First, I found myself at the bottom of the posted top 10 list in my homeroom. I was intrigued and of course immediately set up an obvious goal--to reach the top of the list by the end of the school year. Easier said than done, because the perennial top student, a guy named Carson, was very bright and took pride in his leadership position. But with all the brashness that is youth, I told Carson I was gunning for the top spot. I was absolutely convinced I could do it, and by the end of school I achieved my goal. Carson gamely tried to save face by focusing on his consistently high performance, but he knew I had called my shot. It's not so much the question of competition per se. It had more to my own goalsetting, confidence and self-discipline.
Second, I had an English class taught by Mrs. Montgomery; she taught an unusually rigorous and challenging course on grammar and other subjects, beyond the typical material presented to junior high kids. I was inspired by the fact that she didn't spoon-feed the class but had confidence in our ability to learn more advanced material. I have always thought that it's better to expect more from a student, which conveys respect, than to underestimate a student's ability to learn.
I do realize that setting up a student for failure by setting unrealistic behavioral objectives is counterproductive. I once had to deal with a project lead named by my boss for a critical self-service expenses software implementation under an aggressive short-term deadline. The project lead had no previous exposure to Oracle's ERP software. In effect, I was the de facto project lead having to mentor his protege he had recruited from his former employer. Steve responded to my complaint, saying that he believed in developing people by pushing them into the deep end of the pool (i.e., over their heads). My response was that it's easier to push someone into the pool knowing that a lifeguard is standing by to save her. Under different circumstances--a basic exposure to the Oracle Apps, a longer project timeline, and a less politically sensitive project (employees and managers expect prompt reimbursement of personal money used to cover travel and other business expenses)--I would have been more empathetic to his point of view.
In hindsight, I had been bored in school until that point in time. The potential for scholastic excellence had always been there, but my teachers failed to recognize and cultivate it. Of course, that's easier said than done when you have dozens of students. And even when teachers recognized your abilities, they often felt helpless. I'll never forget my high school biology teacher pulling me aside one day and saying something like this: "Ron, you don't have to come to class anymore. You have your A. I wish there was more I could do for you, but if I taught to your level, I would lose the rest of the class."
But then my high school did a rather remarkable thing: the high school guidance counselor asked to meet with me and presented me with the option and gameplan for completing high school in 3 years. I thus decided to take an English IV class at Laredo Martin that summer under Ruth Fierros. A poetess herself, Mrs. Fierros sparked my passion for creative writing; I loved everything about going to that class, including listening to the Shakespeare LP's, the wooden smell of the classroom, etc. Taking a class under an inspiring teacher is sheer intellectual bliss.
[As an aside to Mrs. Fierros: One day while I was walking through the halls at OLLU, the headline of a newspaper clipping caught my eye: "OLL Poet Published". Curious, I read the small blurb--and was astonished to find out I was the poet in question; I wasn't even aware that the college knew I wrote poetry. Here's some advice to college publicists: When you write a positive piece about a student, you might want to let the student himself or herself know about it. Oh, by the way, if you're still wondering who stole that bulletin board clipping...]
I am not attempting to suggest here that all students will respond to the same stimuli or achieve similar scholastic success. There are individual differences at play. But there are some common elements. For example, I remember when one of my nephews, Jon, was pre-school age, he was happily coloring a picture. I remember telling him in glowing terms just what I thought about of his talented work. Within the next two hours, he must have gifted me with a dozen or so newly minted masterpieces. [I still have them somewhere.] I'm not speaking here of gratuitous or egalitarian notions that "everyone is special" or that slapping a gold star or scrawling "good work" on top of the paper.
Let me give an example. In my UH marketing management course under George Zinkhan, I wrote an analysis of a software application a former employer had marketed called CASHFAST. He had given me a good grade on the paper. Several months later I was a PhD student sharing an office on the same floor. Dr. Zinkhan and I crossed paths by coincidence, and he stopped me. Dr. Zinkhan said, "I had pulled together the top 28 [or so] best papers from the classes I taught, and they were evaluated by [some prestigous person(s) in the field]. Your paper was judged best overall." Dr. Zinkhan hestitated and then hastened to add, "I think so, too." God bless him for saying that; it meant more to me than monetary rewards. Dr. Zinkhan's decision to select my paper for the competition in the first place was an extraordinary compliment; the decision of other authorities to pick my paper from among a strong pool of quality submissions was a powerful validation of my work. There are key elements at work: I wasn't aware of the competition, and so it was unexpected praise; the recognition went beyond my own professor and came independently from others whom did not know me.
In an earlier post, I provided an example from my own teaching experience. I distributed graded assignments back to students, and one student in particular went beyond simply looking at the grade and read my comments. My style is to provide a balanced approach of trying to say objective things I liked about a student's work and suggestions on how to improve the paper. The student was stunned; he approached me saying, "You [i.e., not some grader] really read my paper." He couldn't get over the fact that he had put all this work into the paper, and I had seriously thought about what he had to say, treated his ideas respectfully, accurately, and thoroughly. Someone, a professor, was really interested in what he thought, and to him, it was a gift.
