
The most progressive and innovative classroom project I was introduced to comes from The Windward School, a private school in Los Angeles I visited some years ago. On Monday, the Science teacher walked into the classroom, divided the kids into groups of five, handed each group a large piece of sugarcane and said, “I will be back on Friday. Turn this into sugar.” How brilliant to make students learn that science is actually a process to turn something into a product we use.
Oakwood School in North Hollywood, CA attempted a program that combined English and History together so that History became much more them memorizing names and dates. So some learned all they know about history through reading fiction. What’s wrong with that? History was just too boring. The textbooks were too heavy to carry home so many skipped the reading and listened to the teacher’s lecture. Did you ever see the New Yorker cartoon where a dog is being reprimanded by his owner, “Now Fido, stop chewing the shoes, don’t sit on the couch, don’t pee inside . . . “ And all the dog hears is “blah, blah, blah”? That’s history – bring it alive and at the very least show how history repeats itself and makes it relevant.
Speaking of relevant, my annual rant is that schools do not teach current events. Given that this is an election year, given that the President of the United States could have been ousted from office, given that Washington DC is in disarray, our climate is crashing and burning - literally burning, etc., how is it possible that schools do not have a mandatory current events session. This could be as simple as having kids bring in an article that is of interest to them. But when high school students do not know that Iran and Iraq are different countries or that the Taliban is not a new music group, when the Kardashians are followed more closely than the Presidential hopefuls…there’s a problem!
Finally the diatribe on learning life skills. While it should be up to parents to teach these, they don’t. And this is not just underprivileged households. I have wealthy kids who come in for counseling and report that they are off to college and do not know how to do laundry or write a check or go to an ATM or cook the simplest of things. It’s not the upcoming academics that scare them; it is life and what they need to know to live it. Why can’t schools skip Algebra 2 (except for the 5% who need it) and offer a course that actually teaches how to make a bed or, a better math skill . . . unit price at the market?
Our schools are not only educationally out of date, but they also are not offering what kids need. College is no longer a necessity for getting ahead. We need to show our kids that there are options such as 2-year programs that offer certificates in so many skills required for good careers. Careers - sorry, another rant. There should be a year-long course provided to high school students that teach them about all the careers that exist. CareerPlanner.com lists 12,000 careers. Schools and our educators are the perfect conduits of this kind of information. Yes, everyone nods because it’s all true but it is time for something to be done on a national level. Education need not be boring.
Time for our schools to up the game address real needs and new goals.
