Dispirited with the Public Schools

I have stopped comparing the public schools where I volunteer to the one private school I once ran. Now, five years into my volunteer experiences, I am still appalled. There is a reason why Obama sends his kids to Sidwell Friends School. There is a reason why I send my grandson to private school. If a family can afford it you opt for a school that isn't the deadening and lackluster place where FCAT is paramount. The bottom line is that every child is worthy, some are very bright, most are average, and a few need more help. Here is my view of a public elementary school. In this particular one, a "D" school for the last couple of years, the sense of fear is palpable. Most of the teachers this year are new. They take seriously all the meetings and visits from THE STATE. If the rating cannot go up to at least a C, they will be toast. And so, this involves lots of nonsense about reading 100 minutes a day, no recess, no fun, no reading out loud. I have never gotten as much as a sniff to indicate that any of the teachers or administrators actually read anything! What about the kids? These high poverty kids need experiences! They need to do hands on stuff, play, talk, go outside to run and tumble. They need to have the experiences of growing things, cooking, sewing, measuring, building, playing games, talking! They need mulch for their minds! Teachers do not have any autonomy. I stroll through the classrooms and see in these bleak windowless rooms only neat canned and commercial things and directives on the walls. No art, no science nooks full of interesting things, no creative toys,no live pets to care for, no inviting reading spaces. It shrivels my heart. No joy. Several of us from our local town garden club got a grant to install a school/community vegetable garden. And now, this garden is incredibly bountiful, bursting with all kinds of vegetables. We are eager to cook with the kids who have grown this. When the classes come to the garden,water and weed, pick the produce, and prepare and eat it, it's wonderful! But, so often, we find that most of the teachers really have no idea that there is this great garden out back. They are so hunkered down doing their so many minutes of FCAT prep, there is no time to look up. To say the least, it is uphill work introducing these kids and families and teachers who live in a food desert, to good eating and nutrition. We certainly do not feel valued at all. Except by the kids! One of the faceless and gray people from "THE STATE" accidentally crashed our worm farm to the floor the other day. No apology, just a terse directive to get the custodian to clean up the dirt. I wonder how this school could be if it had a real sense of community? I wonder how it would be if those humorless and gray folks from "THE STATE" would just go away and the teachers could really talk about how education in their school could be, take on the challenge together? I wonder how it would be if everyone was not fearful? I wonder how it would feel to a first year teacher to be able to actually run their ideas by their peers,and be challenged by the best profession, teaching? Who cares what grade this school gets? The point is to educate kids. I notice as I roam around that these kids are sorely lacking in writing skills, math, and of course, no one actually reads for pleasure, and NO ONE READS ALOUD ON A REGULAR BASIS to kids! This total devotion to upping the school grade is devastating to any real meaning of education. Kids do not work this way. To have kids really be good readers they have to have a lot of experiences to hang up there in their minds. If you are reading about geese, for example, you need to have your kids actually see a goose! You can't make sense of sea life if you don't have those kids go to the seashore with a seine net. You can't make sense of history unless you take the kids to the local history museum and let them touch old stuff. It is nothing useful for reading and anything else to just make kids hunker down with commercial materials that are foreign to them. The commercial education companies, which are the drivers of all this,are in it for the money. They have made us all afraid. I believe that every kid is pretty much above average, every kid is valuable, and we owe it to them to make their childhood joyful,interesting, safe, and provide them with the skills they need for life. I want our principals, superintendent, lead teachers to lead the way and not be afraid to really really TEACH our kids.