To me, I was passing along the gifts my own professors had given me. And it was very gratifying to know at least one student was interested in what I had to say about his work, even though each member of the class got similar consideration. And I pray that one day he will be in a position to pass it on.
The Education Equality Project
One of my favorite cartoons shows a man coming upon a young boy diligently looking under a street lamp for his lost coin. The man asks, "Did you lose it here?" The boy shakes his head, "No, over there!", pointing to a darker area away from the street lamp. "Why are you looking here?" "Because the light is better here."
The point I'm making here is that exceptional, talented American students also exist outside the areas of plush, well-financed suburban high schools. How many of these students go undiagnosed, fail to be mentored and encouraged, and have no realistic alternative to the monopoly of failing inner city public schools? Public schools with dropout rates reaching up to 90% and where high school seniors test out no better than suburban junior high school students?
In some cases, students will succeed on their own, regardless of the challenges. My dad had to make his enlisted pay stretch to cover a family with 7 kids, so I had to make it on my own at college with a scholarship, work-study, and a small loan. I recall having to be at the dining hall at 6AM to mop floors and my boss demanding I work overtime on the dishwashing shift the night before I had 3 final exams scheduled. When I was back in sixth grade, I was really waiting for an opportunity to be challenged; the general aptitude and the self-discipline had always been there.
However, how many talented young people, facing seemingly impossible odds, give up on themselves? How many of them are satisfied with living in a comfort zone which does not push and challenge them to do their best? How many of them are taught by well-meaning, but struggling teachers, with limited subject matter backgrounds, unable to recognize exceptional talent or how to cultivate it? How many of them muddle through the system, never stumbling across a master teacher to fire their imaginations, to reset their objectives and goals, to dream of a better future for themselves? It reminds me of the memorable slogan of the United Negro College Fund: "A mind is a terrible thing to waste."
The Wall Street Journal recently published a January 12 op-ed by Joel Klein, the New York City education chancellor, and civil rights activist Al Sharpton, an open letter to President-elect Barack Obama, whom in the past has cautiously expressed some support to the notion of charter schools. They openly note that the EEP has run into opposition from natural allies in the Democratic Party establishment. For instance, many Democrats oppose achievement tests and related benchmarks stemming from No Child Left Behind. Some disingenuously deride the process of using benchmarks as "teaching to the test"; others are in a state of denial regarding gaps in educational quality across America, arguing that the tests themselves are "culturally biased".
Klein and Sharpton note that the main opposition comes from the educational establishment itself, stubbornly resisting change, in particular, teacher unions which oppose market-based payscales (e.g., paying more for in-demand quality math/science teachers), protect incompetent or insipid teachers from termination through counterproductive, obsolete tenure policies (as if quality teachers need job protection or the rights of mediocre teachers to make a living in a profession not right for them or their students supersede the rights of student access to better instructors!), or enforce obstructive, antiquated work rules, tying the hands of administrators from flexibly staffing teacher activities.
Furthermore, they argue that Obama needs to use the bully pulpit to provide a consistent, unifying alternative to disparate, fragmentary state-based initiatives and to concentrate federal funding activities, not in perpetuating the unresponsive status quo, simply throwing good money after bad, but in direct measures to hire or fund access to the quality educators whom have a direct impact on student lives. Each day we delay action on providing the quality education these students need is a failure of America to provide true equality of opportunity; we give up on another generation of leadership. Instead of leaving a person with the ability to provide for his or her own family, we reinforce dependence of people on the goodwill of government, churches and charities to eke out a living.
But a key point of the editorial was to hold Obama's feet to the fire on his promise to providing a realistic public policy alternative to the local government monopoly power of failing inner city schools. [I will also point out private school vouchers provide a competitive congruent response to an unresponsive public monopoly.] Newt Gingrich in his book Real Change made an example of the Detroit public schools, showing how the protectionist luddites shackled attempts to provide even modest attempts to expand charter schools.
In addition to the moral issue of failing to provide true equality of opportunity to our public school students nationally, I argue that it's also a critical economic issue. We can expect at least 4 decades of tax-yielding worker or business owner earnings from an educated student in payback for a modest short-term public investment in his or her future. It's not just the higher standard of living afforded to qualified professionals responding to in-demand knowledges and skills; it has a multiplier effect on collected tax revenues.
Klein and Sharpton note that the EEP attracts supporters from key administrators such as DC's Michelle Rhee and New Orleans' Paul Vallas and across the political spectrum, including prominent conservatives Newt Gingrich and John McCain. I strongly support their efforts aimed at attaining educational justice and standing up to those whom put their parochial interests above the primacy of quality education for all students.
