Imagine for a moment that you were in charge of a public school. What would you do differently?
I’ve been thinking a lot about that recently. So has The New York Times, which recently ran a story in which 37 experts rated 30 possible changes. The Times’ roster of experts does not include a single classroom teacher, an oversight that’s hard to explain. Nor did the newspaper ask any education reporters for their judgments (an oversight that upsets me, even though it may not bother you). I wrote about this recently on my blog, here and here.
The experts recruited by the Times had several favorite reforms: 1) small group tutoring, 2) adopting what’s known as ‘The Science of Reading,’ and 3) universal pre-kindergarten, and 4) more money.
In this column and over the next few weeks, I’m going to recommend roughly two dozen changes, only a few of which will require spending more money—and not very much at that.
These suggestions are based on my having spent 41 years in the back of classrooms in just about every state and a handful of other countries, plus four years teaching, 18 years as a public school parent, and quite a few years as a student. I know these approaches work because I’ve witnessed it.
It’s important to understand that poor academic performance and declining attendance are symptoms of what ails public education. They are not the problem. Therefore, trying to raise test scores with more drill and test practice is as dumb and ineffective as treating strep throat with lozenges. Attacking the problem of poor attendance by expanding the truancy police to force kids to come to school is equally stupid and counter-productive.
A second observation: The conventional view of education is that schools produce graduates from their assembly line. This is the much-criticized ‘factory model’ of education. Let’s turn that on its head. Keep the factory, but think of students as ‘knowledge workers,’ whose job is to create knowledge, not regurgitate facts and figures. By that logic, schools are ‘knowledge factories,’ and creating is the polar opposite of regurgitation.
Here are four changes that I would make immediately.
Revived (or expanded) extra-curricular activities like music, theatre, journalism, dance, debate, and sports. All of these teach team play and–more importantly–failure. In these activities, students learn to rely on each other and to pick themselves up after falling short. And to pick up their teammates.
What we adults call, often disparagingly, ‘extra-curricular’ activities are often the main reason kids come to school.
Separate English, math, and science classes for boys and girls in middle and high school. My wife, a career educator, made me aware of a fascinating paradox: Girls do better in single-sex classrooms, but boys do better in mixed classrooms. In a mixed classroom some girls are intimidated and hide their intelligence and suppress their curiosity. Studying alone, without boys around, girls shine. In mixed classrooms, many boys often try to impress girls with their knowledge, although others may believe that being ‘smart’ is not ‘manly.’
The rest of the school activities like cafeteria and extra curricular activities should be mixed.
I’ve seen this done very effectively in several charter schools in New Orleans.
Short, unstructured, but frequent recess breaks in elementary school, as is done in some Japanese schools I’ve visited. And by ‘frequent,’ I mean at least three and perhaps more 15-20 minute unstructured breaks from sitting at a desk. Kids, especially young kids, need to move. As workers, we aren’t expected to sit all day, so why do we expect that of young children?
High school and middle school students have class change breaks five or six times a day, their opportunities to move around.
Or emulate Sweden:“In Sweden, outdoor free play is a foundational part of early education. Daily outdoor time is expected — often in all types of weather — based on the belief that movement, risk-taking, and unstructured exploration are essential to development. The cultural philosophy of friluftsliv (“open-air living”) reflects the understanding that children regulate and learn best when connected to movement and nature.”
Business cards for teachers: They are professionals and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. It will change the dynamic in every parent-teacher meeting when the teacher can offer their business card and say, “Hi, Mr. Merrow, I’m Nancy Ross. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” instead of the awkward “Hello, I’m Mrs. Ross.”
Academic counselors get cards too. Administrators already have them, proof of their importance if you need convincing.
And if some businesses offer to provide the business cards as long as they can put their logo on the card, tell them, politely, to f**k off.. Advertising would defeat the whole purpose.
Two of these changes, separate academic classes and multiple recesses, won’t cost a dime. Business cards might cost a few hundred dollars, depending on how many teachers are involved. Restoring ‘extra curricular’ activities could be expensive; ramping them up shouldn’t cost a lot.
Those are four changes I would make right away if I ran a school. There are at least 18 more on my list, so I hope you will stay tuned. And I hope you will share your own ideas and suggestions on my Substack page or right here at Themerrowreport.com.
The New York Times has taken a serious question–What are the best ways to improve public schools?–and turned it into a superficial parlor game–while dressing it up to make it appear to be a serious effort. In a September 28th article headlined “30 Ideas for Fixing U.S. Schools, Ranked by Experts,“ The Times breathlessly reveals two astonishing discoveries: 1) Some ideas cost more than others, and 2) some are more effective than others. Gee, who would ever have thought…..
Then they mash the two points of analysis, cost and effectiveness, and identify the best changes as 1) small group tutoring, 2) adopting what’s known as ‘The Science of Reading,’ 3) universal pre-kindergarten, and 4) more money.
How they got to this conclusion is interesting–and, in my view, indefensible. They asked an unpublished number of academics to participate, and 36 University Professors and one Research Fellow at a California Public Policy Institute signed on. Those 37 were then asked to rate, on the basis of cost and effectiveness, 30 different policies and practices that might change education.
Did they even ask any teachers or school board members? There aren’t any on the list, so it’s fair to assume that the reporters didn’t go down that road.
Just suppose for a minute that The Times was doing a similar article about ways to improve public transportation? Would all their experts have been academics, or would they have asked the men and women who run bus and subway systems in a few cities to weigh in? Maybe ask a few of the people who once led systems but are now retired? Ask a few transportation advocacy groups, like the Straphangers Campaign in New York City, the T Riders Union in Boston, Circulate San Diego?
As the lawyers say, ‘Asked and answered.’
What if The Times had taken on medical care? Would they have only asked academics? Of course not, but, hey, it’s just public education, so who cares!
The next sign of disrespect is their list of 30 strategies, which they say they got by asking around and by reading Democratic and Republican political proposals.
Dollars to doughnuts, Google was heavily involved.
Some public schools are doing really interesting things, such as gender-specific classes in academic subjects like English and math, or multiple but short recess breaks for elementary school children, or project-based learning that involves the local communities, but you wouldn’t know that from The Times’s reporting.
And then they write, somewhat disingenuously, “We see our survey not as a scientific poll, but as a useful measure of how experts steeped in the research view these ideas,” which is reporter-speak for “You don’t have to take any of this seriously.”
Just imagine how the 37 academics might have responded if two doctoral students had presented this proposal: “First we will cobble together the most talked-about changes in schools. Then we will ask a lot of experts for their opinions (but no teachers, school board members, or politicians). Next, we will put our findings on a spreadsheet and publish it somewhere. Finally, we will submit it for our PhD thesis.”
The professors I know would have sent the students packing.
Apparently, the editors of the New York Times said, “Cool, go for it.”
I want you to experience how a skilled teacher makes certain that her first graders learn to read. Imagine that you’re sitting in the back of a classroom of First Graders, most of them 6-years-old, a few of them age 5. It’s early October, and the students already know their letters and the sounds they make. First the teacher holds up what looks like a Stop Sign.
Teacher:Children, what does this sign say?
Many hands go up, and a lot of the kids call out “Stop” and “It says Stop” and “That’s a Stop sign.”
“Maybe you recognized the sign because you’ve seen it on lots of street corners, but let’s read what this sign actually says. First, let’s take it apart, letter by letter. The first letter, T, makes a sound. What sound does T make?”
The teacher then goes through the sounds the other three letters make, the children make the sounds and put them together, laughing when they realize their mistake.
Then she holds up a slightly different sign for her students to decode: (this sign reads SPOT, but I am flummoxed by pasting graphics. Sorry)
They do, with increasing confidence because they’re enjoying the game the teacher is playing.
