What school should be

"Miss Molly!, Miss Molly!" Those small hands reach out and they are so glad to see me. I am trying as hard as I can to be a good volunteer in our local public schools. It is always an adventure when I come with my bags loaded with good stuff to eat and some new activities and games. One kid tells me, cuddling up close, "Fridays are my favorite days! We get to do such fun stuff!" The Tuesday group runs out to greet me and they always ask me what I have brought for them to eat.
The Friday group has been doing clay for a number of weeks. They have learned a lot about how to fashion their pieces, and then glaze them. They are so pleased with the wonderful colorful results. This class is mostly 'gifted' ten year olds. There are twenty-three of them. This is the 'best' school in the area. These kids generally come from affluent homes. I have never met their parents, but I know they care about their kids, take them to soccer and work on their science fair projects, and instill in them some politenesses which go far. They rely on the public school to attend to the education.
I was planning what I would do this Friday. I knew the kids had been reading the Patrick Smith book, 'A Land Remembered'. They were to read it by themselves, thirty minutes a day, no adult to read it to them, no one to be cuddled next to them as they read aloud and comment on the interesting things.
But they were excited about this book, a narrative about a family in early Florida. I found it fascinating too. This Friday I wanted to go into the class with my old fashioned dutch oven and make corn pone with cane syrup. I have twenty-four quilt squares ready to make into an entire quilt. I have checked out many books from the library with pictures of life in settler Florida.
Mid day I have an e-mail from their teacher, who clearly does not want me to come this week, but she is distantly polite. The kids have 'a lot to do- some chapter tests for the FCAT.' I say that I am coming anyway because I have promised the kids I will bring their completed clay pieces. I will do a short activity with them.
This teacher runs a spiffy classroom. I have rarely seen her doing anything but being hunkered down at her computer. I must say she welcomes having another warm body to deal with the kids. She has never had any curiosity at all about me. Perhaps she dismisses me as as an old person and not worthy of attention. I don't know. I think she regrets having me as a volunteer because I create chaos, questions, mess, and affection. But she is polite and she'll endure her commitment until the end of the year.
This school is built on the old model of having four classrooms in a pod, no windows, and a central space with the bathrooms. There are no doors between classrooms so the students have to be unnaturally silent all the time. You don't ever hear the hum of children being children. The silence is eerie. When I come with my activities and noise, it is obviously a bit too much. I see the other pod teachers slamming shut their folding doors. Mostly they are having TESTS!
Kids have an entirely different agenda. They are not interested in constant tests. They want the power of experience. They want to do stuff, think about things, pay attention to what interests them. They want to talk to me. And they want to talk to each other!
I know from long years of experience that kids will not remember the tests and the dreary work sheets. They'll remember the hands-on stuff and the experiences they had. I do not think that all these tests, pretests, post tests, final tests mean anything at all. Nor do the kids! What does a kid learn from taking all these tests? Maybe he/she learns not to fear tests.
I would wish that each child would have the time to wonder and find his/her way to explore the world and think critically about it. To do this, a kid must have the time to explore a world with all the time needed. To meet the Florida science standards, for example, it is much more important to send kids out to the seashore with a seine net and an enthusiastic teacher, or into the woods, than it is to learn how to fill in the dreary multiple test answers. What are we thinking??