Why Schools Fail — Part I: The Broken Triangle
Schools eliminate one of the most powerful resources for learning.
“I live in a village where people still care about each other, largely.”
— Jan Karon
Education is broken.
There are great teachers and schools in the world.
But the education system is failing. Not failing. Failed.
And a major reason for this decline has been keeping some of the best educators out of the classroom.
Parents.
The Metal Gates
In typical schools, parents drive up to the front, drop off their kids and drive away.
At the end of the day the parents wait in a line as their children emerge from the inner sanctum, the child exits the gates, enters the car and they drive home.
A child doesn’t want to discuss their day. A parent will only ask how they did on their test.
We accept this model as normal even though everyone knows the depression, boredom and suicide rates associated with school.
Schools have become rigid, intolerant places for children to spend 20 years of their lives uninspired and bored. There are many reasons why the system has failed.
But a primary reason is that we have destroyed the village model of community engagement in favor of centralized, dictatorial, punitive learning.
We have removed the parents from the learning experience.
We have thousands of parent educators around our children but fail to adapt to a more fluid model. We literally see incredible teachers disallowed into places of learning. They aren’t just not allowed, they are unwelcome and uninvited.
I know a poet, architect, banker, river guide, photographer, dancer, author, doctor, freediver, digital artist, lawyer, pilot, painter, programmer and car racer.
Aren’t these the types of people we want our children spending time with?
The most interaction parents have with their children’s education is at the annual Career Day or the Parent-Teacher conferences.
Teachers are the most important job in the world. We should be tripling their salaries and honoring them. At the same time, we should get rid of some of them as they just shouldn’t be teaching anymore. Some never should have started in the first place.
But the problem with teachers is that they are teachers.
Most teachers have never run a company, managed a team, launched a product, started a non-profit, sailed around the Antarctic or built a building. Few teachers understand finances and how to create a P/L sheet.
Most science teachers haven’t discovered a new planet or element. History teachers have not fought in a war. And the majority of literacy teachers have never written a book.
This isn’t judging or condemning them. It is just a simple reality.
Teachers have skills that are unique and required for learning. They bring a beautiful and unique perspective to learning. Most provide the heart-space that allows children to thrive.
We need more great teachers.
But they are only part of the equation.
Living Bridges
I sat in the back of our colearning center, The Bridge, based at Green School the other day.
In the room were 23 high school students, 20 parents and a handful of teachers. This wasn’t after school or on the weekend. It wasn’t a special event. It was a normal class.
Every Wednesday, Green School runs Jalan Jalan programs. Jalan means to walk in Indonesian. All of the Middle School, High School and some Primary students are out of the classrooms all day. They participate in a selection of programs including freediving, scuba diving, design workshops, outdoor exploration and more.
Many of these are run by parents.
Project based learning is not unique at Green School. Children have built bridges and fairy houses in the past.
Green School does many things well but is by no means perfect. But its intention to focus on the child is core to the learning model. And it understands the value parents bring to the learning environment.
As I watched, a parent who runs his own London architectural firm, was standing at the front of the room with the students. They were working on a redesign project for The Bridge colearning center.
They were at the beginning of a process to redesign the parent space. The project is called The Living Bridge as it will connect The Bridge to the neighboring iHub, a student innovation space also located on the campus.
We broke into groups with students leading discussions with the parents for input on design. Teachers interacted, sharing their perspectives.
The children did not realize that they were participating in exactly the same process that happens in the most high level design firms in the world. They were leading discussions, taking notes, reflecting back to the participants.
A few weeks later this team put together one of the best presentations I have ever seen in my 30+ years of working in tech, education and non-profit. They were giving presentations that few adults in the world had ever given.
It was authentic, practical, useful, valuable, engaging learning.
The Parent Hat
None of this would have happened if it weren’t for parents being allowed on the campus as a part of the learning programs.
Parents at Green School mentor students and are involved in their projects. The Bridge and the school create an interactive environment where parents are able to focus on their work and projects while providing a place for crossover. Every day we see students and parents working together on expanding their minds and learning.
A critical part as to why it works is that parents actually take off their parent hat when they come into The Bridge and put on their adult hat.
Children usually don’t see the value that their own and other parents bring. As parents we are usually known as Mary’s Mom or Billy’s Dad. We lose our name and identity.
Some may consider this model unique to this one school. This model of having a colearning center based on the campus is replicated at the Green School in New Zealand and South Africa as well.
Around the world, in more personalized and self-directed learning programs, the parents are also involved in the process.
The only thing keeping this model out of standard education is bureaucracy and outdated, prehistoric thinking.
There is a magical beauty of this student-teacher-parent relationship.
Triangles
Consider the shape of a triangle for a moment.
If you remove one side of a triangle, all you have is a predictable, straight line between two points. There is iteration but the path is singular.
When we add the third side of a triangle, we get three points, a flow around the shape. Instead of two endpoints of iteration we now have three.
It is simple math. And this is a major problem with education when we remove one side of the triangle.
Parents and students and teachers. A beautiful, symbiotic, natural and desperately needed relationship.
Standard schools aren’t going to allow parents to be part of the learning process. The sad aspect of this is the harm this does to the children. We want to expose our children to a variety of opportunities in their life.
Math, science, literature and history are wonderful. But they are only a very small part of the overall experience. Your schools may not allow parents to be part of the learning but that doesn’t mean you need to accept this.
Create opportunities for your children to spend time with your friends and connections. Take your children on adventures that include fascinating people in your lives. Let them see the creativity and imagination that is already around them.
Speak to your school about more innovative and creative ways by which parents can be involved outside of bake sales and the color of school uniforms.
And ultimately, consider taking your children out of the school program they are in if they are unhappy.
This can be a challenge. But in every corner of the world are groups of parents who would work together to create a more engaging learning environment. It doesn’t require money. It may require more time at first. But the benefits are immediate and immeasurable.
This doesn’t mean we force children to listen to us. That will backfire. Guaranteed. We need to be subtle, supportive and engaging.
But removing parents from the learning model is a continued failure of an already broken system.
Education may be broken.
Learning isn’t.
Here are more of my stories on education for reflection and discussion.
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