“OK, now let’s see what happens if we move the letters around again.”
She holds up another sign: (this one reads POST)
“Same four letters. Let’s try to read it by sounding out each letter. Start with the first one. What sound does P make?”
After they’ve decoded and pronounced POST, they are delighted when she brings out two more versions of the familiar sign:
They take those words apart, then put the sounds together, eventually reading both words. OPTS is the most challenging because the First Graders don’t know the word, leading to a discussion about OPTIONS, a noun, and OPT, a verb. The teacher doesn’t move on until she’s sure everyone understands. Then she challenges her students to use those words in conversation during the day, or at home that night.
Finally, the real thing, which they decode with ease:
And for one more challenge, she holds up this sign, STOP but with an E at the end.
She tells them how it is pronounced and explains that, when the letter E follows a vowel, that vowel ‘says its own name.’ She tells them how to pronounce it, and then she writes several words on the blackboard: NICE, HOSE, and CASE. The children sound them out.
Then she holds up another image, a GO sign:
“Who knows what this sign says? Can anyone use it in a sentence?” (Many hands go up.) “That’s good.”
After sounding out the two letters and putting the word together, the teacher asks the children, “What happens to GO if we replace the G with S or N?”
She writes SO and NO on the blackboard, next to GO, which the children figure out almost immediately.
“But letters can be tricky things, children. What sound does ‘O’ make in STOP? Keep that in mind.”
She replaces the G with the letter T, making TO . Some students automatically rhyme it with GO and SO, pronouncing it ‘TOE.’ Now she explains that in this new word, TO, the letter O has a different sound.
“So we see that the letter O can make different sounds. English is tricky, but we will learn all the tricks. Read this sentence: ‘SO I said NO, you must GO TO the STORE.’
Which word isn’t following the rules?”
They all seem to understand that TO is the exception.
“I warned you that letters were tricky! But there are ways to figure out most letters, rules that work most of the time. But not all the time, because English breaks a lot of its own rules. I promise you we will have fun figuring all this out…”
The teacher is incorporating Word Recognition– often called “Look-Say” or Whole Language–techniques into her reading instruction. Because English is often non-phonetic, readers must learn to recognize quite a few words, as she is explaining to her First Graders.
Another time she writes two short sentences on the blackboard: COME HERE! WHERE ARE THE MACHINES?
“OK, kids. On your toes now, because only one of these words follows the rules.”
She asks them to pronounce each word according to the rules they have learned. They do, pronouncing COME with a long O, WHERE with a long E, ARE with a long A, and MACHINES with a long I. Then she pronounces them correctly, mystifying and delighting her students.
“I told you English was tricky and sneaky, but we won’t let it beat us!”
She creates a list of other rule-breaking words to learn.These so-called ‘sight words’ include who, where, to, are, been, because,machine, and police. The list will grow throughout the year.
She often asks her students to tell the class what words they want to be able to read. Hands go up, and children call out, ‘Bathroom,’ ‘Girl’s Room,’ ‘Boy’s Room,’ ‘Ice Cream,’ ‘Police,’ ‘Rocket Ship,’ and more. By meeting them where they are and encouraging their curiosity, she’s empowering them.
Another time she will ask her students what sentences they would like to write. “I love you, Momma” and “I miss you, Daddy. Please come home,” some call out. She writes the sentences on the board for everyone to read.
Neither Phonics nor Word Recognition, this strategy is closer to the “Literacy as Liberation” practiced by Brazilian educator Paolo Friere. Whatever the source, it’s a powerful motivation for young children, giving a strong sense of mastery.
When the year is nearly over, she will ask her children some questions: ‘Who are the three or four fastest runners in the class?’ The children call out five or six different names. ‘OK, now who are the three or four best singers in the class?’ Again names are called out. ‘And one more question. Who are the three or four tallest kids in our class?’ More names.
“I asked those questions because some of you are taller, some of you can run faster, and some of you can sing better, but that’s just how things are turning out. It’s not because you are better. You’re just different. The same thing is true with reading. All of you are readers, good readers, but some of you can read better….because you got lucky at birth, not because you are a better person.”
She is correct. It turns out about 40 percent of young children absorb the basics of Phonics without difficulty and are able to decode and comprehend with ease. But everyone–even ‘born readers–has to learn to read because reading is not a natural act.
“You’re all readers now, and nobody can take that away from you….ever. So please keep on reading, and writing, and thinking, and asking questions.”
Full disclosure: That teacher isn’t one person but a mashup of marvelous First Grade teachers I encountered as an education reporter, all but one of them women. Among the women was my own First Grade teacher, Mrs. Catherine Peterson at Hindley School in Noroton, Connecticut. I went back and spent a day with Mrs. Peterson when I was in my late 30’s and working for NPR. The man was Johnny Brinson, a First Grade teacher in Washington, DC. Like all great teachers, they made reading a challenging game, and then did everything possible to see that their students ‘won’ the game.
To summarize: Learning the alphabet is a straightforward 2-step process: Shapes and Sounds. One must learn to recognize the shapes of the 26 letters and what each letter sounds like. There’s no argument about this, and certainly there has never been and never will be an “Alphabet War.”
The same rule–Shapes and Sounds–applies to reading. Would-be readers must apply what they learned about Sounds–formally called Phonics and Phonemic Awareness–to combinations of letters–i.e., words. They must also learn to recognize some words by their Shapes, because many English words do not follow the rules of Phonics. (One quick example: By the rules of Phonics, ‘Here’ and ‘There’ should rhyme; they do not, and readers must learn how to pronounce both.) To become a competent, confident reader, one must rely on both Phonics and Word Recognition.
Ergo, there’s absolutely no need, justification, or excuse for “Reading Wars” between Phonics and Word Recognition. None! And yet American educators, policy-makers, and politicians have been waging their “Reading Crusades” for close to 200 years. As a consequence, uncounted millions of adults have lived their lives in the darkness of functional illiteracy and semi-literacy.
Here’s something most Reading Crusaders don’t understand: Almost without exception, every first grader wants to be able to read, because they understand that reading gives them some measure of control over their world, in the same way walking does.
And skilled teachers can teach almost all children–including the 5-20 percent who are dyslexic–to become confident readers.
Skilled teachers understand that reading–like walking–is not the goal. It’s the means to understanding, confidence, and control. Children don’t “first learn to read and then read to learn,” as some pedants maintain. That’s a false dichotomy: they learn to read to learn.
And so skilled teachers use whatever strategies are called for, beginning with the essential: Phonics, but including Word Recognition, what one might call Reading as Liberation, and more.
Chemistry, Biology, and Physics are sciences, but reading is a skill, much like tuning a piano or an automobile engine, or throwing a pot or a frisbee. Those who would have us believe that “A Science of Reading” exists, and that it reduces reading to a hard and fast set of rules are either devious politicians, opportunistic charlatans eager to sell snake oil curriculums, liars, or ignoramuses.
But, while reading is a skill that can be learned, teaching reading is both an art and a skill.
However, the “Science of Reading” bandwagon shows no signs of slowing down. To date, 43 states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation relating to what is called ‘evidence-based reading instruction.’ I say that’s well and good if that means making sure teachers understand the importance of phonics. Not so good, if it means hours of rigid drills in the sounds that letters make.
Don’t laugh–that’s what happened the last time we fought ‘the reading wars’ back in the 1980’s. I remember being in public schools in Connecticut where reading had been reduced to about 30 discrete steps, which could be drilled and practiced. Once the kids had mastered the steps, they were deemed to be readers. Perhaps they could read, but all the kids I interviewed absolutely HATED reading!
