Our idea is to encourage teachers, parents and students around the United States to write personal letters and mail them in May (not by e-mail) to Michelle Obama, telling her of your experiences and concerns with how high-stakes testing and other reforms are affecting those who actually spend their days on the front line, in our nation’s classrooms. As Nancy Carlsson-Paige described the current situation:

“As a professor of education, an educator of teachers, and someone who creates curriculum, I see the harm education reform is causing children — the disappearance of play, creativity, and the arts from our schools. Evaluation is now driving curriculum, and curriculum is being reduced to something mechanistic. This isn’t real learning.”

Educators like Dr. Carlsson-Page and Diane Ravitch have spoken out for years now, but for some reason their explanations have not been heard and understood by President Obama. He’s a very busy man, with a lot of issues on his plate. But he and Michelle are parents as well, with young daughters in school.

Which is why we thought an effective strategy might be for people from all over the Nation to write to Michelle Obama and let her know what is REALLY going on. As someone who spends time visiting schools, she should be able to quickly grasp these issues once she sits down, reads a few letters and really learns about the effect these policies have had.

Moreover, as First Lady she may be in the best position to help influence education policy. Once she “gets it” she can then explain the “uncomfortable” details of the issue to the President. One or two meaningful conversations between the two of them in the White House could lead to some big changes.

So, if you agree with this idea, we hope you will consider sharing your personal story with her. Let Michelle (and her staff) know what you’ve observed, as a parent, educator or student. Also, as parents and teachers, we can discuss this issue with our children and encourage them to write as well, expressing their unique point of view.

Isn’t this what “critical thinking skills” and participatory democracy are all about – finding a way for our leaders to hear (and be guided by) the voices and wisdom of the people, all the people, even the children?

Thanks for considering this idea and sharing it with others.

“There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” ~Victor Hugo

Send your letter to:

Ms. Michelle Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— Christopher Chase is the co-admin of The Art of Learning’s facebook page.  The Art of Learning believes “Human beings are natural born learners.” Chase worked with Hank Levin as a member of the Stanford Accelerated Schools Project, 1989-1993. Currently teaching English at Seinan Gakuin University, in Japan. Ph.D. in education from Stanford University, 1993.

The need for a change in education is evident. But what’s the practical solution? It is easy to point out the flaws of the current system, but it is much more difficult to come up with relevant, applicable solutions. And it is even more difficult for policy makers to bring about change.

It is my hope to not only spread the need for educational change, but to offer a practical, non-radical solution that can actually be implemented.

I encourage everyone to voice their opinion, criticize, and send a message to our decision makers in the US Department of Education.

Support the petition: http://www.change.org/petitions/the-american-education-system-is-outdated-it-s-time-for-change

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–Arooj Ahmad is a 16-year-old high school sophomore at Libertyville High School in suburban Chicago who wants to bring about practical change in the outdated American education system.

The theme of the conference, “Closing the Opportunity Gap with Afterschool & Summer Learning” doesn’t fully describe the range of topics covered, from data, to science and art, to improving program quality, to finding and sustainability. Nearly every state has a network of Afterschool programs, and the conference is held by the national network of these state networks. Yet one major voice was missing at the conference, the voice of young people.

While this is a disappointment, it is also an opportunity for me and a number of other educators at the conference to change this for the future and so, if the young people of the Cooperative Catalyst are willing, I would ask you some questions.  I will share your answers with adults who administer these programs and I will report back with my findings.  I am also trying to create active roles for young people who would like to get more involved in the future.

I would love to get your views on Afterschool programs in and out of schools.

What is your general experience in Afterschool?

What activities are engaging?

What could school learn from Afterschool?

What barriers keep youth from participating?

What should adults remember as we work with youth to improve Afterschool programs?

What’s great; what needs improvement?

What questions should I ask the adults on your behalf (besides “where are the young people in this room right now”,?)

Any additional ideas, visions or suggestions are also welcome!

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Greg Williamson is the Director of Student Support at the Washington State education agency and long time advocate of youth voice and youth action.

So, am I ever going to go to university?

