Our Educational System is Broken: A Parent's Perspective

[I am not into taking sides in a debate. Debates are usually just excuses to put others down so we can feel better about ourselves. So, I am not taking sides, pointing fingers or laying blame. It is not the teachers or unions or administrators or parents or students that are to blame. It is the system itself that is broken.]

Our educational system is designed to prepare people to make a living not a life.

We are more concerned with our children’s bank accounts than we are concerned with our children.

As my brother contemplated pursuing art as a major in college, I remember my dad telling him, “There are a lot of starving artists out there. Good ones.” My brother is a computer guy who pursues art in many forms whenever he can.

I love this photo. I think he said he used a lamp and some paper towels, maybe a paper bag.

 

My uncle never went to watch his son skateboard in any of his competitions or even just for fun. “There’s no future in skateboarding.” He later became a pro-skateboarder. He now works for Nike, I think.

How many of us have been told similar things about the passions of our hearts? How many of us have told our children similar things?

Insiders could tell you more about the inner workings of the system and what is wrong from that perspective. They could tell you about wasted hours of teaching to tests, the ridiculous nature of tenure and the insanity of bureaucrats setting teaching standards. But, as a parent here are my top ten reasons our educational system is broken:

1 – The system has become self-generating. The only people who leave school prepared for their jobs are teachers. Every other occupation without exception needs on-the-job training after they graduate. Why? Because, school is on-the-job training for teachers. How about finding what a student is passionate about and setting him up with a mentor. Finding someone who loves what they do to teach our children about their area of expertise. Yes! Absolutely!

2 – The system is designed for those who can sit still for long periods of time (not for children). Get them up, moving, doing, creating, exploring.

3 – Success in school is determined by your ability to get a good grade. What isn’t measured is how much the student has learned, how much they understand and can grasp a subject? This is incredibly hard to measure with a percentile. So, our grading system adds to the dysfunction.

Instead of trying to learn, our most alert students spend the first few weeks of school figuring out how much or how little work is required. Do they really need to read the text or just take good notes in class? Is homework checked? What are the tests like? They even pass this info on to future classes.

 4 – Teachers aren’t given the freedom to teach what they love. They teach what the system requires. They teach to a test. They teach what they taught last year. So few teachers are able to fit what they love into the system. As a parent, I would rather my children have great teachers who taught what they love, than to learn a specific set of knowledge that fits within a system. Great teachers inspire a love for learning and a love for life. The system does not. It cannot.

5 – Math and English are more important than anything else all the way up through high school. Really? Is that the most important thing we can teach our children?

6 – Creativity is trained out of our children. It is rare for a child to graduate high school or college with as much creativity as he had when he began kindergarten. That’s wrong.

7 – The system thrives on comparison and competition. Students are not seen as individuals, encouraged to flourish in their way and excel at what they were created to be. They are not rewarded for how much they have grown and flourished. They are compared to a standard, a set of scores on a series of standardized tests. “My son is in the 94 percentile.” “I was valedictorian.” “I got 1600 on my SAT’s.” What does that have to do with education? And, yet, it has become synonymous with it.

8 – The system minimizes the importance of experiencing life. My friend commented, “Why do children get taught to color trees brown? They are gray. Look at a tree. It’s gray. Why can’t they show them a tree and just have them draw it?” A silly example, maybe, but why not have art class in the woods. The system teaches us to simplify things and try to capture them rather than to appreciate things in all of their complexity and multi-sensory richness. Students are taught to memorize facts and then to think that they understand. Can you grasp World War II, or MacBeth, or Impressionism. In college, they debunk many things learned in high school only to replace it with “deeper understanding” held with greater arrogance. It is more of the same. We are not able to grasp the depth of the beauty and majesty of God or any of His creation. We can only wonder. Let’s teach our kids to wonder.

9 - The measure of success for administrators is the % of students attending college after high school. We used to have dumb kids at our school. There was no stigma to it. We just seemed to appreciate the fact that we weren’t all the same. The “dumb” kids weren’t really dumb. They just didn’t get good grades in the “system” that was school.

One of those kids would be the first to get a car and would know how to take it apart and put it back together again. One guy rebuilt an old Porsche and sold it. We were all in awe. He made $5000 on it, if my memory serves me. That was big money for a high school kid. No one expected him to go to college and get an MA in Education and become the next school teacher. He pursued another career and demonstrated his intelligence in other ways.

