and hunches as to how to proceed. They were not conclusive like the score of a sporting event where one team wins and the other loses. Presumably there would be more clarity about how effective we were with each group of students several decades after they graduated.
By virtue of the law of averages, we did some things well and we screwed other things up. If I were asked to categorize what went into each of these columns, I’d certainly make some mistakes. On balance, I think that we did well. But it was never at such a level for us or anyone else to crow about.
What happened at Crossroads is not unique. Every school is a mixture of experiences involving a number of people. Some of what happens is visible. Most is not. Just as I will resist the temptation to characterize what we did at Crossroads or what kind of school it was, I will suggest that drawing definitive conclusions about any school, school district, type of school, or education in general is fraught with hazards. In order for this book to have some meaning, I’ll make assertions because they help illustrate the dynamics of what is happening. But again, I caution you to read everything with a critical and possibly even skeptical eye.
Invisible is the operative word, because it places limitations on what can and should be measured. If much of what is happening cannot be seen, how can you accurately measure anything of meaning? Education has become a full-fledged social science. The key word is science because it is the ticket to gain and keep your bona fides in the world of academics. It is anathema to professionals to acknowledge that they often cannot see what they want to measure. If that is the case, why are they trying to measure that which can’t be accurately measured? The answer is predictable: because they can. They can because they get away with it. They will be able to so long as the public thinks that the numbers that they crunch about students and schools are meaningful.
Chapter 1
The Importance of Empathy in Teaching and Learning
There is one other item that is important to put on the table before proceeding any further. An underlying theme of much of what I say is the importance of empathy. A clear definition that Webster’s Dictionary gives of empathy is “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another person.” In plainer English, it means being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes.
Empathy is significant in terms of how people regard one another. It also relates to one’s political views. Within a school, it is important for students and teachers alike to be able to understand the perspective from which others come. If a student is having a difficult time at home, a teacher with empathy will cut that student some slack. A climate where there is such empathy can make the difference in terms of the student overcoming the hardships of home life.
In politics, empathy can be extended to a group of people who have experienced hardship. The civil rights movement in the United States had the involvement and support of many white people because they were able to empathize with the plight of African-Americans. A legislative body that is supportive of increasing the minimum wage is empathetic because the members understand the hardships of those who are earning less than $14,500 a year. We can safely say that when anyone in our political process has genuine care and concern for those less fortunate, that individual will have a progressive perspective on politics. I am not going to hesitate to acknowledge that the ideas that I propose in this book to improve education have a basis in empathy. This means that they have a progressive political slant. My bottom line is this: Both education and politics will best be improved if policies are based on empathy.
Some may say that I am applying a political bias to education. I am. But such bias exists in all schools, and usually it is a quite conservative one. The bias is conservative at least to the extent that it is designed to conserve the status quo. Our society is currently leaning to the right and will continue to so long as people are anxious about protecting their self-interest at the expense of generosity towards others in greater need. That’s one definition of conservatism.
It is best that we understand that, as individuals, we always have biases. It happens whenever we choose to emphasize one thing over another. Bias is reflected in choice of curriculum and what is valued in a particular school. It’s not a question of having or not having a bias. It’s a realization that all institutions reflect a bias, and we should (a) be aware of that and (b) be thoughtful about the biases of the organizations to which we belong.
Another reason why positive change in schools and in politics are intertwined is the principle of “practice the process.” What this means is that if you set standards for others, you have to act that way yourself. It’s not enough to say that people should be honest and then for one to act in a dishonest manner. It’s not enough for schools to be sensitive to those most in need in the school community but not to others in the broader community in which they are located. If you say that fairness is a value that is important to you, then you have to practice it in both your school and your politics. There is a disconnect when someone says “let’s have a fundraiser to help a deserving student deal with a health problem” and then fails to support a national health-care policy that provides the best we can give to everyone.
The psychologist Abraham Maslow talks about a hierarchy of needs. At the top is a phenomenon called self-actualization. It means being able to integrate one’s actions with one’s beliefs in a way that is sensitive to others. Self-actualization is not situational. You can’t say that we are committed to the well-being of the students in our schools but are not committed to the wellbeing of all citizens in our country—or, in reality, all citizens of the world. We practice politics in our schools. We need to acknowledge it, and we need to bring consistency between how we want students to act in a school and in society at large. For progressives, the key is empathy. For conservatives, it is generally winning, even at the expense of others. There has been much written about promoting win-win solutions. Schools need to practice this strategy and teach it to students.
Chapter 2
The Necessity of Teaching Critical Thinking Skills in a Democracy
Take a look at the following political commercial.1 In this race for St. Louis County executive, candidate Bill Corrigan distorts both the record and image of incumbent Charlie Dooley. It is the antithesis of elevating the dialogue in our political process. Is this the best that we can do in asking voters to choose one candidate over another? If so, we’re in trouble. And indeed we are in trouble.
We can say with a relatively high degree of certainty that this commercial and others like it are effective. If they weren’t, candidates and their hired hands wouldn’t run them. If a commercial is false or even misleading, it is still viable so long as the populace is gullible enough to believe it. That’s a problem. When a citizenry buys into misinformation, the society is in trouble. It sets itself up to have leaders who either don’t have the wisdom or the integrity to determine public policy.
Now consider that students in America spend approximately twelve thousand hours in classrooms from the time they are in kindergarten through their senior year. If a student spends two thousand days in school by the time he or she is eighteen, you would want to think that he or she would be sophisticated enough to not be influenced by such a commercial. The ability to be a good b.s. detector is not measured on standardized tests.
Schools simply are not designed to facilitate the kind of personal growth students need to be sophisticated enough to know when information is misleading. Students are often as