I don’t like to say never, because lots of things change, but I definitely can’t see myself going to university full time or for a degree in the foreseeable future. I’m sort of vaguely considering just taking a class or two sometime in the next year, or maybe, possibly, going to culinary school at some point, but I haven’t really made any decisions on either of those possibilities yet.

Why don’t I want to go?

As for why I don’t plan on going to university fulltime, I have many reasons. A list of bullet-point reasons, even.

• There is nothing I want to be doing right now as a job or “career” or whatever that would require a degree, so the only reason (and this is a good reason to go to university for many people!) would be for pure enjoyment/learning purposes, which leads me to…
• I’m not very into more academic subjects, as a rule. Most of the things I enjoy doing tend to be really tactile and immediate. I like cooking and gardening and having one-on-one conversations. Sure, I like reading about feminism and social justice and radical education. Hell, a major focus of my life for a few years was reading and talking and writing about unschooling! But I sort of feel that what I really want and need to be doing in my life right now is just that: doing, not studying.
• I don’t enjoy learning-for-the-sake-of-learning (and having said that I swear I can almost hear a horrified gasp from lots of people in my unschooling community). For me to enjoy and take in information or learn a skill well, it has to feel genuinely important and relevant in my life and/or the lives of the people close to me, my community, etc. I’m very happily reading through a large book on fermentation (Sandor Ellix Katz is awesome) because I want to be fermenting more foods and beverages. I’m going to pick up a really awesome looking book (The Forager’s Harvest by Samuel Thayer) on wild edibles soon, because I want to be foraging a lot more with my sister come spring. Social justice issues, radical politics, and radical sustainability are important because I want to be a good person, act in as kind and non-oppressive a way as possible, live in a genuinely sustainable way, etc. University has always seemed to me to be so incredibly removed from the rest of the world, and I really don’t want that, or think that that removal is generally a healthy thing.
• I hate how inaccessible academia is. Both the price, though that is at least less of an issue where I am than many other places**, but also the very language and culture of universities and academia. Though I’ve seen and been bothered by this on multiple occasions, a specific instance that stands out to me was one time when I was at a talk, and this one dude just started bringing up objections and questions in the most ridiculously academic language you can imagine, and referencing books and authors I’d never heard of. As the conversation between the speaker (an academic herself) and the audience member continued, I had absolutely no clue what they were talking about. And I say this as someone who is generally read as well educated (by people unaware of my being an unschooler, since then of course folks start to think otherwise), a native English speaker, and someone usually considered skilled with words. It just hit me very profoundly that if this seemed inaccessible to me, how much more inaccessible is it to so very many other people? It just doesn’t sit right with me.
• Also, when I think of being in classrooms for some four years or more, I feel like I’d be trapped. I’m literally mildly horrified at the idea. It does not sound appealing at all.

There are more personal reasons, and there are far more nuanced critiques of the institution of university to be found out there. But from my perspective, those things are a very good overview of why I have no plans or desire to go to university.

Really, there are so many more interesting (to me) things I want to be doing right now in my life, things that are relevant and exciting and hands-on. No classrooms needed.

*I say university not “college” because here in Quebec, college (also known as CEGEP) is a between high school and university thing, and is not synonymous with university.

**In Quebec the average tuition per year is $2,519 (source: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/educ50f-eng.htm)

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Idzie Desmarais is a lifelong unschooler from Montreal, who also generally identifies as a radical, cook, feminist, writer, and queer, among other things. She writes about unschooling and alternative education at I’m Unschooled. Yes, I Can Write.

Progressive students of America who care about social justice: I know you care deeply about education. I know you see yourself as a change agent, fighting injustice. I know you have organized for progressive causes on campus and in your community; you’ve done civic engagement, you care about the DREAM Act, you are disgusted by the achievement gap, you think we are cheating low-income students, students of color, and differently-abled students in our current education system. I agree with you. But please, please, do NOT do Teach for America.