That is just one example of the system being self-perpetuating. Success in school for students, teachers, and administrators all lies with how well the system works to perpetuate itself. Maybe it is time we rethought the entire system. Maybe homeschooling, hackschooling, and other forms of alternative education are the answer. Or maybe we haven’t even begun to see it yet. But, there must be another way.

10 –Finally, relationships. The best education usually happens in relationships. There is interplay between student and teacher. Both are learning and growing. Both challenge the way the other thinks. Mutual respect grows. Great teachers know their students and engage them in areas that interest the students as well as areas that interest the teacher. Content can be taught in a variety of ways, but the relational aspect of teaching is foundational. When teachers are required to teach to the test or overly bound to a curriculum, the relationship withers on the vine. I believe most teachers love their students and desire to do their best for them. But, the system prevents this more than encourages it.

So, what now? Do we just take our chances with our children and experiment on them with all kinds of educational models hoping we get something right? I don’t know. But, can we get a worse result than we are getting now. Math and English are the highest priority in this system, and we continue to lag behind in these areas. The system doesn’t even work at promoting its own priorities. It certainly isn’t promoting the welfare of our children or our society. Something must change, within or without the system.

“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” – Sir Ken Robinson

(Another quote by Sir Ken Robinson, “If a man speaks his mind in a forest and no woman hears him, is he still wrong?” Now that's funny.)

Follow Your Bliss: Making Your Life Worth Living

Lately, I keep hearing the phrase, “Follow Your Bliss.” I think it will be one of our Family Rules. Mostly people just seem to use it to mean, “Do what makes you happy.” But, it stems from the work of Joseph Campbell. He described a way of living that flows from the core of your being, awakens your complete awareness (your consciousness) and flows toward what gives you bliss and rapture.

His statement, “follow your bliss,” encapsulates this whole notion.

He realized that he may never truly know if he had a proper consciousness or a proper sense of his being, but he felt sure that he knew what would bring him bliss. And, if he could follow that path toward his bliss, he felt sure that he would find both a proper consciousness and a proper being.

“If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are—if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time,” p. 150.

The Bible speaks similarly of the importance of following our deepest longings our greatest desires. We are to put off the sin that so easily entangles us and mires us in lies and bogs us down with false promises of happiness.

As we are setting aside the sin, we are told to focus on the prize that is before us. The One that we are longing for. The One that satisfies above all else. The One for which we were created. The One that offers us bliss and is able to deliver. The One and Only One who can provide what is promised. (Hebrews 12:1-2)

Joseph Campbell continues,“In the Middle Ages, a favorite image that occurs in many, many contexts is the wheel of fortune. There's the hub of the wheel, and there is the revolving rim of the wheel. For example, if you are attached to the rim of the wheel of fortune, you will be either above going down or at the bottom coming up. But if you are at the hub, you are in the same place all the time. That is the sense of the marriage vow—I take you in health or sickness, in wealth or poverty: going up or going down. But I take you as my center, and you are my bliss, not the wealth that you might bring me, not the social prestige, but you. That is following your bliss,” p.147.

Campbell uses marriage as a symbol to explain following your bliss. Paul uses this image as well in 2 Corinthians 11. He desires that his readers be pure in their devotion to Christ. He desires that we be pure, undistracted, undefiled, giving our full attention to Christ.

Simply put, we get easily distracted. We have so many immoral choices that when we overcome those desires and begin to live moral lives, we tend to think that we have arrived. We begin to believe that this life's goal is to sin less. But, this is just a means to an end. Sinlessness is our of our reach. And, sinning less only provides an opportunity for living from the core of our being with complete awareness (consciousness) of our true bliss, the One who has called us, loved us, died for us, and has been resurrected, giving us a confident hope for eternal life.

If we sin less today than yesterday, we must not think that we have arrived at some end. We must continue to journey toward our true bliss with all that we are. In Matthew 22:37-39, Jesus quoting Moses described the path to our true bliss as, "‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’"

There are desires in our hearts other than following Jesus, and these may or may not be leading us toward our true bliss. We can recognize it in others more easily than we can in our own lives.

The boy who bullies other children like his father bullies him. The girl with an unaffectionate father looking for a boyfriend to meet that need. The man who drinks just a beer or two each day to calm his nerves, so that he can keep it together for his family. The recently divorced woman who starts going to the gym, wearing low-cut blouses and high slit skirts.

The desires and needs are real, but they have substituted a lie for the truth and have settled for less than true bliss.

But then there are passions and desires that stem from the core of who we are: a love for art or nature, a need to fix or build something, an eye for beauty or style, a knack for numbers or problem solving, an ease of conversation that allows someone to strike of a conversation. This book and website might help you find what your strengths are.