Phonics–matching letters and groups of letters with the sounds they make–is the engine of reading. But it’s not enough to know the rules of English because our language has almost as many ‘exceptions to the rule’ words as it has rules. So learners need to know more than just the rules. They have to recognize some words, the ones that break the rules.
Some of my favorite examples of our rule-breaking language:
If reading were a science, HE, SHE, and THE should rhyme, so why don’t they?
If reading were truly a science, PRIVATE, ESTIMATE, AND PRIMATE also should rhyme, but they don’t.
If reading were a science, MAINTAIN, OBTAIN, and CAPTAIN would rhyme.
Say these three words aloud: ANGER, RANGER, and HANGER. If reading were a science, they should rhyme too, but they don’t.
Why don’t these words rhyme? “Because reading is NOT a science.”
Let me give you one more example of our language’s irregularities: Say this word aloud: EAR. Now put a B in front of EAR to make BEAR. By the rules of Phonics, BEAR should rhyme with EAR….but it doesn’t
Now that you have learned to pronounce BEAR, it stands to reason that adding a D, making BEARD, will produce a word that is pronounced BARED. But it’s not; it’s pronounced BEERD.
Back to the rules: EAR and HEAR rhyme, as they should, but HEARD isn’t pronounced HERE-D; instead, it’s pronounced HERD.
And if we add a T to HEAR to make HEART, we don’t get HERE-T. No, it’s HART.
Back to hard core phonics: By its rules, DEAR, FEAR, HEAR, GEAR, and PEAR should rhyme…. Which they do, with one important exception. Let’s talk about the exception. Let’s add an L to PEAR, to make PEARL. It should be pronounced PAIR-L, but of course it’s not. It’s PURR-L.
So, learning our weird language is not a walk in the park. Nonetheless, properly trained teachers can teach almost any first grader to read, because most children want to be able to read. They understand, intuitively, that reading gives them more control over their environment. It’s learning with a purpose. It’s why children want to learn to walk–to get somewhere– and to talk–to be understood. The same applies to learning to read.
It’s painful but necessary to acknowledge that public schools have done a poor job teaching children to read over the years. 21% of American adults are functionally illiterate, and 54% of us read at a sixth grade level or lower. That’s embarrassing, tragic for those individuals, and damaging to our economy, but please do not blame teachers.
It’s not their fault, because almost all of them were trained by education professors in thrall to the belief that children needed above all to recognize words, not sound them out. So, for years and years the fundamental principles of phonics (letters and combinations of letters make sounds!) have been ignored or, more likely, scorned in favor of what is called ‘Whole Language,’ the curious notion that children should be taught to recognize words, not sound them out. (When Whole Language fell into disrepute, the name changed to “Balanced Literacy,” with equally disastrous results.)
Education bureaucrats compounded the problem with their catchy mantra, “First they learn to read; then they read to learn.” That’s utter nonsense! They happen together.
The craze for ‘The Science of Reading’ dates back to 2017, when a brilliant reporter, Emily Hanford of American Public Media, launched a podcast series called “Sold a Story.” If you missed it, it’s still relevant. She exposes the hypocrisy of education professors who continue to teach and preach ‘Whole Language,’ basically recognizing the shapes of words, as the one true way to teach children to read.
But I can’t imagine that Ms Hanford is thrilled with some of the unintended consequences, which I wrote about here in 2024.
If you have the time and the curiosity, here’s a good teacher at work, making learning to read a journey of discovery and pleasure.
Reading, and learning to read, should not be politicized, but they have been and are. Somehow, Phonics became ‘Conservative’ and then ‘Republican,’ while Whole Language became left, liberal, and Democratic. Ideologues in George W. Bush’s administration did a lot of damage.
More recently, the so-called Mississippi Miracle, which saw its fourth graders making huge gains in reading and math, has been oversimplified, unfortunately.
There is hope. The very red state of Texas has just issued a mandatory reading list of its public schools, and kids there will be reading lots of good books. Yes, there’s a Christian bias, but Texas isn’t giving in to the widespread idea that today’s children have such short attention spans that they can only read excerpts. Bravo to James Traub for celebrating this in a recent New York Times column.
I realize that I’m suggesting a lot of additional reading (this in a nation where only about 16% of adults read for pleasure), but here’s one more important piece, “The End of Reading is Here,” by Rose Horowitch in this month’s Atlantic.
What can YOU do? Read to your grandchildren and grandchildren; give them gift certificates for their local bookstore or Barnes & Noble. Support banning cellphones in school and at your dinner table.
One more thing: Get copies of Jim Trelease’s wonderful book, The Read-Aloud Handbook, now in its 7th edition, for everyone interested in having children read. Jim was a special guy, a reporter in Springfield (MA) with an interest in education. He visited a lot of schools in the 1970’s and 80’ and became intrigued by what was called ‘sustained silent reading.’ He thought there might be a connection between being read to and loving to read. There was, and there is. Turns out the more we read to children, the more likely it is that they will become readers.
I don’t remember how Jim and I got connected, probably through my weekly radio program on NPR, but when Jim self-published “The Read-Aloud Handbook” in 1979, he asked me to write a blurb for the cover. It was the first book I ever blurbed, and I wouldn’t mind if that fact were mentioned in my obituary, so significant was Jim’s book.
Jim passed away in 2022, but his book is a living testament to a life well-lived.
You will not regret buying “The Read-Aloud Handbook.” (And if you happen to find a first edition, my mailing address is PO Box 1381, Edgartown MA 02539.)
PS; I woke up in the middle of the night with a start, convinced that I had a copy of Jim’s book somewhere. Of course I got up and searched until I found it. It’s the 4th Edition from 1997. Jim signed it, “To John, my all-time favorite ‘footnote,'” and dated it 4-8-98. It’s a reference to his quoting what Captain Kangaroo told me about the negative affects of television on reading, on my NPR program. No blurb from me, or from anyone else for that matter. I’m still hoping to find a first Penguin edition from 1982 or, better yet, the self-published book.
Tune in to watch any major sporting event–football, hockey, basketball, women’s softball, etc–and you will be buried in a deluge of invitations to wager from Draft Kings and other companies.
And millions are accepting the invitation. One American adult in five is participating, wagering nearly $11 Billion.
(Journalists are trained to ask “Cui bono?” Who benefits? I will come back to that.)
If you check sports schedules on the ESPN App, you learn who’s playing, who’s favored, the betting line, what the over/under is, and more. In short, everything you need to know to place your bets!
Anyone with a smart phone can place bets, 24-7, and millions are, including a growing number of young people. “People in their early 20s are the fastest-growing group of gamblers, according to recent research. And many kids are starting younger than that. Nearly two-thirds of adolescents, ages 12 to 18, said they had gambled or played gambling-like games in the previous year.”
No secret why professional sports leagues and mega-wealthy owners like Jerry Jones, who owns football’s Dallas Cowboys, and Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, are all in with gambling: They know a fundamental truth: most Americans–particularly young ones–are financially illiterate, or close to it. They know that, while gambling is a sucker bet because the house always wins, investing in gambling seems to be a license to print money, given the number of suckers (i.e., undereducated people) in the audience.
The old saw, “There’s a sucker born every minute,” is incomplete. Add “…and we don’t do enough to teach them about money.”
Kristina Vorndran, writing in the Harvard Kennedy School publication, asserts, “Millennials and Gen Z want financial education, and 88% of adults support mandatory school courses on financial literacy.[iii] In response, 26 states now require high school personal finance courses, up from just 7 in 2019.[iv] Utah led the push for financial literacy in 2003 with its General Financial Literacy Program, but it took 18 years for over 10 states to follow suit. Now, just over half of the states require financial literacy for high school graduation, still leaving gaps, especially in underserved communities.”