Consider that teachers are being laid off left and right with extreme cuts to education funding, teachers who have dedicated their lives and careers to their students. When you take a job as a Teach for America corps member, the school pays much less for you (a starting teacher’s salary) than an experienced teacher with a Master’s Degree. Do you think a cash-strapped district is more likely to hire you, looking for a few gap years before law school, or your brother or sister in the struggle who has been teaching with a graduate degree for ten years? Good thing that anti-union laws have been advocated in state after state, making it easier for school districts to save money by laying off experienced teachers and hiring new recruits every two years.

Consider that Teach for America advocates for a “No Excuses” approach to the classroom – which asserts that the world outside of your classroom should have no effect on student performance. The crux of student achievement is solely the fault and responsibility of the teacher – there is no need to break down the social systems (racism, sexism, capitalism) that keep communities in poverty, there is no need to acknowledge the personal struggles a student might be going through. So – my student who is being harassed for being gay, my student has missed school because his depression is so intense he can’t get out of bed, my student whose mother is dying from cancer, my student who stays at school until 6 PM and commutes an hour and a half each way, my student who has been in three foster homes in the past year, my student who just immigrated with his family from Mexico the week before school started – they should all get zeros on missing assignments, detentions for falling asleep in class, should be told that they should work harder, should not be allowed adjustments or extensions, should be allowed to fail. And the teacher? If your students can’t succeed in that environment? You are the sole reason for that failure. For students who have been studying the impacts of social systems, you should see this line of thought as ridiculous and oppressive.

Consider that Teach for America serves as a pipeline for organizations like Leadership for Educational Equity (the sister organization of TFA that runs its legislative agenda), Students First, Stand for Children, and Students for Education Reform, as well as scores of charter schools across the country. These organizations support the privatization of public schools, the de-unionization of teachers, the emphasis of standardized tests over authentic instruction, and supporting anti-teacher policies like tenure reform and merit pay. These policies make billions of dollars for Education Management Organizations and for test and textbook publishers like Pearson — while public education funding continues to be cut. And It’s not just the policies and organizations that Teach for America supports, but where these policies have originated: from the same organization that has pushed the privatization of prisons and racist immigration bills like SB1070, none other than our favorite folks at ALEC. ALEC’s legislative agenda for education is eerily similar to the bills being supported by TFA’s partners — school vouchers, parent trigger laws, charter school privatization and expansion, teacher tenure reform, and anti-union reforms. It is hypocritical for us to advocate against racist policies like SB1070, to speak out against the privatization of prisons and healthcare, and then to support organizations that want to privatize public education. Do you trust that ALEC’s education policy is truly looking out for at risk students? Do you want to be a part of their agenda?

So. College seniors. I know you care about students, I know you care about your community. If you really want to be a teacher, know what you’re getting into. Commit to being a life-long educator. Commit to staying in the teaching field for more than the required two years – make that a part of your plan. Commit to standing against the legislative agenda of “education reform” and speaking out about their connections to the far-right wing. And if you can’t commit to that, don’t cut corners. If you answer the question of “Why do you want to do Teach for America?” with, “I want to teach for a while before grad school,” or “I want to help low-income youth,” or “I’m interested in education” – really, anything other than “I want to be a teacher,” you are doing more harm than good. There are so many ways you can affect change for students and communities without buying into Teach for America.

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Robin Lane is a native of St. Louis and a recent transplant to Austin, TX. She is a proud graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, with a degree in Sociology and Women’s Studies. Currently, Robin teaches middle school English, and is passionate about bringing the wonder of reading and the joy of writing to her students. Robin has her heart in several social justice projects, including serving on the board of Empower Art, a group that conducts art workshops for young women, and volunteering with the Workers Defense Project’s youth program. She is also involved in Occupy AISD, a grassroots group of parents and educators organizing around issues of charter school expansion, public school privatization, and standardized testing. Robin believes in the good of people, in optimism, in honesty and in love and carries these words with her into the classroom: as Audrey Hepburn said, “People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.” Her work has appeared in TeenINK Magazine and the Coe Review, as well as on the stage of the Red-Eye Theatre Project.

