MASKED THE PLAY

We are called increasingly in the schools to see our world through a lens of economic competitiveness, the latest of the public imperatives. Today, the focus is on Japan and Germany, with countries such as Korea, Taiwan, China, Singapore, and Brazil close at hand. We need educational settings that fully challenge young people, that provide the skills and understandings that generate ongoing learning both in the schools and in the world. We must want for our children and young people, wherever they are, the best education we can imagine. But placing so much stress on economic competitiveness—stronger math and science programs to win the war of technology, for example—is distraction, even as it is distressingly accepted by schools of all kinds. It takes too much away from the students themselves, the immediacy of their educational interests and needs. In its extreme forms, this position looks beyond the students, right past them, as if they weren’t there. Moreover, such an approach too often prevents us from seeing the world as fully connected, its peoples having mutual needs, growth everywhere being something to rejoice about. And it also easily becomes too instrumental.

In relation to the human things, what if we spent time on the question, What do we most want our students to come to understand as a result of their schooling? “Reading and writing” might be a quick response, but is this enough? What if our students learn to read and write but don’t like to and don’t? What if they don’t read the newspapers and magazines, or can’t find beauty in a poem or love story? Don’t see some of Romeo and Juliet in their own lives? What if they don’t go as adults to artistic events, don’t listen to a broad range of music, aren’t optimistic about the world and their place in it, don’t notice the trees and the sunset, don’t look at the stars, are indifferent to older citizens, don’t participate in politics or community life, aren’t prepared for the responsibility of parenthood, don’t have a vision of themselves as thoughtful mothers and fathers, and are physically and psychologically abusive to themselves? And what if they can locate the Republic of South Africa but don’t know anything about apartheid and can’t feel the pain associated with it? Know about hunger, and collectively waste tons of food each day?

We are often asked about our purposes (though the word “goals” is more typically used). Yet we don’t often engage in serious discussion about purposes, those guiding principles that inform our teaching practices, curriculum patterns, organizational structures, and relationships with students and their parents. They are not fully enough within our consciousness as the source of our work. But they must be. When large purposes lose their centrality, schools tend to drift, forfeiting their independence and their educational and social power. I believe we know this intuitively, yet there is a reluctance to pursue serious questions about purposes. It may be that such discussions appear too philosophical, too abstract, too far removed from the daily tasks of schools. They needn’t be removed; such discussions are foundational, times to focus on first things.

What ought to guide us as we consider the schools in relation to large purposes? Very little of what I offer will be new, but possibly in the restating there will be some renewed basis for reflection and action in intellectual and moral rather than technical terms.
What we know most about children and young people is that they are always learning. That is their nature. As they touch the earth, observe the culture that surrounds them, listen to stories, and speak, they are achieving a personal relationship with the world, gaining what Jean Piaget calls a balance between changing the world and changing themselves.
If we kept such a view about children and young people constantly before us, we wouldn’t be so quick to assume clinical approaches to education, approaches so full of labels. We would put our energy into seeking our students’ strengths and not their deficits. Failing to begin with the natural strengths and energy of children and young people as our starting point is to limit the possibilities, to ensure an education with too little power. To paraphrase John Dewey, do we fit the child to the school or make the school fit the 0 child? It might be interesting to engage that question fully again and see where we are. I believe that schools almost everywhere have come to overshadow the child.

In relation to the issue of large hopes, Jean Piaget argued that the principal goal of education in the schools should be the creation of “men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done—men and women who are creative, inventive and discoverers . . . who can be critical, can verify, and not accept everything they are offered” Thomas Jefferson expressed a similar view
about the purposes of public education and life in American society, the understanding that each generation must establish its own revolution. And one can’t read Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech without comprehending the same important point. Why shouldn’t the discourse in our schools be more consonant with such an inspiring spirit?

How should we begin to think about large purposes? Whether we consider the present or the future, education at its best is first and foremost a moral and intellectual endeavor, always beginning with children and young people and their intentions and needs. By and large, though, we tend, in too many of our schools, to be more attentive to technical than moral and intellectual directions. Rather than education at its best, we are more often preoccupied with simply getting through the days and weeks.
There is, it seems, more concern about whether children learn the mechanics of reading and writing than grow to love reading and writing; learn about democratic practice rather than have
practice in democracy; hear about knowledge, essentially being in
settings where knowledge is dispensed, rather than gain experience
in personally constructing knowledge; engage in competition rather than learn the power of cooperation and collaborative thought; see the world narrowly, simple and ordered, rather than broad, complex, and uncertain; and come to accept the vested authority that exists around them in organizational structures and text rather than being helped to challenge such authority, able to bring a healthy skepticism to the world. Further, the belief that art and music—the aesthetic aspects of life—call for a special talent and are, therefore, open only to a few rather than being fully accessible to all is to ensure an uninspiring education, one that will surely miss too many of the moral and intellectual imperatives that surround children and young people.
In regard to the arts, their limited presence in most schools is clearly symbolic of how fully technical formulations have come
to dominate school practice. There was a time when easels could be found in most classrooms through grade three, in some settings through grade six. They are virtually gone, no longer common even in kindergarten. Why aren’t the arts central to every child’s education, seen as a critical bond linking math, science, social studies, and literature? How can we be serious about learning and say there isn’t time for the arts? I have cited the arts as they are so visibly lacking and at their best so nontechnical.

The best research in the world will not do you any good unless you take notes to help you prepare your speech. Take notes on anything you read or hear that might be usable in your speech. It is better to have too much material to work with than too little. Even if you download your research material, you may find it useful to prepare research cards because they are easy to handle and sort by categories. You will need to prepare both source and information cards for each article or book you might use.
Your source cards should contain standard bibliographical information:
the author’s name, the title of the article or book, the title of the periodical for an article, the place and date of publication for a book, the date of publication for an article, and the page references. You also may wish to include a short summary of the material, information about the author’s qualifications, and any of your own comments or reactions to the material. Use information cards to record facts and figures, examples, or quotations . Use a different card for each item of information you think you might use. Each card should have a heading that describes the information it contains, the source from which the material was taken, and the information itself.