The organization WalletHub surveyed financial literacy in our 50 states and concluded that Minnesota, Colorado, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and Virginia do the best job of teaching financial literacy. Worst, they say, are Arkansas, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Alaska, and Louisiana. Here’s another interesting source: https://www.theapef.org/ I am not vouching for either of these surveys, and a good friend, the Minnesota educator Joe Nathan, says that ranking his state #1 cannot be accurate because its requirements are not being implemented. And I cannot recall Joe ever steering me wrong!
About a dozen years ago I was visiting elementary schools in Japan, and in a couple of classrooms the teachers had given students the super-market inserts from local newspapers. Students were told they had a certain amount of money and had to buy enough food for their family for a week. No ‘right answers’ but lots of good discussion.
I know teachers who ‘gave’ their middle school students an (imaginary) monthly budget–but not enough money to pay for everything they wanted. Again, no right answers, but lots of learning.
About 30 years ago the great Johns Hopkins economist Arnold Packer and I created a curriculum for Baltimore public high schools, with the goal of raising achievement levels in math and English. (We didn’t think about it at the time, but we were teaching financial literacy!)
I dug around in boxes and found 3 CD’s (or CD-ROM’s?) from the project, and then I discovered that it ran for 3 years, 97-99. I doubt anyone has the records, and, sadly, my good friend Arnie died about 10 years ago. (BTW, Arnie was the architect of SCANS, the Secretary’s Commission for Achieving Necessary Skills, a worthy GOP initiative in the Labor Department.)
True story: It was probably in 1994 that he and I attended some sort of education/economics meeting, which we both felt was largely BS. Afterwards we went to a bar and (after quite a few beers) came to the conclusion that we could teach kids the essential English and math skills by having them do real work. I remember that we sketched out a design on bar napkins!! We kept talking, and, when the US Department of Education announced a huge grant program to fund innovative ways to teach those basic skills, Arnie pounced. “Let’s apply,” he said. We partnered with Baltimore City Schools and asked for $14M, I think.
We made the first cut, but fewer than half of the those remaining would get grants. Months later I was on a bus in rural Germany with a bunch of educators and happened to sit next to the Department’s key tech person, the one in charge of those grants. While we did not discuss that grant program, a few months later we got the grant.
My small production company made the videos and produced the CD materials. Although I was based in NYC, I spent a lot of time in Baltimore in “our” classrooms. It was really exciting, seeing those students taking on the challenge of creating a business from scratch.
I have always believed that kids rise to meet expectations, and this experience cemented that view.
All the money, time, and energy devoted to “closing the achievement gap” is wasted unless we acknowledge and do something about our persistent “expectations gap,” which is most often based on race and social class, and sometimes gender as well.
Here’s how our curriculum worked: Small teams of students created businesses in an imaginary shopping mall. They had to choose a product, figure out where they would get it wholesale, what they would charge, what kind of storefront they would rent, how many employees, salaries and benefits, advertising, loans and interest rates on those loans, and so on. They also had to develop a business plan…and then present it in person to real, honest-to-God business people.
We helped train English and math teachers to use the curriculum, and we persuaded (with $$ from a Department of Education grant) some high schools to adopt it, which required changing schedules to allow for team-teaching and extended periods.
Because in every participating high school, not all English and math teachers were involved, some students got our curriculum, and some did not. A pretty cool research study because they all had to take the Maryland state tests.
Guess what? Our kids showed dramatic improvement in both subjects, far outperforming those in traditional English and math, and not just once but for a couple of years running.
But guess what happened next? The high schools abandoned the curriculum, saying that schedule changes were causing too much disruption, or team-teaching was too much work, or it was making the regular teachers look bad. (Oh, and our Department of Education grant was used up.)
What have I learned? That we as a society do not care enough to see that all kids get real opportunities to learn how money works, or to create and produce real knowledge. It’s cheaper to do drill-and-kill, and it’s easier and cheaper to give kids multiple-choice tests–even though nothing in adult life resembles a multiple-choice test.
So let’s ask that fundamental question, “Who benefits from widespread financial illiteracy?” In Christ’s time, it was the money lenders in the temple. Today, it’s pretty much the same crowd, offering bitcoins, expensive college loans, ‘free’ chances to bet, etc etc.
The losers aren’t stupid, however. At some point at least some of them will wake up and realize that they are being duped. That may happen in the November elections….
While most states now require some sort of financial education, it’s clearly not working. Parents and everyone else who wants a healthy society need to demand that public elementary schools develop dynamic curriculums that teach kids how money works, even when that means critiquing capitalism.
In December 2023 The New York Times filed suit against Artificial Intelligence for allegedly using its stories without attribution. Now The Times has upped the ante, accusing A.I. of first degree murder for the senseless killing of student writing.
“Not so,” replied A.I. (which is defending itself without benefit of counsel). “We are innocent. Student writing was stone cold, deader than a doornail, when we arrived on the scene.” A.I. went on to say, “We have a rock-solid unbreakable alibi: we weren’t even around when the crime took place!”
Turns out, that’s true.
In its front page story, “How A.I. Killed Student Writing (And Revived It),” The Times makes sweeping generalizations based on what 400 (out of 5.5 million) college and school teachers volunteered. Granted, most of these 5.5 million teachers aren’t teaching writing, but relying on self-selected sources seems dubious, especially for the front page. What we learn is that a few creative and dedicated teachers, frustrated by their students’ reliance on A.I., are having the kids write in class, on paper, with pens or pencils.
More than a year ago the Wall Street Journal reported the same story, based largely on the dramatic rise in the sale of ‘blue books’ on college campuses: “Sales of blue books this school year were up more than 30% at Texas A&M University and nearly 50% at the University of Florida. The improbable growth was even more impressive at the University of California, Berkeley. Over the past two academic years, blue-book sales at the Cal Student Store were up 80%”
Both reports hang on the same premise: Student writing is dead, and A.I. is the killer. I think that’s flat out false. Most education systems stopped trying to teach writing when Artificial Intelligence was still the stuff of science fiction. Playing up to politicians, many education bureaucrats and administrators (who generally don’t trust teachers) decided the way to ‘raise standards’ was to require students to write more papers and read more books and plays (or excerpts!). Any suggestion that writing one outstanding paper would be better than six or a dozen so-so papers fell on deaf ears. Quantity triumphed over quality, almost never a good outcome….
And because writing skills can’t be tested by a machine, why bother trying to teach them? Moreover, since we don’t trust teachers, it would be foolish to rely on their evaluation of their students’ writing skills.
The murder weapon? Machine-scored multiple choice tests.
The killers? Test-score obsessed politicians and education bureaucrats.
Did they have accomplices? Maybe we need to look in the mirror.
Happily, lots of teachers have not given up. A Google search turns up a treasure trove of ideas for improving student writing, starting in the elementary years. Writing thank you notes, keeping a journal, and so on. Here’s one you might want to share with teachers in your world.
It’s not semantics to assert that the goal is to develop writers, not “teach writing.” That’s an important distinction.
So what can teachers who want to develop writers do? First of all, take a deep breath because we’ve been through this before. Back when the internet emerged, some students figured out that they could download papers and submit them as their own. Next came profit-making companies offering papers written to order. While bureaucrats thought they could win that struggle by spending millions on technology to scan papers and (supposedly) detect plagiarism, thoughtful teachers triumphed by 1) reducing the number of papers assigned, and 2) working with individual students as they developed their ideas and wrote drafts. It’s harder to cheat if the teacher is overseeing the process and kids are writing about something they genuinely care about.