There’s a formula that all the “advanced” students recognize; copy, cram, exam, repeat, graduate. It is a formula created by the Teacher’s need to produce numbers out of you to give to the next guy up. When we commit to this formula, we give in to the systematic transport of filled bubbles on our paper to files in someone’s cabinet. We, as students, are typically comfortable with this formula, for it provides safety and certainty. We KNOW that we can memorize the test review tonight and ace the test tomorrow, and this is an assurance we adore because it guarantees the future. We are masters of this formula, and we think that because we can produce these high test scores, that we have reached capacity. Intelligence goes beyond a 100.

 I used to give in. I used to have a 4.0 GPA. I used to do ALL of my homework. I used to copy ALL of the PowerPoint notes. I used to turn in ALL my work on time. I used to feel on the top of the world when I got an A on exam or a paper. Then it hit me. Then I asked one simple question, “why?” I started to wonder what this was supposed to do to me. I had a 4.0 GPA, but I have never been, nor will ever be, a perfect student. I don’t even consider myself smart for having those high grades because it was so simple to me—just do all the work and “Wow! You’re a genius! You memorized a word on a paper and saw the same word on another paper, and WOW! You somehow managed to make this Einstein level connection to get an A on your tests! WOW! You sure are one heck of a scholar Mr. Isaac! I mean just OH MY GOSH. You can get into any university you want for this amazing feat! I can’t believe you can actually memorize words like that! Kudos to you, Good Student!” This realization that, to a school’s eyes, I was someone more intelligent than another individual who had lower grades upset me. I was no more deserving a teen for giving in. I was no more entitled to be more successful of a person than someone who didn’t care to memorize words.

 So I became enlightened. Light broke in upon me by degrees, as light broke into Frederick Douglass when he became literate. Just as he did, I realized how enslaved and oppressed my peers are, and how we’ve become “beasts” because of our own obliviousness to our slavery.  We are animals who don’t know any better, leashed by years of obedience training. These students, whom America considers the most scholarly, are the students who are the most willing of slaves- Valedictorians absolutely love to be slaves to their education!  I, like Frederick Douglass witnessing the mindless oppression of his brethren, witness my fellow pupils to be “beasts” who are unaware of their own condition because they have yet to be enlightened by the truth of educational literacy. The notion brings me agony! Slaves liberated themselves by learning to read and write. Students will liberate themselves by learning to think and question. For the sake of my fellow subjugates, let’s break the chains of the intellectual oppression which we endure to finally set free our essence from educational slavery!

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Christian Isaac is a Hispanic high school junior from San Antonio Texas who leads The Movement and likes to do things differently. He believes in a quality education for every student in America, and plans to make a reality of his dream to transform education.

Is this learning?

We all stress ourselves out to memorize the formulas. We all have had that cram night before the final. We all BS homework at the last second so as not to “get a zero”. We all use Spark Notes. We all discuss answers post-test.

I started writing my ideas about learning on My Blog. Like many of the people likely reading this post, I am a student, and my interest in education unfortunately comes out of frustration. From the time I was young, school was about grades, “good grades” to be more specific. Why? Well to get into a good college of course.

I believe learning and school can, and should be a lot more than what school has made it out to be. I find learning in many things, for instance, I enjoy arguing with pundits on the news and exploring the city of New York (My favorite place on earth). Experiences like these make my mind what it is, and I am thankful for all the experiences I’ve had.

School has done a very sad and unfortunate thing. It has placed a number on my learning. No longer is my weekend trip to the city valued, but now it is merely a distraction from my SAT work or cramming for another test. No longer can I be at peace with a book, unless that book is called “Hot Words for the SAT”. My valuable learning experiences, discussions, debates, and really just exploring my mind, are secondary to the tests, quizzes, writing assignments, etc. that may make or break my status as “smart”.

Who has, or has had someone close to them cry over a bad grade? Did it make you mad? Did it make you/him/her hate the subject you/he/she got the bad grade in?

The extent we go to thinking and stressing over grades is honestly insane, but in the world we live in, it makes sense. Get the A, get into the brand name college, get the job, live in a gingerbread house with angels as children. That’s how it’s supposed to work. Of course, that’s not how it really works, but getting good grades certainly does give people advantages for getting into college, which is obviously a factor in our future.

