Relevance

My students witnessed a meltdown Friday. Luckily, it wasn't nuclear, or any other catastrophic event that could compromise their health. It was me who melted down. This is what happened.

Our PTA has asked the 6th graders to take part in an evening college fair event that will help open all our school children's eyes about future college plans. Our role is a fun one; we are creating fantasy universities with dreamed up sports teams, scientific accomplishments, graphic designs, famous alums, all located in real places in our actual physical world. Students may work alone or in groups of two or three, and they are displaying their creations on project boards at the evening event. Prizes will be give to the universities with the most "recruits", and so students are also designing fliers, buttons, and handouts to draw applicants. So far we have a Justin Bieber School of the Arts, a university with unique space shuttle access, and I am suggesting a Jimmer Fredette Stadium to anyone who will listen. We are having a lot of fun.

As part of their projects, I am asking each team to write a mission statement for their college. And in order to teach about mission statements, I showed them our school district's mission statement from the Canyons Website. In part, it reads, "The mission of the Canyons School District is to encourage and help every student become career- and college-ready and find a meaningful purpose in life." Things had been going just fine up to this point. Then the catalyst for my meltdown: I asked my students if this mission statement is working for them. Is their school experience preparing them for real life?

Hands went up all over the room, and immediately students began answering negatively. "School isn't teaching us anything we need to know!" was repeated in different students' voices over and over. Some were willing to grant that parts of school would be useful for a few students--a scientist could find science class useful preparation; a writer could appreciate the work done in writing class. But few voiced value in anything universal about their school experience, and most saw little relevance to their future lives outside of school.

I was aghast. I asked more questions. "You learned to read in school, right? That is useful, isn't it?" Mostly I was met with blank stares. One girl explained that she had learned to read in preschool, and many others couldn't remember anything about learning to read at all. At this point I got dramatic. "Have you ever seen homeless people? Poverty? Don't you know that the difference between them and you is education???" Still more blank stares. I was not making progress and I knew it.

I live in an upper middle class neighborhood with mostly professional parents. Families are generally small, and many of my students are only children. I have been concerned all year about their apathy regarding work completion in general, and homework in particular; I write lists of missing assignments on my white board that by the end of the month leave me little space for actual work, starting fresh each new month just so students don't drown. I send individual lists each Thursday, along with explanatory emails to parents sometimes daily. I work before and after school, and I offer incentives at the end of each month for students whose work is complete. From my point of view, I do everything possible to urge success, and with this effort more than half our class has their work done by the end of the month. Without it, the success rate would drop to a fourth. Yet after all I can do, there are many students left behind.

So my students' response in class clicked with what I had been observing all year: school is not relevant to them. They don't know why they come, why they rotate from reading and math to science to social studies. It makes no sense to them to learn about stars and revolutions and problem solving. I asked them, then, to write me a 150-word letter explaining all their feelings and frustrations, so I could show someone more powerful how they feel about school. I started their letters with these words, "I am writing to tell you about how useful school seems to me..."

Many of their written words are more supportive of school than their initial comments indicated. And some of them showed insight beyond what I expected regarding their awareness of the disconnect between their values and their actions. One student who rarely completes assignments wrote, "I don't like school, but it is not pointless or stupid. School has a point. I don't like it, but I need it." But so many voiced a complete lack of understanding about their individual reliance on an education! A girl wrote, "My first subject is math. I have never really liked math at all. People say you do it in everything, and I partly agree with them. But the one, lifetime dream job I want to be, doesn't involve any math what-so-ever!" She wants to be a heli-ski guide (and she will be great at it; her father is one) and an architect. She says, "I know that I suck in math, but I heard that it can be a two-person job. Like, I can design a house, and someone can do the math for me." She also said this about homework: "Homework is just a waste. It is a waste of trees and time. Then we just throw it away after. So it gets us through the years, but so what?"

Many other students voiced career plans that don't require much academic preparation. A beautiful girl might be a supermodel. Another girl wants to be a pet babysitter.

I wish I could start the year again, and begin with something of impact. Native cultures sent children this age out on survival rites of passage; what can I do?

I usually end a blog entry with my idea of a solution. This time I am looking for your ideas. Egocentric kids, raised in a culture of entitlement, lacking understanding of the precipice they stand on that is banked by education. How can I reach them?