My education journey from K-12 took me through seven schools and four states.

I have fond memories of wonderful teachers. Mrs. Nelson with the beehive hair, was young and pretty with a boyfriend who visited now and then. Mrs. Kemp, the wise older teacher, let us watch Sesame Street and Electric Company at lunch. Near my desk, was a huge spider in an open terrarium we all took turns monitoring. There were two wooden posts and the spider would spin an intricate web and hang in between. If a fly happened to get in there (and sometimes we kids assisted that), it was toast. I think I spent more time watching that spider than anything else that year.

I also had Mrs. McClain, the first black teacher I remember who welcomed the new kid but could quickly put fear into any student that stepped out of line. Poor Larry, a kid whose last name I don’t remember, pulled on a Halloween decoration hanging from Mrs. McClain’s ceiling. It came down and broke in half and poor Larry had an early Halloween scare from Mrs. McClain. That’s the second-grade class where I first lost a spelling bee (I won a few) and we built with Lincoln logs and tinker toys on days we couldn’t go outside due to weather.

Oh, Mr. Curtis, portly and funny in 5th grade, who rode a skateboard across the classroom but could also make you cry if you didn’t get your work done. Mrs. Pearson, my favorite middle school teacher, who put up with obnoxious dumb, racist kids, and also gave me rides to baseball practices that were near her home.

Sometimes I look back at the education model for our youth as more of a gauntlet to get through. Though I had some wonderful teachers, I think it was the angst and anxiety to get things done on a set schedule, acceptably, that was the real key to growth. I think back to all the teachers I had and with the eyes of a mature adult, 95% knew what they were doing. Mrs. Brewer was a red-headed witch in fourth grade, rest her warming soul.

Things have changed since then, but not the teachers. That number still holds Most teachers know what they’re doing. A few are out of their field, but the real change has come in the assumed roles. Everyone had a role. The student, the parent, the teacher, the school, the community.

I remember unruly kids all through middle and high school, but there were always clear consequences. I was a typical average student. I’d get my stuff done, would rather be playing baseball, or going to the mall. I avoided trouble, so getting in a fight was not the norm.

There was a pack of wild kids in our middle school. Problems at home, maybe dropped on the head at birth, I didn’t know. I just know you avoided them. But one of them always liked to pester me. Try to provoke me, for no reason. Once, I was in a classroom with a bunch of kids from PE. We were cooped up because of rain, and I watched Rickey (I still remember his name). He moved through the crowd, poking and pestering at the weak or the nerds or the quiet, and I told myself, if he comes over here and slaps the back of my head or anything else I see him doing, I’ve had it. I remember the pre-determination For once, I was going to push back.

Sure enough, Rickey came by and kicked me. I stood up and slapped the shit out of him.

He was shocked. So were others around us. He looked toward the teacher, and said, “Mrs. Poole, did you see what he did?”

Of course, I looked toward the teacher for her reaction, and as I did, that goober walloped me.

We crashed over desks and rolled around and at some point, Rickey and I both were walked by the arms to the Dean’s office. I’m quiet because I don’t usually get in fights and I know I was in the right. Rickey blurts out, “Now, I’m going to juvenile detention,” and he cried, and I’ll be damned if he didn’t swing and hit me again while Mrs. Poole tried to wrangle both of us.

Now, the dean was a man named Mr. Ramsey who was a classic former military with a buzzcut head and built like a tank. They paddled back them and I was hoping to avoid that. Rickey and I were separated and interrogated. I told the truth. This kid picks on everybody and I was tired of it. Mr. Ramsey said he believed me and I was a good kid and I was getting two swats.

I remember I paused as if I was about to complain but he told me to quickly bend over and grab my ankles, and what he did was he swatted me loud enough for witnesses to hear outside but not hard enough to really hurt.

That was how equal punishment was leveled. He was familiar with Rickey and knew I was telling the truth but he had to put on the show.

I remember afterward, friends treated me like I was a hero and they talked about how Rickey would finally be gone. He did disappear from school sometime later, after a couple of months of detente between us. Young Rickey is probably dead today, dealt a hand in life at that early age that he didn’t handle well.

Swats, suspension, detention. I got all of them at some point. Detention was the worst of them because you had to either stay after school or come in on Saturday. When I got it, we were given cans of spray and spatulas and made to scrape gum off the bottom of desks. Kids that were chronically “bad” got everything plus swats before being suspended or expelled. Everything was tried to fix the problem before passing it on.

Today, my perception is that problems simply get ignored plus passed along. Instead of strong discipline in school, we would rather let our jails and prisons deal with it later. Because of changes in culture and economics, teachers have been asked to deal with more problems but with less authority. Administrations have become more “administrative” and less functional. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. We are ripe for real change, not the lipstick cultural war solutions that are constantly being championed. The problem isn’t a lack of prayer in school, communists, books, or diversity.

It is all economic.

We love to specialize in everything, but many of these issues are beyond one degree or discipline. They are going to take much more strategic thinking, much more awareness to let principals and teachers make more discerning decisions without threat.