These are expressions of our true self peaking through.

We can choose to stifle them, ignoring our design, or we can choose to embrace them, to recognize of a bit of our true selves that has been revealed.

Follow your bliss.

For Parents: When asked how parents could help their children follow their bliss, Joseph Campbell answered thoughtfully, “You have to know your child and be attentive to the child.” The best way to do this is through youth centered conversations.

Joseph Campbell quotes are from The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers

Our Family Rules! and Our Family Rules.

"Our Family Rules!" My oldest daughter, Anna, said the other day that she has the best family ever. This is especially encouraging since this has been a tough year and a half for us. In the past 18 months, I secluded myself for an extra few hundred hours (on top of regular work hours) while I was writing my doctoral dissertation, I graduated with my doctorate of ministry degree, I lost my job, our family left the only church any of of us have ever really known, we started a home church and our children changed schools majorly disrupting their social lives. Only a few of those friendships have withstood this upheaval, so they are still in the transition time of building new friendships.

I'm glad that she feels our family has been the rock that it needed to be to offer her the security and confidence to go through this difficult time.

But, that's not what I am writing about today. Today, I want to tell you about our family rules. As in The 10 Commandments of the Zirilli family.

It was suggested that it might help bring some sanity to our home to have some set of basic rules, guidelines for our lives. A reminder to us as parents and to our children what life in the Zirilli home is all about. So I decided that we should have a family meeting to discuss what our family rules should be.

As you might imagine, I was really excited about the awesome potential!

I explained that if we had a set of rules that was constant, it would be easier for everyone to follow the rules and discipline would be more cut and dry. "Sounds great doesn't it!"

Our kids hated the idea and immediately shot it down. Katie, my very practical 14 year old declared, "It will just give us more random stuff to get in trouble for. No thank you."

I was taken aback. I guess I approached that subject all wrong! So, I dropped it and tried to figure out what God was saying and if my enthusiasm was off or my delivery.

Then, I found these pictures online and decided to try again, with a more positive spin.

 

Traditional Porch design by Chicago Interior Designer Your Favorite Room By Cathy Zaeske

Contemporary Living Room design by Los Angeles Interior Designer Jill Wolff Interior Design

"What do you think about doing something like this."

Katie pipes up, "Can we paint on the wall? ... Then, I'm in!"

"But what do you think about the idea?" Not satisfied with their enthusiastic response, I wanted to put a damper on it right away. (Why do I do that?!?)

So now, we just need some time to think it over and keep throwing out ideas and mulling them over. In a couple of months, we will hopefully have our list, our design layout, and then we can paint.

I'll keep you posted on how it goes!

Does anyone else have Family Rules? What do you wish were your family rules? Katie's first suggestion was, "We do whatever we want."

Labels Stifle Growth

Labels Stifle Growth

This was a conversation amongst the Dads at a birthday party I recently attended:

"My son was labeled 'multi-disabled.' And, I was like, label him whatever you want just help to learn."

"Really? One teacher told me she thought my son had Aspergers and so we did the research. We went to the pediatrician to see whether we needed to face this and deal with it. The pediatrician told us there was no sign of him having Aspergers. We went back to the teacher, and she clung to her diagnosis."

"Our son's teacher said, 'Not that I advocate putting kids on meds, but you might want to get him checked by your doctor to see if he has ADHD.' The third time she made that recommendation it was clear that she was advocating to put him on meds."

"I'm a principal and the reality is, teachers have no expertise in diagnosing this stuff. But, because they are teachers, some parents assume that they do." He then went on to explain how shocked some of his fellow educators are to find out that his children are home-schooled.

Labels are used to put kids in categories so that they can more easily be fit into the educational system. The system only works if we can get the kids through easily and smoothly without clogging up the gears. And, if you or your child start clogging things up, you will have some labels thrown your way.

We all do it. It is how our society works. There are just too many variables to give everyone an honest assessment all of the time. So, we say things like, "He's a conservative" or "She's a feminist," "Those homeless people" or "Those rich people," or we use racial slurs or homophobic language.

Labels kill relationships before they start.

We label so that we don't have to take the time to get to know the real people that we are talking about and so we make a million assumptions about them.

Children are often labeled by "experts" because they need to "document" their history so they can "get services." The system works this way, but as parents, we shouldn't. Actually, as human beings who love other human beings we shouldn't.

Labels stifle growth.

Instead of using labels to identify those around us, we need to start learning their stories. There is power in knowing someone's story. It reminds us that we are referring to a person with all of their strengths and weaknesses, good qualities and bad, past hurts and future promise.