I understand that in the world we live in, grades can make or break one’s life; I’m not going to dispute that. But I’m going to make an even bigger point. I’m here to say that the world we live in shouldn’t put stress on grades. Actually, I think grades are harmful.

Okay I know what your thinking now is “he is going to go on a rant about how grades are immoral and hurt kids feelings”. Well, to be honest, I think that has legitimacy, but I hope you’ll find the points I make a little deeper than that.

Grades have always been a big part of my life, as I’m sure they are yours, if you are a student. I prided myself on the 100s I would get on spelling tests, or the As I may have gotten in middle school and high school. Yes, when I got my first 79 it made me very upset. Yes, when I got a B in 8th grade math it killed me. And honestly, every kid who gets stressed over grades has every right to be stressed. College admissions, the need to compete with your classmates, and all the other attitudes our schools hammer into us scare the hell out of us.

And you know what, the grades I’m getting now are fine, but it’s still scary that I don’t have Ivy League quality grades. In addition to the stress caused by grades, there are many problems that I believe having grades causes regarding education.

Plain and simple, I think grades simplify, complicate, and take away from the beautiful process that is learning. Does that sound like a bit of a contradiction? Let me explain. Grades put a number on education. If two people both get an A in social studies, who would know that one person used to struggle? Who would know that the other person found some great insight into history? Who would know what they learned? And again, if a person got an F in math, let’s say, who would ever know if he really did understand the concepts he was taught? Maybe the kid really does think like a mathematician and just doesn’t like how math is taught in his class. The point is that learning is a complicated process hindered by grades.

Now, I also said that grades complicate learning. Grades put into education so many things that just shouldn’t be considered part of the learning process. Why should I have been thinking about college admissions in 5th grade? Why should teachers be forced to give a lower grade to a kid struggling in their class, yet whom they can tell has intelligence? Why should parents feel their child is a failure because of tests and grades? Why should a kid hate a subject for the rest of their life because of a class they got a bad grade in?

Grades and rote learning really go hand in hand. Memorizing, regurgitating the facts, and forgetting it the day after the test. I know a common argument I hear is that grades motivate people to work hard. And yes that is true. But when working hard means BSing homework at midnight or the period before, I think that causes more harm than good. Or when working hard means memorizing and regurgitating at the expense of having fun and enjoying one’s day, I think that’s a problem too. Honestly, grades cause kids to take shortcuts. Instead of understanding and thinking critically about a topic, kids memorize what they need to know for the test. That too, is not learning.

I think grades are part of a bigger problem with how we view learning. As I mentioned in an earlier post, learning shouldn’t be viewed as a competition, which unfortunately, it is. But another problem is our attitudes that everything has to be measured, and that if it’s not measured its not important. The immeasurable aspects of one’s learning are the most important. That is how a kid interacts with information, people, and his own mind.

We have to stop being preoccupied with standardization, we have to stop being preoccupied with “seeing progress” through numbers, we have to let kids be kids. Let me learn how I want to learn. Value the things I value. My trip to the city is as important, if not more so, than my grade on the SATs. Think of what made your mind work it’s hardest when you were in high school. What you loved doing. The experiences that made you, YOU. Now realize that in those moments, you were learning more than you ever could have by just trying to get “good grades”. I want to learn. But if school stays this way, then I don’t want to go to school.

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Justin is an 11th grader at Syosset High School in New York. His frustration with school prompted him to start a blog entitled “My World As a Classroom” where he shares his feelings about school and learning. He feels that he learns best when he can follow his passions and explore his mind and new places.

However, after more than a decade of working with schools across the US and Canada to promote Meaningful Student Involvement throughout the education system, I have discovered that student voice is a multifaceted reality that occurs throughout schools, all the time. Today I define student voice as any expression of any learner about any facet of education. It is shared by the kid who runs out in the hallway after class and scribbles “Mrs Jones Sux!”, as well as the student government president who writes a letter to the editor of the local newspaper. Its the girls texting answers to the test under the desk, as well as the debate team captain speaking in at the mock government event.

This shows us how bullying is clearly an expression of student voice. While inconvenient and disconcerting, approaching bullying from this understanding can allow educators to discern the genuine source of why bullying happens. Repressed actions, ideas, knowledge, and beliefs need an appropriate outlet, and schools are positioned to engage both young people and adults in learning through Meaningful Student Involvement.

