Monday, June 18, 2012
PROF - Doing School: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed-Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students
by Denise Clark Pope, 2003
"A revealing, and troubling, view of today's American high school
students and the ways they pursue high grades and success. Veteran
teacher Denise Pope follows five highly regarded students through a
school year and discovers that these young people believe getting ahead
requires manipulating the system, scheming, lying and cheating." (from Amazon.com)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This book was chosen as our Chanhassen High School admin/parent/staff/ book club choice for this coming up year. I will be honest in saying that I didn't love it as much as I thought I would. It identified some major issues with suburban high school students by highlighting 6 students and following them for a year. Nothing was that shocking to me, but it demonstrates the current attitude about grades being the end-all-be-all. After a while, the student profiles got a little long to read: a lot of information about how they would cheat, skip school on test days, manipulate teachers and work the system to get good grades in school. I kept waiting for the SO WHAT!? What are are we to do about it. It raised a ton of questions with zero answers and I hate that about education books.
ReplyDeleteEven before I read Travis' comment, I had a similar reaction. She identifies the problem, but doesn't have much to offer in the way of solutions! I enjoyed reading the students' profiles and interview material. They had different challenges and strengths, but definitely had adopted strategies for "doing school." I saw some of my students in the different kids' ways of doing things.
ReplyDeleteMy frustration is that the author seemed to indicate that getting rid of grades is a good idea. I believe that experiment was done in the 70s and became fairly meaningless. I would LOVE to see us get away from the current system, since grades tend to identify kids who do school well, whether they've actually learned or not.
My other big frustration is the way she seems to say that students should be more able to direct their learning. That makes me think of "unschooling" . . . and how will students know what they want to study if there are so many things in this big world of which they are completely unaware?
Now I feel like a fuddy-duddy. I welcome a discussion on how we can foster a love of learning and make our education system more relevant and meaningful to our students. I was a bit surprised that she didn't stress the importance of service learning, since that was meaningful for several of the students she interviewed.
Amen Jeanne!
DeleteI don't think the author knew how to answer the "now what" question because it's not a problem of our schools. I think the problem is much larger than that, I think our culture is one of too much to do. Too much on our plates. Americans are very driven and many of us pour ourselves into work and need more balance in life. I know I have had moments in life when I needed balance and was just "doing life".
DeleteI also think it's interesting that in one breath our admin is saying we need more kids in AP classes, and the next breath is how kids are getting too stressed out because we are pushing them too hard.
What I walked away with is the idea that I need to slow down and get to know my kids better. To take moments to just breath, rather than be so task oriented. it also reaffirmed for me the power of service learning. As a parent, I want to encourage Maggie to do a few things that she loves rather than so many things just because they look good on resumes and applications. I also want to encourage the importance of learning over the importance of grades.
I like your "walk-aways," Sarah. Slow down and get to know the kids better, breathe, encourage / promote service learning, focus on learning itself.
ReplyDeleteI sure miss working with you, lady! Maybe that was my issue last year - a Sarah withdrawl!
Whether it's society, parents, schools, . . . or kids themselves, I think as educators we can only strive to focus on the things that we believe are truly important for students' futures.