By Amy Schwartz, Conval High School, Peterborough, NH
Ludicrous scenario # 1: race madly at breakneck speed through a jumble of complex material, feeding it out at a steady, rapid rate into a stale room full of hyperactive, bored, hung over, famished, unmotivated, distracted, or hormonally challenged young adults. Then give a test and see what happens.
Feel like a rat on a Habitrail? Welcome to the world of public school Social Studies, where the state tells you what's important to know and your students' performance on standardized tests is the measure of your success.
One thing's for sure: if you slow down long enough to investigate, speculate, demonstrate, connect, or enact, you're dead. You'll never be able to "cover" that curriculum lurking in the background like a sinister loan shark. If you can't pay up, eventually someone's going to corner you in a dark alley and break both your kneecaps. But how on earth can you meet the demands? It's impossible, so buy a bulletproof vest, watch your back, and avoid dark alleys.
Teaching to content is a race against time and tough odds. It takes your focus away from individual students and their needs. You have to see the horizon, always, and keep pushing towards it. The classroom is like a giant ship, lumbering along, sheer momentum its only goal. Any obstreperous crew members who slow you down must be thrown overboard, or at best, ignored. You aren't serving the crew members, and they aren't serving you; rather, all together are engaged in an activity few understand, with no clear purpose and no obvious beneficiary.
But it seems to be very important, for some reason, so the obedient among us heave to and try our best.
Why do we entrust our students' minds to the state - or, for that matter, to the textbook companies, the department heads, the school boards, the status quo? Do these forces know so much more than we do? What IS education, really? Does the structure of the U.S. House of Representatives, or the size of the national debt, really mean anything in the development of a productive and happy human being? When do we get to address the real stuff in our students' lives?
Of course, content is safe. It allows you to shirk all the really big questions. It's busy and efficient. It provides a yardstick against which to measure some things, while totally ignoring others. That way, you can look and feel authoritative, even if you have no clue what the hell is actually going on. Content is a stable rock in a shifting universe. Climb on and feel the power.
Perhaps content can help our students achieve the most material and immediate of their goals-getting into college, finding jobs, and impressing people. It's no wonder they think life's true purpose is making money. We run them through a concrete factory, throw technology at them as if it were candy, outfit them to be interchangeable cogs in the industrial machine, reward them for mediocrity, teach them to avoid discomfort, and often concern ourselves more with public relations than with ethics, high standards or meaningful education.
We pat them on the back at graduation and try to feel proud. But we generally avoid the real issues and concerns that shape a full human being. We can't help it; we're too busy covering the curriculum.
Content is a necessity; but how much? Who gets to decide that? Why don't we?