Learn more about this from the new SoundOut Focus Paper, Student Voice and Bullying. Its available online at http://tinyurl.com/9oxohjc or embedded below

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Adam Fletcher, President and Lead Facilitator of CommonAction; founder and director of The Freechild Project. Adam is an international advocate for youth and community engagement. His career working with young people and adults as a youth worker, educator, writer, and public speaker started when he was 14 years old. Since then he has created more than 50 youth projects in the United States and Canada, including the award-winning Freechild Project, focused on re-envisioning the roles of young people throughout society; and SoundOut, promoting student voice in schools. Adam has written more than 20 publications, and has worked with approximately 10,000 children, youth, and adults annually since 2001. Today, Adam lives in Olympia, Washington, with his eight year old daughter and their cat named Mailbox. Learn more about Adam at www.adamfletcher.net

They spelled cautiously, confidently, valiantly back and forth, and back and forth until he mis-spelled his word (which made me feel sad) and she correctly spelled two words in a row for the win.  Even typing that makes me wince a little because, faced with the prospect of my children being entered into the mandatory grade level spelling bee, I had a quiet unease about the whole thing.  I couldn’t pin point why I was uncomfortable with the spelling bee, but I knew that something wasn’t quite right.

My son had a laiz et fair attitude about his grade one Bee and though he looked at his list briefly, he was not at all invested in the event.  (Which was fine by me!)  I went to show my support but neither of us were put out when he was eliminated.  Meh.  It was both our fist spelling bee experience and it was interesting, but not all that remarkable.

Lauryn, though.  That was a different story.  She was totally unwilling to do it.  She did not wish to be up on stage in front of a bunch of people spelling into a microphone.  NO thanks!  (Which was fine by me.)  I made arrangements with my husband for him to stay home with her that Wednesday because that was the only way she could opt out.  Then Tuesday came and she quietly declared that, yes, in fact she would like to do the spelling bee.  (Err!?)  Asked why, she responded with impossible to translate vagaries. My husband and I exchanged a look with questioning brows, but we accepted her decision.

That evening, at her behest, I ran through most of the grade two list (of words) with her, then she ‘tested’ me on some of the grade three words, then she got bored and we stopped.  On the way to school the following morning, I asked her to spell a few words she’d found decidedly un-phonetic (“Apron is with an O?!”) and that was that.

In the middle of all this, was that quiet but steady insistent feeling that something was not in line with my ideology.  And what does a mom do when she needs answers?  Why, she hits the google search, of course.  I searched for “effects” of “spelling bee” or any variation of that theme.  One of the top hits was an article by Alfie Kohn about competition.

I already had some of those thoughts and feelings resident within.  It was this same place where the unease originated.  And so, let me tell you now, why my daughter winning the grade two spelling bee was a big deal for me.


You see, we were an unschooling family for seven years.

What that means is that there were no formal lessons on anything.  We learned trailer-loads, boatloads, tons – all that.  But nothing was scripted, forced, or coerced.  My children both were gifted with a dream like childhood in which they played and played, then played some more.  In a house, with a mouse, with a fox on a box, in the rain, on a train, in they day, in the night, over here and over there – we played and played EVERYwhere!  (But if you’ve ever read this blog, you know that already!)

Then (due to a Big Reason that cannot be broached here), they both enrolled in a super small school in January last year.  They completed grade 1 and Kindergarten in a class of four people (including them) and had the luxury of a teacher that could move as fast or as slowly as they needed.

THEN.  They started “Big School” last fall.  Tests every week.  Homework.  End of term exams.  The whole 10 yards.

And THEN.  Having had zero formal learning that our society touts with the veracity of a marketplace hawkers, my daughter spelled her way to win the school spelling bee.

I beg your forgiveness if you have found this circuitous and hard to follow.  The story itself is hard for me to really get and really tell.  It’s so much more complex than paragraphs.  So much more rich than sentences.  So much more meaningful than this blog post will ever be.

