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There's a new documentary coming out that looks quite fascinating, exploring the issues surrounding AP classes in high schools.

Most of my thinking about schools centers on elementary school practices, reforms and possibilities, of course, that's my chosen field. But sometimes my mind wanders to what could be done to reform high schools, and in many ways, I think it's a much more challenging prospect. The fragmented nature of high schools, from daily schedules to certification processes for high school teachers are so entrenched that instituting things like integrated curricula, project based learning, and so on seems much harder.

I've been watching my stepsister finish out her senior year of high school, and from my view, it seems not much has changed since my own high school days. She still stays up late answering the questions at the end of the chapter, memorizes vocabulary that is rarely used outside of textbooks, and writing papers on something for which I have to stretch my mind to see the utility of. In some ways, things are even worse - whether from difference in time or geography (she attends high school in an affluent Connecticut suburb, I attended a not-quite-as-affluent Western Pa suburb 10 years ago). The emphasis seems much greater on things like AP courses (motivated by weighted grades and college credit, not actual learning!), the SATs and college app process (it is the norm for these 16 and 17-year-olds to have tutors/prep classes/admission advisors that cost in the thousands), and attending prestigious private universities (State school? Ew.).

Throughout my professional experience, I've seen nine-year-olds so anxious over taking a test (which I thought failed to actually measure anything meaningful) that he couldn't function. I've seen four-year-olds so anxious about making a mistake in reading (Yes! Reading at 4!), she'd end up crying.

All this is summed up by a quote from the documentary's trailer, "Our students are pressured to perform...they're not necessarily pressured to learn, especially learn deeply and conceptually."

When I was in high school, my senior year I signed up to take 3 AP classes: psych, bio, and English. At the beginning of the year, I switched from AP English to "regular" "academic English." The AP teacher had a reputation for being deadly boring, frequently compared to Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller. I didn't think I could handle that for a year, so my best friend and I switched into 9th period English with one of the most awesome teachers I ever had.

He was a little crazy. Animated, enthusiastic, and demanding. I think he was one of those teachers you either love or hate. Or maybe both, as I didn't realize till later how wonderful he was. Because of that class, The Canterbury Tales remains on my list of treasured favorites. Many people tell me I'm insane when I say that.

My two brothers took him after me as well. My youngest brother also switched from AP to "academic" after I shared my infinite wisdom with him. ;)

My other brother, however, was already slated to be in this teacher's class. He had never considered himself a reader. (Despite the fact that he could name every bug, animal or plant we encountered in the woods after poring over nature manuals.) After taking that English class, Beowulf became one of his favorites. I've never met anyone else who loved Beowulf - though I'm sure you're out there. But for my brother, having a teacher who encouraged and helped him to access (among other things) literature like that: ancient, epic, thick and often difficult...changed his view of himself as a reader.

I don't know what grade he got in the class, or what grade I did for that matter. But I do know that a B in that class (aka 3.0) meant much more than an A (aka 4.8) in the AP class.

College is not for everyone.

Louisiana is on its way to approving a new curricular track for high school students, a bill intended to stem the high dropout rate in the state. Critics say the bill lowers standards in the state at a time when we are trying to "raise them."

“They don’t see any relevance in reading Beowulf and Chaucer and trigonometry,” state Sen. Bob Kostelka, a Republican sponsor, said of those students.

My brother went to college for two years, mostly because that was "what he was supposed to do," found it wasn't for him, and left. It weighs on him still, because we live in a society that looks down on people who don't get that piece of paper. It's the same mentality that has resulted in him thinking he's not all that smart, which is, of course, ridiculous.

I'm a big proponent of Howard Gardner's retooling of the notion of intelligence, which has been, and mostly still is - especially in schools - centered on linguistic and mathematical intelligence. Gardner broadened that to musical smarts, spatial smarts, naturalistic smarts, and so on.

So my brother, like many kids who didn't excel in math (which is really a reflection of the terrible way in which math is taught - fodder for a whole other post), or even in reading - has come out of school and gone into life with the pervasive sense that he "wasn't good at school," and therefore, not that smart. Myself, I did well in math and literacy, and had a very different experience.

But he can build things. Beautiful things. I remember he designed and built this beautiful shelf when he was in high school. I could never do that. He can look at things and see how they fit - spatial intelligence - a skill which I am sorely lacking. He's brilliant about nature, can identify nearly, if not every, bug in the backyard, leaving me asking him, "How the hell did you know that?" He's the one who taught me which side of the trees moss grows on, how to use it for navigation, how fossils form, and more. I wonder sometimes what a different curricular track, like the one in LA, would have done for him. Not that he's not doing well - he is. But for kids like him. Who really need school not to be so centered on math and literacy - or at least need to learn them in the context of pursuing their own interests, loves, and talents. Ironically, the one story he really loved in all of high school English was Beowulf.

Do we really want everyone in the nation to go to college? Nevermind that I don't really believe that college is job preparation, at least not for the vast majority of programs of study.

We continue to build up this sense that college is the only path, yet we really need people, at least economically speaking, to pursue other paths.

From NYTimes:

If the goal is to earn a living, then, maybe it isn’t really true that 18-year-olds need to be imparted with a sense of panic about getting into college (though they certainly need to learn). Some people are hustled off to college, then to the cubicle, against their own inclinations and natural bents, when they would rather be learning to build things or fix things. One shop teacher suggested to me that “in schools, we create artificial learning environments for our children that they know to be contrived and undeserving of their full attention and engagement. Without the opportunity to learn through the hands, the world remains abstract and distant, and the passions for learning will not be engaged.”

A gifted young person who chooses to become a mechanic rather than to accumulate academic credentials is viewed as eccentric, if not self-destructive. There is a pervasive anxiety among parents that there is only one track to success for their children. It runs through a series of gates controlled by prestigious institutions. Further, there is wide use of drugs to medicate boys, especially, against their natural tendency toward action, the better to “keep things on track.” I taught briefly in a public high school and would have loved to have set up a Ritalin fogger in my classroom. It is a rare person, male or female, who is naturally inclined to sit still for 17 years in school, and then indefinitely at work.
The trades suffer from low prestige, and I believe this is based on a simple mistake. Because the work is dirty, many people assume it is also stupid.

Definitely not stupid work. Did I mention he's also a whiz with cars? I can barely change my oil. But I did good on those ol' reading and math tests!