In my decade of being a tutor and mentor, most of my students fall into one of two groups.
One group has learning challenges, often identified as ADHD, dyslexia or autism spectrum disorders. Most of these students initially came to me because they were trying to catch up, they were having trouble keeping up with the pace of school. These students were able to catch up. With extra study time, individualized plans, a learning coach and parental involvement, their grades rose and, for a time, their self-image, stress levels and life outlook seemed to improve. However, classes move on, assignments add up, and the Sisyphean stress of the school day snowballs and often, challenges reappear--the root problem having not been addressed. Worse than having to play catch up again, the school and the educational team (myself included) had demonstrated (falsely) to the student that they were not capable of achieving success on their own. By setting an academic standard that is primarily a logistical challenge, occupying time that might have otherwise been productive, not providing the tools to achieve, and fostering self-defeating expectations, the schools and the process was itself, the greatest impediment to true student success.
The second group are students who are often called ‘gifted.’ They tend to have issues with motivation, completing assignments, finding challenges, and occasionally have behavior issues. To be clear, they have the horsepower, the mental ability to succeed. However, even with nominal success (good grades) the overall experience is that of malaise at best and failure at worst.
In a school setting, the best teachers must make a Faustian bargain, leaving their highest potential students to fend for themselves or allow the average students to flounder in new material. Of late, the Common Core curricula have codified this bargain, forcing specialized learning strategies onto those who have no need of them and obscuring the lack of understanding by abstraction for those who do need real help. Understandably, most traditional teachers triage the situation and focus on the average to slightly under-performing students depending on the abilities of the ‘gifted’ students to keep them afloat. Set above or apart from their narrow age selected class, high performing students may find themselves singled out in a classroom where social dynamics are moderated by a teacher and peer to peer negotiation is not emphasized or even dangerous.
In addition, the metrics of classroom hours and testing scores necessitate schedules so rapid and tight, tyrannical bells rule the day, signaling the end of any engaging project and the transition to an unrelated subject. Given the disjointed day, even masterful teachers who could demonstrate and embody the height of their complex practice are forced to render irreducible concepts into classes as short as 45 minutes. The best outcome a high performing student can expect from their traditional program is extra work to fill their already scarce free time without any respite from the tedium of standardized assignments. Because of their structure and logistical concerns, traditional schools demonstrate to ‘gifted’ students that no project is more important than a bell, they need an authority figure to negotiate relationships between peers and mastery of a subject is not possible or desirable.
Individuals in these groups are not being served well. The individual is shorted to allow the group to move on. I teach because I hope that each lesson ultimately ends in a tangible good for the individual student. I want their quality of life to be improved now, and for the long term, by what I do every day. If the process I am engaged in does not meet that end, it must be questioned.
~School is my answer.