What’s called for now is emulating what my high school English teacher, Mr. William Sullivan, did nearly 70 years ago.
Two or three times every week he would tell us to clear our desks of everything except for a single sheet of paper and a pencil. What followed was what he called a “2-8-2,” meaning that we had two minutes to think–no writing allowed–followed by eight minutes to write, and then two more minutes to read what we had written and correct any errors. He would put our writing assignment on the blackboard.
Sometimes we would have to include a certain sentence, such as “I wish I had missed that train.” Or “I still wish I hadn’t missed that flight.”
Even today I can remember one particular assignment: “Turn out the light; I don’t want to go home in the dark,” which Mr. Sullivan said were the dying words of William Sydney Porter. Of course, he challenged us to explain the contradiction.
(Fun fact: Some forty or fifty years later I discovered that Porter, whom we know as O. Henry, actually did not contradict himself. His dying words were “Turn up the lights. I don’t want to go home in the dark.” Apparently Mr. Sullivan changed his words to create that challenging paradox.)
Although I went to Taft, a private school in Connecticut with small classes and privileged students, Mr. Sullivan’s approach can work at all levels. I know this to be true because I taught working-class kids in a public high school, first generation African American college students in an HBCU, and young men serving sentences in a federal prison.
I used Mr. Sullivan’s “2-8-2” all the time, and I believe the experience started many of my students down the path to becoming thoughtful writers.
Frequent in-class writing worked then, and it should work in the age of Artificial Intelligence, CHATgpt, Bard, and whatever other ‘advances’ are in our future.
However, policymakers and administrators have to behave sensibly and understand that ‘less is more.’ That means smaller classes, fewer students per teacher, and heightened trust in teachers. Those shouldn’t be a bridge too far, if we truly want our young people to be thoughtful and capable citizens.
You may stop here if you wish. What follows is the story of my own dabbling in A.I., printed in my blog in April 2023, more than three years ago.
If you’re at all like me, you’re curious about Artificial Intelligence and new applications like ChatGPT and Bard. The brilliant Thomas Friedman of the New York Times says the world will never be the same again, but my interest is narrower: If students can simply ask Bard or ChatGPT to write their papers for them, how can teachers prevent this from happening?
So, naturally, I turned to Bard, which told me (within seconds) that, while it can help students generate ideas, do research, improve their writing, and learn about different writing genres, it’s not supposed to be a substitute for original research and writing. Then it warned me to “Monitor students’ use of Bard to make sure that they are not plagiarizing or engaging in other forms of academic misconduct.”
Yeah, right. If I’m teaching English in a public high school, I probably have between 100 and 125 students! There aren’t enough hours in the day….
Second question: Can Bard help identify cheaters and plagiarists? Within seconds, I received an answer:
“There are a few things you can look for to tell the difference between original writing and prose provided by Bard.
Original writing is typically more creative and original than prose provided by Bard. Bard is trained on a massive dataset of text, so it can be very good at generating text that is grammatically correct and factually accurate. However, it is not always able to generate text that is creative or original.
Original writing is typically more personal and engaging than prose provided by Bard. Bard is a machine learning model, so it does not have the same level of understanding of human emotions and experiences as a human writer. As a result, its writing can be dry and impersonal.
Original writing is typically more nuanced and complex than prose provided by Bard. Bard is a large language model, but it is still under development. As a result, it can sometimes struggle to understand the nuances of human language. This can lead to writing that is simplistic or even nonsensical.
Ask yourself if the writing sounds like it was written by a human. Bard-generated text can sometimes sound robotic or unnatural. Original writing should sound like it was written by a human.
To put this the test, I gave Bard the following task:
Please write a short memoir of no more than 200 words about my childhood. I am one of six children, the second oldest and the first-born son. We grew up on a small farm with chickens, a few cows, a few pigs, and one goat. I’m now 81.
Within seconds, Bard spit out this:
“I was born in 1942, the second oldest of six children. We grew up on a small farm in the Midwest. My father worked hard to provide for our family, and my mother took care of the house and the children. We didn’t have much money, but we were happy.
I loved growing up on the farm. I spent my days playing with my siblings, helping my father with the chores, and exploring the woods behind our house. We had chickens, a few cows, a few pigs, and one goat. I loved taking care of the animals, and I learned a lot about hard work and responsibility.
I also learned a lot about nature on the farm. I spent hours watching the birds and the animals, and I learned to identify all the different plants. I loved being surrounded by nature, and it helped me to appreciate the beauty of the world.
I had a wonderful childhood on the farm. It was a time of innocence and discovery, and I will always cherish those memories.
Now that I am 81 years old, I still look back on my childhood with fondness. I am grateful for the opportunities I had, and I am proud of the person I have become. I know that my experiences on the farm helped to shape me into the man I am today.
Boring, and also wrong, and so I responded: This is inaccurate. I was born in 1941, and our farm was in Connecticut. Worse, however, it does not capture either the small pleasures of collecting the eggs every morning or learning to milk cows; nor does it capture the deep pain of watching a pig or steer that I raised being slaughtered. Please rewrite.
In just a few seconds, Bard responded by adding a few paragraphs, highlighted below to make it easier for you to read: “Sure, here is a more accurate and detailed memoir:
I was born in 1941, the second oldest of six children. We grew up on a small farm in Connecticut. My father worked hard to provide for our family, and my mother took care of the house and the children. We didn’t have much money, but we were happy.
I loved growing up on the farm. I spent my days playing with my siblings, helping my father with the chores, and exploring the woods behind our house. We had chickens, a few cows, a few pigs, and one goat. I loved taking care of the animals, and I learned a lot about hard work and responsibility.
I also learned a lot about nature on the farm. I spent hours watching the birds and the animals, and I learned to identify all the different plants. I loved being surrounded by nature, and it helped me to appreciate the beauty of the world.
One of my favorite things to do was collect the eggs every morning. I would wake up early and go to the chicken coop, where I would find a dozen or so eggs waiting for me. I would carefully collect the eggs and put them in a basket, then bring them back to the house. My mother would use the eggs to make breakfast, and I would always get to eat one of the freshest eggs in the world.
Another thing I loved to do was milk the cows. I would go to the barn in the evening and bring the cows into the milking parlor. I would sit on a stool and milk each cow in turn, collecting the milk in a bucket. The milk would then be used to make butter, cheese, and ice cream.
Of course, there were also some challenges growing up on a farm. One of the hardest things was watching the animals being slaughtered. I knew that it was necessary to eat meat, but I still felt bad for the animals. I would often cry when I saw them being killed.
Overall, though, I had a wonderful childhood on the farm. It was a time of innocence and discovery, and I will always cherish those memories. I am grateful for the opportunities I had, and I am proud of the person I have become. I know that my experiences on the farm helped to shape me into the man I am today.
OK, but even with this information, the machine’s writing remains pedestrian and without emotion. Human writers would know not to begin with their birthday, for one thing and would instead lead with a sentence designed to keep the reader’s interest: “70 years later, at age 81, I can still hear the terrified squealing of the hog as it was strung up by its hind feet to be slaughtered….”
My conclusion: Don’t run from A.I. But do not create conditions that make it easy for students to use it to avoid work. “Expect and respect” are the key words: Expect more from students, and respect them by giving them challenging tasks.
All five starters on this year’s University of Michigan’s NCAA champion men’s basketball team played for other colleges last year. You heard that right: all five wore different uniforms just a year ago. When that season ended, they entered the NCAA’s “Transfer Portal,” which allows college athletes to sell their services to the highest bidder. Those five took Michigan’s money and donned the Maize and Blue.
