Save me from robotic teaching!

I ran into a former colleague at the grocery store today. We had taught in the same school years ago and I had spoken at a major conference he ran last year. He told me more about what was going on in the field of education since he's involved in middle school education statewide and I'm on the outside sharing my high school Strategies for Success program around the country.

He told me that schools are so obsessed with test scores that they're actually scripting the lessons!! What??? What if a student doesn't understand? The teachers are told to move on. What????? How does that improve test scores? How does that educate? How does that honor kids as human beings in any way, shape or form? Bad enough that they're not supposed to have fun anymore. Bad enough that we've taken away all the classes they love in school to focus on math, science and english. But robotic teaching? Not what we need.

I guess they're trying to model the schools after the Japanese and Chinese who are so good in math. But can they invent? Do we look to China for the best inventions? Or do they manufacture what we invent? Think about it, we send our manufacturing overseas which is not good for our country. Now we're not developing the creativity we need to design the next products, the solutions to our problems.

We've got it backwards...and it's time to turn it around. We can have decent test scores, and creativity, and happy kids. I've seen it happen. Our kids want it. Out teachers want it. Our society needs it. And the time is now.

Why aren't people more open to programs that work?

Another news story about how schools are failing...how we're not providing 21st century tools...how NCLB has not worked. No one has answers it seems..or do they??

Are you one of the people who knows a way to improve schools? Do you wonder why no one ever seems to ask the people who know? Wouldn't it be great if someone out there took the time to really listen to proven methods that work?

Instead, letters come back saying, "We don't accept unsolicited proposals" or "We don't work with companies that charge to help students". Or no response is sent at all.

It's a strange phenomenon in our country. If someone is famous, they can share all their passions - what they cook, what they wear,what they think. I totally understand that first they had to do the work that got them famous and that they want to exploit (said in the nicest way) their celebrity while it lasts. I have no problem with that at all.

But there's got to be a way for the rest of us to share what we know especially if it solves one of society's problems. We certainly do need answers in our country... and they are out there... but we need a way... got any ideas? Our kids need us... and they need us now...we can't afford to wait any longer.

Is that really how we want to treat kids?

I was sitting in the bleachers at a Red Sox game last week. I was so far from the game, it was raining and turning cold and I had not driven (went with one of my brother's customers who got us tickets) so I couldn't leave. It was not an ideal situation as the Sox were losing...again.

But despite all that, the most disappointing thing about being there was the conversation I heard behind me. It was three young teachers talking about the new school year. I wasn't sure if they taught middle or high school. One seemed to be in math, one in science and I'm not sure about the third. I can't imagine why they were teachers. They seemed to hate kids. They talked about them like they were despicable...below them in value as human beings. They were the elite...the teacher...while the kids were lowly servants whose job was to listen to their every word and obey their every command.

I heard one story that really bothered me. One girl talked about a kid who had to go to the bathroom. She wouldn't let him go until he had earned enough of some kind of points. What??? Sure kids sometimes will ask to leave the room when they don't really have to go to the bathroom... The way she was talking, I'd have developed quite the bladder problem just to get out of her sight.

But come on, let's get real. we can't treat kids like that. We have to find a way to teach our kids without treating them poorly. No wonder so many kids hate school. It's bad enough we're making them all learn the material on the same day for a subject. That surely doesn't honor the fact that we all learn at different rates. Let's not top it off by treating kids badly too.

Let's try to find a way to make our class the reason kids want to show up for school. It can be done... and it makes all the difference in the world...in their attitude, in their grades and even their test scores. I know. I saw it happen, over and over again. Let's treat our students like they were our own kids...or how we would want to be treated.

September 11 - the day the world changed and Strategies for Success was born

Ten years ago today, my principal announced that our country was at war. I had just started teaching my brand new Strategies for Success program, the one I had asked to create after one of my students had taken his life after being bullied. I had a TV in my classroom and I turned it on, just in time to watch the towers fall. Like the rest of the world, we were stunned.

We stayed in school the entire day with a faculty meeting to follow. The principal had called me in to ask me to write up some strategies to share with teachers so that they could work with students in the days to follow. Although I had studied my material for years prior to creating the course,I felt I was too new at this to help, but of course I had to try. It was a daunting task to come up with the words to share with everyone. But I did my best...and the lessons in the course began to resonate throughout the school the next day, that year...and still to this day.

I think Strategies for Success helped my students, my school's students and the faculty cope with the new life in America. I know I was grateful to have learned the lessons in the course from the masters - both in print and in person. Knowing the material in Strategies got me through what was the most difficult time in my life.

You see, not only was I teaching a new program that September day, I also owned a flight school at our major airport, a flight school that would be shut down for weeks as the FBI sifted through our records for information about terrorist hi-jackers. And did I mention that my wonderful business partner had recently passed away not leaving a will? And that one of my customers had died in a plane crash on September 9 and one of my planes had crashed in Maine on September 10 (both pilots survived without a scratch gratefully)?

September 11 changed our lives. The lessons changed lives too...and continue to do so 10 years later back in my old school and several schools around the country. I hope you never have to deal with all I did at that time but I do know that these lessons are here for you and your students... should you ever need them.

With gratitude to those who taught me, those who shared, and with great sadness to all we lost on that terrible day...