Her spelling bee win was bigger than spelling.  It was a win for being a kid and having fun.  It was a solid victory for living as learning and learning as living.  It was validation for the uncommon irreverent ideas – Truths! – that this mother holds so dear.

cian is an enthusiastic mother and a spirited advocate for an educational overhaul. She hopes to create a progressive learning community one day soon. She writes about all of it. She can also be found at here

Given my criticism of existing policies, skeptics have a right to ask-“What do you want to see urban schools doing that they are not doing now.” So let me take the time to lay out my own vision of what kind of things urban schools should be doing that will promote student engagement, parent involvement, teacher excitement, and transform schools into centers of community empowerment

Portions of what I am talking about are already being done by schools all over the country. I invite you to see what Professor Henry Taylor and his colleagues are doing to embed schools on the East Side of Buffalo into a larger program of community development; to visit Urban Academy on the East Side of Manhattan, an innovative multiracial high school that is project based rather than test based, and PS 140 in the South Bronx a school which has developed a museum devoted to community history; but it would be difficult to broadly implement what I recommend unless Federal and state educational policies give schools far more freedom to experiment, and reverse the current emphasis on high stakes testing.

Basically, I would like to see urban schools emphasize community involvement, artistic expression, and physical and emotional health on the part of their students. We have to end the pretense that poverty- reflected in homelessness and housing overcrowding, poor nutrition, high levels of violence and stress- are not factors shaping students academic engagement and performance. Schools should be places where young people know they are going to be fed, nurtured, protected, loved and have their confidence built up in many spheres of life and where parents and community members can go to discuss and solve broader community problems.

This means in the first instant, that schools be open from the crack of dawn till 9 or ten in the evening and open to community groups for public meetings, as well as for concerts, festivals and recreational activities.

But it also means that we should emphasize activities now deemed “expendable” in test driven . To that end, I would like the following.

1. That at least an hour of every school day be devoted to recreation and physical activity, whether it be recess, physical education classes or school sports.
2. That at least an hour of every school day be devoted to the arts, be it music, theater, visual arts, poetry and creative writing.
3. That urban agriculture and health education be made an integral part of schools curricula, fueling hands on science instruction, and promoting the development of the production of fresh food in communities which are food deserts. If it were up to me, every urban school would have it’s own indoor and outdoor gardens which grow food,
4. That a portion of social studies curriculum should involve an analysis of community history and an in depth look at community issues, and give students credit for internships with community organizations or involvement in community development projects
5. That every school should be open 3-6 PM for supervised activity which includes all of the above elements, as well as quiet study time for students who don’t have tat at home.

Think of what life would be like in working class communities if schools were organized this way. Young people would eat better, be healthier, have lower levels of stress, and develop their talents in ways which build up their self-confidence and promote community solidarity and economic development. They would also dramatically lower school drop out rates, reduce violence, and, over time, improve cognitive and analytical skills often neglected by the kind of rote learning and test prep taking place now.

Instead of policing, constricting, and testing young people into submission, we need to unleash their creativity and imaginations and tap their idealism to improve life for everyone around them

Doesn’t this sound better than current policies, which result in turning schools into zones of fear and stress for all concerned

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Mark Naison is a Professor of African-American Studies and History at Fordham University and Director of Fordham’s Urban Studies Program. He is the author of three books and over 100 articles on African-American History, urban history, and the history of sports. His most recent book White Boy: A Memoir, published in the Spring of 2002, was reviewed in the New York Times, the Nation and the Chronicle of Higher Education and was the subject of feature stories on Black Entertainment Television, New York One News and the Tavis Smiley show on National Public Radio. One of his most popular courses at Fordham, “From Rock and Roll to Hip Hop: Urban Youth Cultures in Post War America” has also received media attention, becoming the subject of stories on National Public Radio, Bronx Net, and WFUV. His most recent course, “Feeling the Funk: Research Seminar on Music of the African Diaspora” focuses on Latin and Caribbean traditions on American Popular Music.

Post originally published here

Mark Naison’s previous Cooperative Catalyst post Why President Obama Must Remove Arne Duncan As Secretary of Education if He Hopes to Win Re-Election