Now, if colleges are willing to pay millions to men and women who can dunk, dribble, and make 3-point shots, just imagine how much our best public school teachers are going to be offered, when they enter the Teacher Transfer Portal!
The mind boggles…..
Blanche DeForest, Shelley B. Percy, Newton Isaacs, Porter Kohl, and Rochelle Carson are five of the highly sought after teachers entering this year’s Teacher Transfer Portal.
Blanche DeForest now teaches at MLK High School in New York City, where she works with physically challenged students, using music and movement to build her students’ confidence.
A native of New Orleans , Ms DeForest, 43, has been teaching in the Big Apple for a dozen years and has enlisted the help of several of New York City’s professional athletic teams to work with her students. That would seem to narrow Blanche’s choices, because she wants to be in a city with at least one pro team. “I have always relied on the kindness of the Rangers,” Ms. DeForest says.
At least five wealthy school districts are bidding for the services of Shelley B. Percy, who teaches creative writing at East Side High School in Camden, New Jersey. A 19-year veteran, Mr. Percy forms his students into small teams, which then compete in poetry slams here and abroad.
One distinction: unlike most young rappers, Mr. Percy’s students rap in iambic pentameter. Eschewing curse words and vulgarity, these young poets embrace ABAB rhyme schemes and extended metaphors.
School districts on both coasts hope to sign Newton Isaacs, who teaches science at Collingwood High School in Cleveland, Ohio. Every semester Mr. Isaacs forms his juniors into 3-person teams and challenges them to solve a complex problem. For example, this spring his juniors were tasked with designing (using CAD) a toy for 2- and 3-year-olds, one that would develop their motor skills but not so small that they could swallow it nor too large for them to handle comfortably. They also had to design a marketing campaign to reach young parents.
Hundreds of his former students maintain that his class taught them marketable skills like teamwork and persistence, while also boosting their self-esteem.
Wherever he ends up, next fall Newton Isaacs will be earning more than $3M.
Middle school music teacher Porter Kohl is also expected to sign for well north of $3M. Every year her fifth grade students in her inner city Los Angeles public school write, score, and stage an original opera. They start from scratch, coming up with a story idea in September. By October they’re well into writing a libretto, with a clear story arc but also with twists and turns. Composing the score comes next, which also entails some students trying to master the musical instruments. Costuming, set design, set construction, rehearsals–they’re all part of the year-long project, which culminates in live performances (which will be videotaped and uploaded to her class’s YouTube channel).
Ms. Kohl notes that, while reversing her name suggests a musical inheritance, her true heritage goes back to her great grandfather, who worked in the coal mines in eastern Europe. “He was a Coal Porter,” she says, although her sly smile makes it difficult to figure out whether she’s kidding or not.
Rochelle Carson, a middle school science teacher in Brooklyn, TX, is also highly sought after in this year’s Teacher Transfer Portal. Three years ago she mounted a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to buy two air quality monitors, one permanent and one portable. The permanent machine is installed on the school rooftop, while her students transport the portable monitor from place to place during the day. Her students monitor the readings over time and then attempt to interpret the differences.
Two years ago Ms. Carson took a giant step with her students, reaching out to 20 other towns in the United States also named ‘Brooklyn.’ She struck a chord, and this year students from middle schools in almost all the other Brooklyns around the USA are sharing air quality data, allowing them to compare and contrast air quality in most of the continental United States.
Who’s bidding for their services? The richest public school districts, where the median income exceeds $250,000. The list includes Greenwich (CT), Monte Sereno (CA), Scarsdale (NY), Short Hills (NJ), Bunker Hill Village (TX), Belle Meade (TN), Atherton (CA), Chevy Chase (MD), and Palm Beach (FL). And when the dust finally settles, these classroom teachers will be earning perhaps as much as $5M per year, not chump change in a country where the median teacher’s salary is $63,000.
Why don’t wealthy school districts simply encourage their teachers to copy these clearly successful teaching techniques in their own classrooms, instead of bidding for the teachers who originated them? I directed my question to Hardwick Cheever IV, the School Board President in Greenwich, Ct. “Why do you raid these districts and pay inflated salaries?” I asked. “Couldn’t you just use all that money to pay all of your teachers higher salaries? That would spread the wealth around”
“That’s not how we roll here in America,” he replied, indignantly. “If buying talent is good enough for the University of Michigan’s basketball team, then it’s good enough for us. Besides, what you call ‘spreading the wealth’ would be socialism in my book.”
I pressed him. “Do you feel guilty taking these incredibly talented teachers away from their districts? Many of them are teaching low income or disadvantaged children.”
“Son, as God is my witness, I have nothing against poor people,” he replied. “But it would be unChristian if we did not do everything in our power to take care of our own. That’s the American way. Get used to it.”
In his State of the Union address, President Donald Trump boasted about his actions to lower prescription drug prices. “I’m also ending the wildly inflated cost of prescription drugs. Other presidents tried to do it, but they never could…. I got it done. Under my just-enacted ‘Most Favored Nation‘ agreements, Americans, who have for decades paid by far the highest prices of any nation anywhere in the world for prescription drugs, will now pay the lowest price anywhere in the world.”
The result of this program, Mr. Trump said, “is price differences of 300%, 400%, 500%, 600% and more, all available right now at a new website called TrumpRx.gov.”
He’s made this absurd (and mathematically impossible) claim before. In May he said that the “most favored nation” policy is going to reduce the price of prescription drugs by 1,000% or more. Here’s what he said in late August: “We have something coming up, favored nations, where I’m going to be reducing drug prices by 1,400 to 1,500%.” More recently: “We’re gonna be reducing drug prices down to a level that nobody – not by 20%, 30% – by like 1,000%. Because, you know, we’re paying sometimes 10 times more than other nations, and we’re not doing it anymore.” And a few days later: “We have something else called ‘favored nations,’ where I’m going to be reducing drug prices by 1,000% – by 900, 600, 500, 1,200%.”
Two days after the State of the Union speech, I had the opportunity to ask him about these remarkable (and mathematically impossible) price reductions. The occasion was a ‘gaggle,’ kind of an unofficial, impromptu press conference that occurs when Mr. Trump stops to chat with the press while he’s walking to his helicopter or to a meeting. We all raise our hands and wave them, trying to catch his attention. He likes gaggles because he can walk away at any time.
Here’s what happened:
“Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President,” I called out, waving my hand wildly.
“Ok, you,” he said, pointing at me. “You, the tall guy with the white hair. Aren’t you kind of old to be racing around with all these young reporters?”
ME: Trying to keep up, sir. I want to ask you about your program to reduce prescription drugs.
TRUMP: It’s great. And you’re gonna benefit. You and other seniors. 600%, 700%. What drugs do you need? Viagra, I’ll bet.
ME: Sir, here’s my question: Suppose someone weighed 200 pounds and lost 10% of his weight.”
TRUMP: 200 pounds? I’d take that in a heartbeat. If he lost 10%, that’s 20 pounds, so he’d weigh 180.
ME: What if he lost 50% of his weight?
TRUMP: Then he’d weigh only 100 pounds. What’s the point here? What’s that have to do with drug prices?
ME: And if he lost 100% of his weight? What would he weigh?
TRUMP: (stares angrily and shakes his head)
ME: And could he lose 200% or 300% of his weight?
TRUMP: You know what, you’re a pain in the ass. A troublemaker. Who do you report for? That’s it. I’m outa here.
That exchange did not happen. I made all that up, of course, but isn’t it curious that not one reporter seems to have questioned Trump about his shoddy math, his mathematical illiteracy? This is a man who drove a half dozen casinos into bankruptcy, after all.
