Are we ruining our youth? In our panic over losing our once significant leading role in public education, combined with our dramatic change in opportunities for adequate employment going forward, are we systematically destroying the very thing in our children that gave us that edge?
I think we might be.
Jordan* is my neighbor friend’s – let’s call her Val -- 12-year-old son. He is fourth in birth order in a family of six children. Ordinarily it would be irrelevant to mention, but this time I believe it to be important: of the six, the youngest is the only one to which Val actually gave birth. The eldest, a boy, was born to her brother. The next two, both girls, were born to her other brother. Both brothers failed to avoid the clutches of drugs and drug-related crime, as did the children’s mothers. Val petitioned the courts for guardianship when the girls were just toddlers and the nephew was around 12.
Jordan and his younger sister were adopted as infants from two different mothers who put them up for adoption at birth. Val’s only biological child is almost 4 now.
Every conceivable dynamic one might expect within the framework of this unconventional family of children is there for the viewing. The influence of the birth parents in the case of the three older kids; the curiosity and confusion about adoption (who am I, really? Why didn’t my “real” mommy want me? Why do I look so different than everybody else?); and, the one that has prompted this post: the educational expectations of my friend and her husband from all the children, regardless of genetics and the accompanying innate aptitude for learning.
Even in a family of children who all have the same parents, the ability to perform in a classroom can vary wildly. Imagine how wide the ability continuum becomes in a group of biologically unrelated children can become.
Val is very bright, a college graduate and highly successful businesswoman. She is determined to give those children every opportunity to have the same kind of life they are enjoying in their childhoods with her. She puts in the time to make sure each child stays abreast of their homework. She makes unannounced visits to the school to observe what really goes on in her children’s classrooms.
At the same time, the Atlanta public schools they all attend are frantically trying to respond to the demands of the government’s No Child Left Behind program edicts to raise standardized test scores which have spiraled downward for decades. How are they doing that? Well, they’ve been caught cheating, for one! Several schools and school personnel have been indicted for manually changing the answers on standardized tests. That’s how much pressure these schools are feeling.
The majority of the Atlanta public schools, however, have responded to the pressure in two ways:
Val learned with the two older girls that her vigilance will sometimes not be enough. When one of them was in second grade, about 10 years ago, Val hired me to tutor her because she was already behind in her mastery of basic language and reading skills, and basic arithmetic went flying over her head. The child thrived with the special attention I gave her and she improved…some, but she has struggled throughout her school years. No one is expecting her to go to college, unless it is for a certificate in practical nursing, cosmetology or something similar. She has neither the aptitude nor the desire. Her older sister, who has the same birth parents, has slightly more ability, but shares the lack of desire to excel.
I was also hired to tutor Jordan when he was 4. Val said she wanted to give him a head start to insure his success when he started Kindergarten. Jordan was a little sponge, soaking up everything I put in front of him. He couldn’t wait to get to my laptop which I had loaded with reading readiness programs and games. He became proficient in the use of the computer before he was 5. He sailed through K-5, always earning top grades. And then he went to middle school.
There are all kinds of reasons a child will falter while transitioning from elementary to middle schools. The change in environment is enough, but there is also the change in status – top dogs in 5th grade, rookies in 6th grade who are antagonized by 7th and 8th graders. Puberty kicks in for some, as it has for Jordan. Parents sometimes seem to forget how hormonal changes can mess with one’s mind. Suddenly, girls are no longer annoyances; clothes and shoes receive a new level of focus.
All of the above have put Jordan and his mother at odds. The afternoon he brought a test home with a score of 33, I received a call from Val. It was clear from her voice and speaking pace she was very upset. She said she needed to call in “the reserves”, as she called me, before she completely “lost it” and did something she would regret. She knew that what started as a sincere effort to support Jordan’s success in school has now become a pre-adolescent power struggle and she was losing.