Robert Coles, whose research led him to interview children, often multiple times over the course of years, described rightly the role of the researcher as learner. With all of his education and experience, he was tempted to enter into conversations with children in order to try to fit them into his psychoanalytic paradigms. Early in his career, he realized that if he wanted to advance the field of research he was in, he would need to let the children teach him.

He realized that only they could teach him about the ways in which children understood their world. From this new vantage point, he was able to discover great depth in the spirituality of children.

As parents, we too, are learners. We must not assume that because of our education or experience or simply our role as parent, that we have to fit our children into a category in order to understand them or worse yet, fix them.

Labeling our child "strong-willed" or "shy", "stubborn" or "promiscuous" doesn't help us or them to grow spiritually.

The tools that we have at our disposal can help us, but the labels oversimplify our understanding of our children and give us an excuse to not continue to grow in our understanding of them.

We made this mistake with out youngest child, Ryan. For years we introduced our family to new acquaintances and inevitably, when we got to Ryan, he would hide behind Mommy or bury his face in Daddy's pant leg. And, so it would go, "And, this is Ryan. ... He's our shy one."

Ryan entered a new school in his third grade year. At our first parent teacher conference, I mentioned that we were trying to change that habit of labeling him and begin positively reinforcing other behaviors that were more outgoing and expressive of his inner feelings and thoughts.

His teacher, an experienced educator, agreed that that would be good and recalled, "I remember the first day you came to see the classroom. I was told that he was shy before I even knew his name."

Let your children be themselves. Emphasize and reward those characteristics that you want to see them grow into. Point out when they work hard, say kind words, face a fear, or demonstrate generosity.

How different Ryan might be today if we had introduced him differently, "And, this is Ryan, you are going to love getting to know him!"

How different Ryan will be a year from now because we have removed the burden of this label from him?

Adventures in Nonversation

Adventures in Nonversation

Nonversations happen almost every day of our lives. Whether it is at work or school, on the phone or in person. We engage in these pseudo-conversations where one or more of the participants has no interest in being in the conversation at all. You know the kind that I mean.

Nonversations with our children can happen at any age. Whether it is your toddler pulling on your pant leg and you replying, "Uh huh ... uh huh. OK, sweetie." Only to finally look down and see them handing you their full diaper which they have somehow managed to pull of.

Or your school age child saying, "Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. Mommy." in the grocery store. Checking your list and coupons and giving the baby a cracker so he won't eat the cart handle, "What?!" "I want to study animals in the Amazon rainforest!"

Or our teenage child's non-responses, "How was your day?" "Uhh." "How was your test in Biology?" "Fine." "Do you have much homework?" "No."

Sometimes it can seem like when they are ready to talk, we aren't, and when we are ready, they aren't.

There is one other type of nonversation that kills communication with our children: parent centered instead of youth centered conversations.

How do these affect our relationship with our teens?

Dollahite and Thatcher, social scientists who did research with 74 highly religious families, used the term “parent centered” conversations in their research. I call them nonversations. Nonversations are lecture-style. Parents are transmitters and not receivers. They ask their children questions because they want to give them answers. They emphasize the power imbalance in the family. Parents have power and authority and teens don’t.

This is an extension of the idea that children should be seen and not heard.

We don’t usually set out to relate to our children this way. We genuinely want to have a relationship with our kids, but we are human and we love our children so much that things get confusing.

Our fear and insecurities motivate us to try to keep our teens safe. We are afraid that either they will do something to hurt themselves or someone else will do something to them.

And, we know some of those hurts leave scars. We are afraid for them now and we are afraid for their future. “What if…” begins to be our motto. And, we choose safety and security over relationship with our child.

It can sound like this, “I would rather have my child hate me because I’m overprotective, then love me and wind up in a ditch somewhere or worse yet, dead.”

That fear gives rise to a desire to control our children. Even in the highly religious families that were studied, which tend to stress hierarchical relationships based on the natural disparity of power between the child and the adult, they are still able to have youth centered conversations. So the content of the conversations, the worldview which you hold, and the guidance that you offer do not determine whether or not a conversation is youth centered or parent centered.

The tone of the conversation, the parents’ motivations, and the relational openness of the parents determine whether conversations are youth centered or parent centered nonversations.

In a culture that highly values individualism, youth centered conversations demonstrate an increased willingness to allow autonomy and freedom to initiate and fully participate in religious/spiritual conversations. This fosters spiritual growth and gives you an opportunity to shape some of the faith choices your child makes.[1]

Find ways to listen to your child without correcting them or judging their responses. Just listen and learn and wait until they ask for your help or advice. Enjoy them and maybe dream with them about going to the Amazon rainforest. Who knows, they might end up there someday!