Unfortunately, mathematical illiteracy is not restricted to the current president of the United States. Most schools do a lousy job of teaching most of our kids math. Basically our children are taught and tested on math they will never use, which means we do not teach them what they need to know to survive and prosper and enjoy. Instead of learning how to estimate and to judge probabilities, the difference between correlation and causation, and the paradox of the everpresent ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma,” children learn that they “can’t do math” and-worse yet–to hate math.
Obviously, it’s tragic and dangerous when the President of the United States is mathematically illiterate, but in fact millions of adults get scammed out of billions of dollars because they don’t understand how numbers work. They get misled by politicians and hucksters, with disastrous consequences all around.
(Here’s a personal example. Someone in my own family, in his declining years, was persuaded to sign an expensive and unbreakable 25-year contract to rent solar panels on his home in Florida. I’ll bet you have your own stories to tell.)
There is a way forward. We can demand that our schools rethink how they teach mathematics. And now there’s a terrific road map, a wonderful new book, “Aftermath.” In addition to the clever title, it has a subtitle that tells what awaits you: “The Life-Changing Math That Schools Won’t Teach You.” (Its official publication date is March 24, but you can pre-order at your local bookstore, B&N and Amazon.)
“Aftermath” is highly readable, clever and entertaining, but also immensely informative. The author, Ted Dintersmith, is someone my wife and I have known for a dozen or so years. Joan met Ted through his support of the African Leadership Academy, whose Board she served on; I met him through his support of High Tech High, the wonderful school in San Diego started by an American hero, Larry Rosenstock.
I’m by no means the only fan of “Aftermath.”. Steve Levitt, the co-author of ‘Freakonomics,’ has this to say: “In the age of AI and data, we badly need to rethink the way we teach math in U.S. schools. Ted Dintersmith has joyfully illustrated how we can pull the subject out of irrelevance in the eyes of our students–a must read for teachers and parents alike.”
Scratch that: I hope you will buy five or six copies of “Aftermath” and put them in the hands of your local school board members.
Let’s suppose you decided to run a marathon. How would you prepare for a 26.2 mile running race? You’d probably create a schedule that called for runs of different distances, some of just two or three miles, quite a few 5-10 miles runs, and at least one of about 20 miles. Maybe you’d join a running club or seek out others who were preparing for that particular marathon. You’d think about your diet and your sleep patterns. You might even visit the actual course, just to get a feel for what was to come.
In short, to get ready to run a marathon, you would do whatever seemed necessary to simulate the actual race.
Now imagine that you’ve been cast in a play. How would you prepare? You would set aside time to memorize your lines, and perhaps you would ask a friend or a family member to give you your cues. At some point, you’d join the cast for a reading, then a walk-through, and finally lots of rehearsals. You would need to be aware of your inflection, your facial expressions, and your body language…but also of the team-building process.
In short, to prepare to act on stage, you would do whatever seemed necessary to simulate the actual on-stage performance.
Now let’s think about preparing to live in a free society, a democracy. What would be a sensible approach to preparing young people for a world in which they are generally free to decide what to wear, when to speak up and when to remain silent, what to say, when to eat, how to work with others, and so on? What’s the best way to prepare young people to carefully examine propositions, instead of automatically saying ‘Yes’ or robotically doing what someone tells them to do?
Should they, to get ready to be successful in a democratic society, actually practice democracy while they are growing up?
Right now, we don’t allow children to practice democracy, not in schools anyway. In fact, with the exception of our prison system, public schools are the most undemocratic institutions in our society. Even the branches of the military offer choices to those who enlist, but American public schools tell students (and teachers too, for that matter) where to be and when to be there, when to eat, and what to wear. Most public schools teach students to regurgitate information, not to think critically or to question. Schools are set up to sort, not to individualize. Their basic question about each child is “How Smart Are You?” which they seek to answer by subjecting children to a constant battery of standardized (and most often multiple-choice) tests.
Perhaps our schools are anti-democratic to make it easier for the adults. Perhaps because long ago we adopted the Prussian education model: lectures to children grouped by age. Or perhaps because we adults haven’t had much experience with democracy in our own lives.
Could public schools actually be ‘democratic’ in nature? Could a system of mass education ask a fundamentally different question about each child, “How Are You Smart?” and then adapt the pedagogy to fit a child’s needs, aptitudes, and inclinations?
Not only is it possible; it’s essential going forward, if we are going to rebuild America after Trump.
This is not an argument for letting children do whatever they want, whenever they want. That’s chaos, and no one–not even the kids–wants that. Instead, it calls for thoughtful practice, cooperation, an end to age-segregation, lots of project-based learning, and a focus on social and emotional learning.
Here’s an example that may shock you: Letting students make the rules for classroom behavior. That’s democracy in its purest form, and it can work, although it’s rarely tried. I’d wager to say every elementary school classroom I visited in my 41 years of reporting had a poster listing the rules for classroom behavior. Almost always laminated, these posters generally included obvious rules like “Listen Carefully,” “Follow Directions,” and “Raise Your Hand When You Want to Say Something.”
These posters were mass-produced, store-bought, glossy, and laminated. No editing possible, and no thought required. I imagine that on the first day of school, the teacher would read the rules aloud and then point to the poster whenever things got loud or rowdy.
“Now, children, remember Rule 4. No calling out unless I call on you.”
But occasionally the ubiquitous poster would be hand-made, clearly the work of students. If I asked the teacher for an explanation, the answer went something like this:
“On the first day of school I always ask my students what sort of classroom they wanted to spend the year in? What should be the rules? It takes a few days to develop the rules. Sometimes I present alternatives, such as “What if someone knows the answer to a question? Should they just yell it out, or should they raise their hand and wait to be called on?”
Or I might ask them “If one of you has to use the bathroom, should you just get up and walk out of class? Or should we have a signal? And what sort of signal should we use?”
It should not surprise you to learn that the students invariably came up with reasonable rules much like those on the laminated posters: Listen, Be Respectful, Raise Your Hand, Be Kind, and so forth. But there was a difference, teachers and principals told me: When students create the rules, they owned them and were more likely to adhere to them.
Schools can practice democracy in other ways. The adults in charge can give students more say in what they study. Again, not carte blanche but thoughtfully personalized. That means taking the time, early on, to figure out what students are interested in and then using those interests to see that they learn to read with comprehension, work with numbers, speak in public, and work well with others.
Of course, students should not get to make all the decisions about what they’re studying. After all, a central purpose of school is the transmission of knowledge, and so the basics are also part of the deal. Young children need to learn spelling rules (“I before E, except after C”), the multiplication tables, how to divide and carry, and other basics. They need to know that letters have sounds associated with them (i.e., Phonics and Phonemic Awareness). Someone has to teach them that, if you put an E at the end of words like ‘ton,’ the O sound changes from ‘short’ to ‘long.’
That democratic step–giving students power over their learning– will make teaching easier and more enjoyable. When I was a high school English teacher many years ago, my students were supposed to write ‘themes’ based on ‘Macbeth,’ ‘All Quiet on the Western Front,’ and whatever other plays or novels they were told to read. No choices–just rules from on high. However, if I were teaching high school English today, I would try to ask each student to identify three or four things they were curious about. Then I would spend a few minutes with each student, getting that list down to one topic for them to write about. I’d ask for a 1-page ‘memo’ of their thoughts about how they would approach the topic, followed a week or so later by an outline.
When I discovered that some students shared an interest in the same general topic, I would connect them and urge them to share their pursuit of knowledge.
Because I would be looking at drafts of their work, the chances of them using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to write their papers or downloading someone else’s work from the internet would be minimized.
Why not ask students to create a webpage where essays could be shared with students and the community at large? After all, pride of publication is a great motivator!