I have been working with Jordan for about a month now, and he is certainly not the same child he was when he was 4, to which I say “Duh!” Yes, he is distracted, disorganized, disinterested and disgustingly lazy sometimes. But something else is happening that his mother thinks he is doing deliberately. Mentally, there is a delay between stimulus and response. Instant recall, which Jordan once had, is long gone. Instead he must verbally go through a set of wrong responses before he can zero in on the right one. He is not making conceptual connections; i.e., he can only learn rotely. So, even when he has memorized whatever is on the typed study guide the teacher provides, when the test is structured in a more random order than the study guide, his so-called learning is lost.
Jordan was once confident enough to verge on cockiness. In just the few months since school started last fall, he has failed so often his confidence is gone. He cannot trust the mind that once served him so well. His lapses cause his mother to lose her patience, accuse him of faking, take away his extra-curricular activities and resort to spankings. Now fear has been added to the mix.
I taught school for a couple of years, but I’m no expert. I can’t say exactly which one of the many possible dynamics is at work in Jordan’s case. I do know, however, that when I was teaching we were urged – no, required – to meet each child where he or she was, not where we wished they would be. We were taught to expect dramatic changes in the personalities and performances of middle school kids. One principal jokingly characterized what they go through as temporary insanity.
We also made sure the children got plenty of exercise, plenty of creative stimulation and plenty of laughter. These aren’t miniature adults. They don’t all have the ability to fully understand the correlation between effort and success. Their brains haven’t completed the development yet that helps them understand the concept of cause and effect.
As much as I could use it, I won’t accept Val’s money; that’s not why I’m doing it. I am desperately trying to help Val with Jordan so that she and The System don’t murder this far- from-average kid’s spirit. This is a child who is charming, loving, considerate and shockingly articulate. He is not even close to being stupid. He has leadership potential. He has heart. If we aren’t careful, we are going to destroy all that in him and in so many other young people who are simply trying to grow up and into their bodies. Shouldn’t we cut them a little slack?
UPDATE: A few minutes ago someone started banging on my front door. I looked through the peephole to see "Jordan" beaming. When I opened it, he kept smiling that blindingly white smile of his and handed me two sheets of paper. The first was the Social Studies test I coached him for last night. 100% What makes that so much more special than it even seems is Jordan used the technique I taught him yesterday to try to accommodate whatever the misfire is in his brain that takes him to the wrong answer first. He said if he hadn't used that on the test today, he would have gotten an 80% instead of 100%! But wait -- there's more.
The second sheet of paper was his report card. He had 3 As, 2 Bs and 1 C+! (one percentage point away from a B) I am so proud of him, I was screaming with joy.
I think we might be.
"Jordan" on his backyard basketball court
Jordan and his younger sister were adopted as infants from two different mothers who put them up for adoption at birth. Val’s only biological child is almost 4 now.
Every conceivable dynamic one might expect within the framework of this unconventional family of children is there for the viewing. The influence of the birth parents in the case of the three older kids; the curiosity and confusion about adoption (who am I, really? Why didn’t my “real” mommy want me? Why do I look so different than everybody else?); and, the one that has prompted this post: the educational expectations of my friend and her husband from all the children, regardless of genetics and the accompanying innate aptitude for learning.
Even in a family of children who all have the same parents, the ability to perform in a classroom can vary wildly. Imagine how wide the ability continuum becomes in a group of biologically unrelated children can become.
Val is very bright, a college graduate and highly successful businesswoman. She is determined to give those children every opportunity to have the same kind of life they are enjoying in their childhoods with her. She puts in the time to make sure each child stays abreast of their homework. She makes unannounced visits to the school to observe what really goes on in her children’s classrooms.
At the same time, the Atlanta public schools they all attend are frantically trying to respond to the demands of the government’s No Child Left Behind program edicts to raise standardized test scores which have spiraled downward for decades. How are they doing that? Well, they’ve been caught cheating, for one! Several schools and school personnel have been indicted for manually changing the answers on standardized tests. That’s how much pressure these schools are feeling.
