School reform talk is escapism

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The Washington Post announced that Sarah Wysocki has been fired. She got great reviews for her classroom performance. Kids liked her, her principal liked her. But the test scores of her students were not good enough.

There is wide agreement that teaching to the test is a vapid way to educate kids. There is wide agreement that young kids should be on the playground way more than they are right now. It’s just that we can’t think of another way to manage education on such a huge scale as the US public school system requires.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation put enough money toward solving this problem that we have enough data to know we have nothing that even approximates a solution. Read more

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Teach kids productivity skills

This is a guest post from James Maher. (That’s his self-portrait, at the top of this post.) He’s a fine art and freelance photographer based in New York City. You can see his photography of New York City on his web site. 

I was on Adderall from my Sophomore year in high school until I was 27. I had significant ADD and lived in a family where everyone had ADD and so it was tough to ever get any peace and quiet or any structure. We had a television in our kitchen, living room and all of the bedrooms and they were always on. Read more

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How to deal with being an outsider

I am Jewish, so I’m very sensitive to Christian tropes that infiltrate our culture. Christmas is the biggest example of this, and I have written many times about how it is absolutely suffocating to be Jewish in December when almost everyone assumes that you celebrate Christmas. The assumption that all people are Christian permeates American existence to the point where Jewish parents are constantly having to explain to their kids why there is Christianity infiltrates so much of American culture. Read more

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Parenting insecurity

I’m pretty sure that the most insecure parents are the people who hate their parents.

Actually, I don’t hate my parents. I mean, they have apologized for everything I could ever want them to apologize for. It’s just that they ruined my childhood by being children themselves, during my childhood. So I have no gratitude toward them for what they did for me, and it makes it hard for me to understand what makes kids so grateful to their parents.

It seems miraculous that kids love their parents and it seems so hard, in my head, for me to be good enough that my kids will love me when they grow up. I know, this is not rational. I’m just telling you what goes on inside the head of a kid who had totally shitty parenting.

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What I do when I waver

This is a picture of my perfect homeschool moment: We are in New York City, waiting for The Lion King to begin. My sons have never been to a Broadway show. They are mesmerized by the grandeur of the theater, and I am giddy with anticipation of seeing their faces light up when the show starts. This is the most exciting kind of “educational moment.”

But the truth is, most of our homeschooling involves no grandeur, no lesson plans, and tons of video games. This is not to say we don’t do cool stuff. We do pottery and skateboarding and swimming, and well, you’ve heard the list before. It’s a dream-come-true childhood, really, all the fun stuff they do. But there’s a lot of time in between Broadway shows and private horseback lessons, and almost all that down-time is filled with video games. Read more

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