Math teachers could invite students to create word problems that reflect their own interests. A youngster interested in farming oysters might create problems that provide data about the cost of ‘seed,’ the rate of loss, the time involved in transferring the ‘seed’ as it begins to mature, the labor costs involved in harvesting. What’s the rate of return on investment if…..?
I also believe young people should be deeply involved in figuring out how their efforts will be measured. It makes no sense to wait for end-of-the-year bubble test results or for teachers to arbitrarily say ‘This passes” or “This doesn’t.” Teachers and students should assess progress frequently, take a clear-headed look at the results, and adapt accordingly.
As in a democratic society, choices in schools have consequences, and students could play a role in developing that system as well.
Rebuilding public education after the ravages of the Trump presidency should be recognized as a great opportunity. I am convinced that our rigidly undemocratic school system, with its tracking, constant testing, and bias in favor of the elite, undoubtedly contributed to Trump’s victories in 2016 and 2024. After all, living in an autocracy for 180 days a year, for twelve or thirteen years, seems to have produced millions of adults who are susceptible to, and comfortable with, autocrats and autocracy.
Creating schools that actually practice democracy will produce a more informed and more thoughtful electorate. That’s essential, today more than ever.
When you finish reading this paragraph, I hope you will close your eyes and think about the teachers who made you a better person or helped shape the future direction of your life. Picture in your mind’s eye your old classrooms and what happened there. What did those teachers do to make you feel smart, special, safe, or valued? Did they believe in you when you were doubting yourself? Or refuse to let you do substandard work?
I did this exercise when writing an earlier draft of this essay, and I promise you it’s a rewarding experience.
Please do it now.
OK, now I have a question: Have you thanked those teachers, either in person, in a letter, or on the telephone? I ask because thanking your special teachers personally will mean more to them than you can begin to imagine. It will lift their spirits, rejuvenate them, and give them a renewed sense that what they spent their lives doing did matter.
If it’s too late to make a personal connection because they have shuffled off this mortal coil, then you might consider writing an appreciation and sharing it with friends and family members. Submit it to your local newspaper, or post it on Facebook or a blog. Just get the word out there, because that will inspire others to express their own gratitude.
I want to share a story about a former student who called me, out of the blue, a few months ago. His call could not have come at a better time, because 2025 has not been a particularly good year for me: Brain cancer killed my youngest brother this Spring, a handful of family members whom I dearly love are struggling with significant health issues, Joan and I have lost some good friends to death and dementia, and our country seems to be sinking deeper and deeper in crude bigotry and crypto-fascism.
One day this June I was riding my bike in a hilly part of western Massachusetts when my phone rang. I normally don’t answer the phone when I’m biking, and I’m pretty sure that I would have ignored the call if I had been coasting down a hill. However, I was approaching a very steep hill that I dreaded climbing, and so I jumped at the chance to take a break.
Hello, I said, tentatively. “Is this John Merrow,” a man asked? Who’s calling, I asked suspiciously. “My name is Paul (redacted). Mr. Merrow was my high school English teacher 60 years ago, and I’m trying to reach him, so I can say ‘Thank you.’”
After I admitted to being John Merrow, we talked for about 15 minutes. He told me that I had set him on a track to become an avid reader. How, I asked?
“One time your assignment was to analyze some poetry,” Paul told me, “And, because I was kind of a wise-ass, I wrote a careful analysis of the lyrics of a popular folk song, Pete Seeger’s “Where Have All the Flowers Gone.”I expected you to get angry because I hadn’t done the assignment, but you went out of your way to praise me. I think you even read it aloud to the class.”
And Paul, until then a self-described indifferent student, became a voracious reader. He told me that during his four years of college he read the complete works of Dosevesky, Hesse, Steinbeck, Salinger, Orwell, Tolstoy and Nietzsche.
“Want to know how I ended up in your class,” he asked?
Before I share that story, you need to know about the high school where I taught for two years, 1964-65 and 1965-66. Like most large high schools back then, Schreiber High in Port Washington, NY, was rigidly tracked, levels One through Five. As an untrained rookie teacher, I wasn’t allowed anywhere near the One and Two level students, who were, in truth, the students the people in power cared most about. Their parents were probably professionals with multiple degrees, and so these privileged kids were on track to attend prestigious colleges.
Most of the Threes had a shot at college, while the Fours were headed straight to work or the military, and the small number of Fives, many with severe handicapping conditions, were basically being warehoused.
At Schreiber, I taught five classes–125 students –of 10th, 11th, or 12th grade English, mostly Threes and maybe one or two classes of Fours.
By the way, I cannot imagine a better gig than teaching Threes and Fours. Those young people, who felt the opposite of entitled, responded eagerly to any and all positive attention, including challenges.
Teaching Threes and Fours had other benefits: As long as my kids read a couple of Shakespeare’s plays and weren’t disruptive, administrators paid no attention to what we did in my classroom. It wasn’t that they trusted me; they really didn’t care.
**That meant we could put MacBeth and Lady MacBeth on trial for first degree murder, with students (in every role) ‘testifying under oath.’ And so we did that.
**That meant I could invite the kids to set the poems we were reading to music, which they did. I still remember a trio/quartet performing Edna St Vincent Millay’s “Renascence.”
**That meant I could encourage my students to “elevate the quality of the bathroom graffiti” by erasing the scatological slurs and replacing them with lines from TS Eliot, John Donne, Robert Frost, and others–and we did that too.
**That meant I could create a stand-alone unit of anti-war poetry–during the growing VietNam war protest movement–to introduce my students to Wilfred Owen, Stephen Spender, Rupert Brooke, and Siegfried Sassoon.
**That meant I could challenge my kids to write and stage their own play, which they did. You can read about it here.
Back to Paul’s story: Apparently he was a Four when he got called into the Guidance Councillor’s office. “My father came with me, and when the Councillor said that I should either drop down to level Five or transfer to trade school and become an electrician or a plumber, my Dad erupted. ‘Bullshit!,’ he shouted, as he slammed his fist on her desk. ‘My son is going to college! I want him in college level classes!’
“And that’s how I ended up in your class,” he concluded.
He told me that he graduated from college with 3 majors: History,Political Science, and Sociology. “I’m pretty sure I was the only student carrying three majors.” After college Paul worked for Xerox for a few years before starting his own financial advising company.
Paul’s story about his Dad proves another point: Thanking our teachers is necessary but not sufficient. For more on parents, please read Billy Collins’ superb poem, “The Lanyard.”
Have you thanked other teachers, I wanted to know? “Yes, my sixth grade teacher,” he replied. “I called him years ago and thanked him. This was about a year before he passed away.”
The list of teachers who changed my life for the better includes Catherine Peterson, the First Grade teacher who taught me and most of my siblings to read–and to love reading; two high school English teachers, William Sullivan and Roland McKinley; a writing teacher at Dartmouth, Alexander Laing; an English professor at Indiana University, Donald Gray; and David K. Cohen, my doctoral thesis advisor at Harvard. I thanked the first and last in person and another, Professor Gray, by letter, but I never had the opportunity to tell the others how much they meant to me.
By the way, Saying “Thank You” feels really good. It’s satisfying to close a door left open from your past. Try it!
I don’t think I will ever forget how being thanked by a former student made me feel. My spirits were lifted, and my troubles disappeared. Of course, Paul’s phone call couldn’t bring back my brother Jim or help my ailing family members recover, but hearing from Paul—60+ years after I taught him—made me feel that I had made a difference. There’s no better feeling.
Teaching has always been–often literally–a thankless job, but it doesn’t have to, and shouldn’t, be that way. So, please, express your gratitude.