The majority of the Atlanta public schools, however, have responded to the pressure in two ways:
1. Teaching to the test – the only things the classroom teachers are allowed to teach are the things that appear on the CRCT tests, Georgia’s Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests. Teacher creativity is encouraged, but only as it relates to the prescribed curriculum. Enrichment activities are often deemed “a waste of valuable time.”
2. Loads of rigorous homework -- Sixth-grader Jordan is often up as late as 11 p.m. working on school homework projects under parental supervision. He seldom has time to get outside during the week to shoot baskets, ride his bicycle or play hide and seek with his buddies and siblings.
I was also hired to tutor Jordan when he was 4. Val said she wanted to give him a head start to insure his success when he started Kindergarten. Jordan was a little sponge, soaking up everything I put in front of him. He couldn’t wait to get to my laptop which I had loaded with reading readiness programs and games. He became proficient in the use of the computer before he was 5. He sailed through K-5, always earning top grades. And then he went to middle school.
There are all kinds of reasons a child will falter while transitioning from elementary to middle schools. The change in environment is enough, but there is also the change in status – top dogs in 5th grade, rookies in 6th grade who are antagonized by 7th and 8th graders. Puberty kicks in for some, as it has for Jordan. Parents sometimes seem to forget how hormonal changes can mess with one’s mind. Suddenly, girls are no longer annoyances; clothes and shoes receive a new level of focus.
All of the above have put Jordan and his mother at odds. The afternoon he brought a test home with a score of 33, I received a call from Val. It was clear from her voice and speaking pace she was very upset. She said she needed to call in “the reserves”, as she called me, before she completely “lost it” and did something she would regret. She knew that what started as a sincere effort to support Jordan’s success in school has now become a pre-adolescent power struggle and she was losing.
I have been working with Jordan for about a month now, and he is certainly not the same child he was when he was 4, to which I say “Duh!” Yes, he is distracted, disorganized, disinterested and disgustingly lazy sometimes. But something else is happening that his mother thinks he is doing deliberately. Mentally, there is a delay between stimulus and response. Instant recall, which Jordan once had, is long gone. Instead he must verbally go through a set of wrong responses before he can zero in on the right one. He is not making conceptual connections; i.e., he can only learn rotely. So, even when he has memorized whatever is on the typed study guide the teacher provides, when the test is structured in a more random order than the study guide, his so-called learning is lost.
Jordan was once confident enough to verge on cockiness. In just the few months since school started last fall, he has failed so often his confidence is gone. He cannot trust the mind that once served him so well. His lapses cause his mother to lose her patience, accuse him of faking, take away his extra-curricular activities and resort to spankings. Now fear has been added to the mix.
I taught school for a couple of years, but I’m no expert. I can’t say exactly which one of the many possible dynamics is at work in Jordan’s case. I do know, however, that when I was teaching we were urged – no, required – to meet each child where he or she was, not where we wished they would be. We were taught to expect dramatic changes in the personalities and performances of middle school kids. One principal jokingly characterized what they go through as temporary insanity.
We also made sure the children got plenty of exercise, plenty of creative stimulation and plenty of laughter. These aren’t miniature adults. They don’t all have the ability to fully understand the correlation between effort and success. Their brains haven’t completed the development yet that helps them understand the concept of cause and effect.
As much as I could use it, I won’t accept Val’s money; that’s not why I’m doing it. I am desperately trying to help Val with Jordan so that she and The System don’t murder this far- from-average kid’s spirit. This is a child who is charming, loving, considerate and shockingly articulate. He is not even close to being stupid. He has leadership potential. He has heart. If we aren’t careful, we are going to destroy all that in him and in so many other young people who are simply trying to grow up and into their bodies. Shouldn’t we cut them a little slack?
*Names have been changed to protect the family’s privacy.
Photo by L in the Southeast March 2011
The second sheet of paper was his report card. He had 3 As, 2 Bs and 1 C+! (one percentage point away from a B) I am so proud of him, I was screaming with joy.
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