My suggestions are meant for food for thought, and the reader can toss what doesn’t make sense and keep the ones that do. Here we go:

Focus more resources and effort on PreK-8th, including reducing the teacher-to-student ratio, increasing time spent outside and in more creative pursuits, a complete shift to fresh food, more after-school programs, nurses at every school, and no smartphones.

Make high school more ala carte. Instead of identifying with one location, approved courses can be taken online or in person. This will also diminish the need and cost for group lunches and bussing. If the student shows up in person or online, it is their choice (in consultation with family). This takes the pressure off of the teacher to manage students who don’t want to be there and puts more back on families to pick and choose what is in the best interest of their child. It brings the college model to the high school level. With the advent of AI and modern technology, there is simply no reason to expect daily arrival to a central point and to continue the current decades-old model of education delivery.

The main question of the high school model is what happens to standards and curriculums. What happens with students who want to focus on music or mechanics or computers? How do they still get what society thinks is important such as English and history?

The answer is to allow a wider net of offerings. For example, instead of a few high school English teachers, students can choose from a hundred high school English teachers by reviewing the teacher’s specific area of interest and reviewing scores by former students as well as parents. Instead of having all students do English composition, let’s allow classes more focused on Russian literature, the Beatniks, the Harlem Renaissance, Ethics in Journalism, etc. The student can comprehend English via going through such courses.

There will be some obvious quality control measures necessary for this to work, but I believe this will invigorate the entire education system.

Speaking of holistic thinking, the high school model will work better if we can move to universal healthcare and a 32-hour work week at the current 40-hour wages. These are changes we can handle and they will reset our culture to a level where it should have been without all the politics.

The article is a little heady but it makes the main points that I agree with.

We are failing when it comes to broad, strategic thinking. Let’s look at the education system as this article does.

Education and learning are out of sync with the current economy. Fairness and equality are out of sync with pay, compensation, and taxation. Some parties have taken advantage of the situation by pulling money away from the public school system.

However, there are examples of charter schools that work. I am not a fan of the private or religious-based schools. I think they tend to promote the tribal mentality that is wrecking the social contract. What I would rather see is we do everything possible to modernize the public school system.

We need to think more about ensuring education and work are fulfilling, meaningful, and supportive of youth and families. Our social system is an investment in ourselves. If each of us are off worrying only for our benefit, these systemic problems will remain.

I do not need anything to tell me this is a great teacher.

Most professions that I have been in or been in contact with have instituted a tremendous amount of paperwork, legalese, policies, and procedures to tell them what they should see with their own eyes or to tell them what to do. This has been driven by so many reactionary decisions (read up on anything by Philip Howard).

Here’s a teacher who should be “let loose”. Move stumbling blocks out of the way. You can tell just from the Q&A and her background, she knows exactly what she is doing to get kids to think. There is no bureaucracy needed.

My high school English teacher for three years was really good. She instilled a lot of grammar education and introduced us to authors like Shakespeare for the first time. She also wielded a red pen used liberally to mark our papers.

My experience with education is that we have definitely moved more toward a lenient classroom policy when it comes to grading, and hence we are supposedly protecting a child’s emotional journey for the sake of other attributes they need to learn.

In our decades of experience now as parents, we have only had two occasions where I think the issue was an underperforming teacher, so I find most teachers are very capable of teaching IF they are allowed to teach.

Talk to any teacher friend you have and you will quickly find a consensus that grading in this manner is an outcome of too much power put into parents and policies over teachers doing their jobs. I remember a math teacher I had in middle school who made me cry when I did my homework in pen. We were only allowed to do it in pencil so we would learn to erase and work a problem. Arbitrary? Maybe, but I survived and I have to think that the more punitive nature of grading served a purpose to who I am today.

I do not know who put this next piece together, but I lifted it from Reddit’s Appalachian Trail group. I learn a lot by eavesdropping on other people’s back and forth. My goal is to get to the trail in seven years and do a Northbound continuous hike. I’ll be on the older side but it’s doable.

I remind you that people like to help. Let them, and pay it forward whenever you can. This was a great list provided to someone who struggled with whether to continue or quit the trail. It applies to a lot of things in life so I include it here for others to use.

Love, love, love this. A reminder of how important our teachers are and the bond they create. Make sure to drop a note to your kid’s teachers now and then and thank them for everything they do.

• A reminder of the importance of keeping church and state separate, a powerful force against tyranny due to the vision of the Founders.

• Psychological safety is critical to innovative team success, especially when confronted with rapid change. How companies use this extra efficiency is a choice, and a very consequential one. From: We’re Focusing on the Wrong Kind of AI Apocalypse | TIME

• A recent poll points yet again to frustration in schools. GoLocalProv | America’s Teachers Believe Public Education is Getting Worse - Horowitz

• In case you missed it, here’s an opinion piece I wrote that ran last Sunday: https://www.tallahassee.com/story/opinion/2024/04/21/from-earth-day-to-screen-free-week-a-natural-progression/73370228007/

And Now….

Education is the great divider in life, and out of education sprung the model of good governance that we have today. There are several events taking place in our nation today. Ask yourself how you would act? What decisions would you make? For example, I had a great conversation with my kids on the student Gaza protests across college campuses.

Knowledge is power.

Hope to see you next time. Keep reading, practice your gratefulness, and remember: Be a good human.