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[1] David C. Dollahite and Jennifer Y. Thatcher, “Talking About Religion,” Journal of Adolescent Research 23, no. 5 (2008): 638.

Part 5: We Need to Start Over, The Last Step

Franklin Graham, the son of internationally famous Billy Graham, was running away from being a Graham. He spent time doing all the things that he had been told not to do. Until at 22 years of age, he broke down. While reading the Gospel of John in a hotel in Jerusalem, he confessed his sin and embraced the Savior that he had resisted for so long.

As parents, we long for the best for our children. But, often we feel powerless to make it happen. When we try too hard, we often make things worse through manipulation or emotional enmeshment.

The reality is that our children have just as much right to choose their own path as we do to choose ours. They have been given the ability to choose.

God gave them that ability.

If we try to override their choices, we are fighting against our children.

And we are fighting against God.

Not a fight worth fighting.

Not a fight we can win.

But, there is hope. If you have tracking through these steps and chosen to repent, rethink, and redo, then the final two steps come together. First we respond to our child and then we restart the relationship.

Respond:

The time may come to respond. See what signs your child is giving you. Wait for something positive, anything positive. Any sign that they haven’t completely given up on their relationship with you. Pour God’s grace into that situation or comment.

Be honest and open, trusting God to protect your heart.

Be patient and kind.

Be long suffering.

Love your child.

Be courageous and be extravagant!

As they continue to respond positively to your love and grace, pour out more love and more grace.

Be extravagant in expressing your love. Don’t hold anything back. Be completely honest about how much you love your child. Tell them that your love has no bounds.

Read and study the parables of the Lost Son, the Lost Coin and the Lost Sheep from Luke 15.

Picture your child as the one you have lost.

You cannot rescue them from the consequences of their choices, but as soon as they are ready to return and face those consequences, be ready to open your heart to them again.

Picture yourself celebrating when the lost one is found. Tell them how much restoring your relationship would mean to you.

CAUTION: Don’t respond too early. First, if you respond to their negativity, you may push them further away. Second, if you speak about extravagant love before you repent and have a plan, it will sound like empty words coming from the latest book you’ve read.

"There is a time for risky love. There is a time for extravagant gestures. There is a time to pour out your affections on one you love. And when the time comes - seize it, don't miss it.” ~Max Lucado^[1]

Restart:

If and when your teen begins to desire a relationship with you that is built on mutual love and respect, it is time to restart. When it is time, I believe that you will know it.

WARNING: I also strongly believe that until that time, you will always wonder and hope that the time has come for this step. Remain. Restarting must be the last step, because it is necessarily the first step of a new era in your relationship.

A restart is when the cocoon that your child has hidden in breaks open and a butterfly is released. It is when the old relationship dies, like a seed planted in the ground, and a new relationship emerges, full of life and hope.

This comes after your child accepts your apology and offers you forgiveness. It comes after your child acknowledges their own sin and asks for your forgiveness. If this concept is new to them, it may not be as simple and direct as that sentence makes it appear. Know your child, listen to their change of tone, watch their body language and observe what changes they have made.

They may need your help and patience. They may even need you to verbalize what they are thinking. They may not have the vocabulary to ask for forgiveness. You may need to take the first step for them. They may come in and interrupt you, but not know what to say. Don’t jump the gun, don’t interrupt their thoughts, but be sensitive to the Spirit of God.

You may have to ask, “Are you feeling sad?” If yes, “Are you feeling lots of confusing emotions?” Draw them out. Try to get them to say what they can. And, if the time is right, say, “I want you to know that I forgive you. I am not sure if you are feeling this way because you feel bad about things that you have said and done to me in the past. But, I want you to know that I forgive you for all of it, for everything. I won’t let any of that come between us. And, I really hope that you won’t either.” If your child seems responsive to this. Ask if they have asked God for forgiveness yet. Then, ask if you can pray with them. Lead them. Teach them by example.

Discernment is key. Remain ... until the opportunity to restart arises. If you try to respond and restart too early, you could derail whatever progress has been made. God is at work in your child’s life, partner with Him and wait.

Please comment if this series has been helpful to you. The more specific you can be, the more helpful your post can be to others who are looking for encouragement on the journey.

Please repost these if you think someone would benefit from them

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[1] Max Lucado. And The Angels Were Silent. (Nashville: Multnomah Books, 1995), 183.