In order chart a new path in improving schools, we must also be clear about what we want to leave behind. As we have seen, the Curriculum Transfer Model has a number of unintentional consequences, some of which are counterproductive and must be challenged directly. Here are two of the more ubiquitous and damaging aspects that result from that model.
Sorting Students Into Successes and Failures
Distributing students along a bell curve is a dominant feature of many grading schemes. On most tests, for example, there are some A’s, lots of C’s, and a few failures. Once students get their grades, there may or may not be a review of the test, and the class moves on to the next unit, leaving the wreckage of failure behind.
This practice defines one of the unstated functions of schools. A bell curve distribution systemically sorts the “good” students from the “bad”. Despite the fervor over creating standards that every student theoretically should meet, it remains hard for teachers to imagine all of their students getting A's on their tests. In reality, the breadth and rigor demanded by the Curriculum Transfer Model assures that not every student can be successful.
This does real damage to students. Those who consistently find themselves at the bottom of the bell curve in their test scores and their grades internalize the sense of failure. After years of finding themselves at the failing end, they become fatalistic about it; they identify themselves as "bad" students, and all too often they come to believe that there is nothing to be done about it. This is one of the biggest factors in creating a fixed mindset in students. As a result, they can become disengaged, apathetic, angry, or depressed. They may come to hate school. They are unlikely to believe that they are smart or capable of success. The internalized ceiling that is formed is self-fulfilling and can haunt them for the rest of their lives.
Nor do successful students escape the sorting process unscathed. The risk avoidance and loss of creativity described above are part of a system of self-limiting behaviors that arise from regularly being placed at the top of a bell curve.
Simply put, schools should not be in the business of systemically sorting students.
What to do about it: Dismantling the bell curve requires a multi-faceted approach. Both students and teachers must unlearn years of training in the acceptance of traditional sorting mechanisms. New ways of thinking about grades, and particularly about the centrality of self-directed learning, can help replace these old habits of mind.
An explicit goal of the classroom must be to replace that bell curve with something that gets as close to universal success as possible. That means there must be lots of “sharing the wealth”, where students who are successful work with students who are struggling. It also requires differentiated learning, so that everyone is challenged at an appropriate level, so that successful students can move on to exciting enrichment work and students who need more practice to learn can take the time they need and get necessary support.
We have a moral obligation to eliminate the bell curve from schools as much as possible. Teachers cannot do that unilaterally — it can only be accomplished as a priority that is deeply embedded in the culture and the structures of the classroom. Teachers and students must collectively rethink the meaning of grades and the purpose of testing. The strategies for attacking this problem are described throughout this book.
Instilling the Attributes of Doing School
“Just teach them not to criticize / to yes the bosses; impress the client /
O teachers of the world, teach them to fake it well.” —Buffy Sainte-Marie, “Suffer the Little Children”
When students adopt the bad habits of doing school, they learn undesirable character traits. Here are some of the most common:
Compliance and institutional passivity. Because so much of a student’s experience is teacher-directed, there is a widespread sense of passivity and compliance. To put it bluntly, students are told what to do all day long. There is no question about who has the power in most classrooms. And, in the name of classroom management, many teachers use that power without compunction. In order to be successful in such a situation, students must consistently acquiesce to a teacher’s decisions — in other words, they must be compliant. A student who has an opinion about what should be happening in the classroom that differs from that of her teacher (and is willing to say so) is generally considered disruptive.
Compliance is the opposite of good citizenship and is bad for democracy. Compliant people don’t challenge existing power structures, even when these systems need challenging. If a student learns to do what she is told, to perhaps complain privately but never to rock the boat, she is learning a kind of institutional powerlessness. This also robs her of the experience of making independent decisions or learning leadership skills. It takes away her voice.
Externalized Motivation
When a student is doing school, she is motivated externally. “What do I need to do to get an A?” is the underlying refrain. A successful student is often in the thrall of “academic materialism”; she is motivated by the acquisition of points, the boosting of her grade point average, the status of her class rank. The more points she receives, the better, regardless of how those points are obtained. This kind of motivation supplants the desire to learn with the desire to get good grades, and redefines what success means. For some students, this drive to accumulate points can even become an obsession.
Risk Aversion
As described above, a successful student is often intent on doing exactly what is necessary to get the right answer or do exactly what is expected of her. She will not take chances if it means risking a good grade. As a result, her learning process is truncated, and her ability to be creative is reduced.
For an unsuccessful student, different forces lead her to the same conclusion. She may be insecure about her understanding, which causes her to avoid any display of her vulnerability. So she, too, is unwilling to take any risks. She cannot learn anything that is challenging without working outside her comfort zone and sometimes failing.
Finding ways to value and use mistakes, rather than fearing them, is an important part of the learning process. People who are afraid of making mistakes are limited in how well or how deeply they can learn.
Excessive Competitiveness and Selfishness
For a successful student, particularly one who is college-bound, the competition for the best grades and the highest grade point average can be intense. In class, she is unlikely to “share the wealth” unless she sees what is in it for her. She does not recognize or work for the good of the group. Her ability and desire to collaborate is therefore severely constrained. In addition,her ability to learn through teaching, a powerful tool, is undermined.
Competition can be a healthy thing in life, but only when it is tempered with a sense of belonging to something bigger than oneself and with compassion for others. A lack of these things can lead people to become bad bosses and managers.
Dishonesty and Cynicism
Because of competitiveness and externalized motivation, a student who is doing school is more likely to copy homework, cheat on a test, or otherwise do what is necessary to improve her G.P.A. All’s fair in love and grades.
The hollowness of the experience of doing school teaches many students that education is a game that they play with teachers, against one another. The idea that learning is what school is about is regarded with widespread cynicism.
What to do about it: These undesirable attributes can be replaced with positive character traits by means of specific classroom strategies that are described throughout this book. For now, here are some initial ideas on strategies to counter the attributes of doing school.
The antidote to powerlessness is power. The antidote to the passive, compliant state of many students is to offer them the experience of being responsible, self-directed learners. Students must be given a voice, a sense of agency in steering their own learning. They need the freedom to make good choices for themselves.
Academic materialism can be discouraged by reminding students that there are no points outside of school. They must be taught that externalized motivation is actually an impediment to happiness and true success in most areas of life. They must be taught how to learn for the sake of learning, to grow as a person, and to help others learn. Students need to believe that if they excel at truly learning, the excellent grades they want will follow. Helping students to internalize their motivation requires a serious and sustained effort. Without constant reinforcement, they will revert to old habits that undermine how much self-directed learning they are doing.
For an unsuccessful student, the challenge may be even harder. She cannot challenge her self-protective posture—withdrawal, anger, refusal to do homework—until she starts to believe she is capable of success. She must be given academic challenges that meet her at the appropriate level of difficulty, so that she can experience success and build on it. This is one of the reasons that differentiated learning is so important.
All these transitions take time. Students have had many years of training in the bad habits of doing school. Promoting self-directed learning takes patience and tenacity on the part of teachers. Confronting doing school and replacing it with self-directed learning is addressed in all the structures described in this book. The most potent tool in challenging doing school, however, is the classroom culture itself. This is explored in depth in the next chapter, “Creating the Classroom Culture”.
