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The Schools Our Children Deserve:
Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms
and "Tougher Standards" by Alfie Kohn

1. It gets motivation wrong. Most talk of standards assumes that students ought to be thinking constantly about improving their performance. This single-minded concern with results turns out to be remarkably simplistic. The assumption that achievement is all that counts overlooks a substantial body of psychological research suggesting that a focus on how well one is doing is very different from a focus on what one is doing. Moreover, a preoccupation with performance often undermines interest in learning, quality of learning, and a desire to be challenged.

2. It gets pedagogy wrong. The Tougher Standards contingent is big on back-to-basics, and, more generally, the sort of instruction that treats kids as though they were inert objects, that prepares a concoction called "basic skills" or "core knowledge" and then tries to pour it down their throats. This is a model that might be described as outdated were it not for the fact that there never was a time when it worked all that well. (Modern cognitive science just explains more systematically why it has always come up short.)

3. It gets evaluation wrong. In practice, "excellence," "higher standards," and "raising the bar" all refer to scores on standardized tests, many of them multiple-choice, norm-referenced, and otherwise flawed. Indeed, much of the discussion about education today is arrested at the level of "Test scores are low; make them go up." All the limits of, and problems with, such testing amount to a serious indictment of the version of school reform that relies on these tests.

4. It gets school reform wrong. Proponents of Tougher Standards have a proclivity for trying to coerce improvement by specifying exactly what must be taught and learned--that is, by mandating a particular kind of education. There is good reason to doubt that the way one changes schooling is simply by demanding that teachers and students do things differently. "Accountability" usually turns out to be a code for tighter control over what happens in classrooms by people who are not in classrooms--and it has approximately the same effect on learning that a noose has on breathing.

5. It gets improvement wrong. Weaving its way through all these ideas is an implicit assumption about "rigor" and "challenge"--namely, that harder is always better. The reductive idea that tests, texts, and teachers can be judged on the single criterion of difficulty level lurks behind complaints about "dumbing down" education and strident calls to "raise the bar." Its first cousin is the idea that if something isn't working well--say, requiring students to do homework of dubious value--then insisting on more of the same will solve the problem. As Harvey Daniels puts it, the dominant philosophy of fixing schools today consists of saying, in effect, that "what we're doing is OK, we just need to do it harder, longer, stronger, louder, meaner, and we'll have a better country."

Any of these five problems would be enough to raise serious questions about the call for Tougher Standards. Together, they suggest a threat to education of such dimensions that the only reasonable question for conscientious educators and parents is how we can most effectively change directions.

What to Look For in a Classroom
 

	GOOD SIGNS	POSSIBLE REASONS TO WORRY
FURNITURE	Chairs around tables to facilitate interaction Comfortable areas for learning, including multiple "activity centers" Open space for gathering	Chairs all facing forward or (even worse) desks in rows
ON THE WALLS	Covered with students’ projects Evidence of student collaboration Signs, exhibits, or lists obviously created by students rather than by the teacher Information about, and personal mementos of, the people who spend time together in this classroom	Nothing Commercial posters Students’ assignments displayed, but they are (a) suspiciously flawless, (b) only from "the best" students, or (c) virtually all alike List of rules created by an adult and/or list of punitive consequences for misbehavior Sticker (or star) chart -- or other evidence that students are rewarded or ranked
STUDENTS’ FACES	Eager, engaged	Blank, bored
SOUNDS	Frequent hum of activity and ideas being exchanged	Frequent periods of silence The teacher’s voice is the loudest or most often heard
LOCATION OF TEACHER	Typically working with students so it takes a few seconds to find her	Typically front and center
TEACHER’S VOICE	Respectful, genuine, warm	Controlling and imperious Condescending and saccharine-sweet
STUDENTS’ REACTION TO VISITOR	Welcoming; eager to explain or demonstrate what they’re doing or to use visitor as a resource	Either unresponsive or hoping to be distracted from what they’re doing
CLASS DISCUSSION	Students often address one another directly Emphasis on thoughtful exploration of complicated issues Students ask questions at least as often the teacher does	All exchanges involve (or are directed by) the teacher; students wait to be called on Emphasis on facts and right answers Students race to be first to answer teacher’s "Who can tell me…?" queries
STUFF	Room overflowing with good books, art supplies, animals and plants, science apparatus; "sense of purposeful clutter"	Textbooks, worksheets, and other packaged instructional materials predominate; sense of enforced orderliness
TASKS	Different activities often take place simultaneously Activities frequently completed by pairs or groups of students	All students usually doing the same thing When students aren’t listening to the teacher, they’re working alone
AROUND THE SCHOOL	Appealing atmosphere: a place where people would want to spend time Students’ projects fill the hallways Library well-stocked and comfortable Bathrooms in good condition Faculty lounge warm and inviting Office staff welcoming toward visitors and students Students helping in lunchroom, library, and with other school functions	Stark, institutional feel Awards, trophies, and prizes displayed, suggesting an emphasis on triumph rather than community

An interview with Alfie Kohn, author of

The Schools Our Children Deserve

Q. Does your book offer a way to fix our failing schools?

A. Well, let’s start by asking whether the premise of your question is correct. Once we look beyond the scare headlines, we find that students in American schools are actually doing about as well as they’ve always done on standardized tests. A lot of people have ignored or misread those data in a politically motivated attempt to attack public education. On the other hand, things look a little different if you use measures that are more meaningful than standardized tests. When you try to judge the richness and depth of children’s understanding of ideas, you find there really is—and probably always has been—a problem. Even kids who get good grades at good schools often can’t explain what they’re doing or think beyond what they’ve been trained to do.

Q. So our schools are failing, then.

A. Yes, but in a very different way than is normally claimed, and for reasons that lead to a very different set of prescriptions. For example, by the time they’re in second or third grade, most children can "read," in the sense that they know how to pronounce words, but they don’t always understand what they’re reading. Most students can work the steps of a math problem, but they may lack a feel for the quantities involved; they can’t really make sense of what they’re doing or see its connection to real-life questions that involve numbers. The people who claim (falsely) that test scores are dropping usually demand more emphasis on basic skills, more traditional instruction, more of the kind of teaching geared to raising test scores. But that’s precisely the approach that caused the real problem in the first place—the failure to help kids become thinkers. The more we go "back to basics," the worse things get.

Q. But we keep hearing that our schools have strayed from the old-fashioned teaching that used to be successful.

A. That’s dead wrong on two counts. First, old-fashioned methods weren’t all that successful in the past either. It may not be easy for us to admit, but those methods caused a whole lot of people to give up on school and think of themselves as stupid. Even the successful students often don’t show the depth of understanding, the capacity for critical reflection, or a lifelong love of learning. Second, as I did the research for this book, it became increasingly clear to me that our schools haven’t "strayed" much at all. They continue to be remarkably traditional, and the differences between then and now are mostly superficial. We used to copy down information from the World Book; our kids copy it down from the World Wide Web. It’s the same model of learning, which treats kids like passive receptacles into which information is poured. Also, kids are still given grades despite research showing that the more you get them to think about getting A’s or 100’s, the more they lose interest in the learning itself. Students are still separated by age and often by alleged ability; they’re still controlled by rewards and punishments; they still have very little to say about what they’re learning. In most high schools, the instruction is still confined to those absurd 45- or 50-minute periods. I could go on.

Q. It’s hard to imagine school without some of those features.

A. Right. We can’t even conceive of education that departs from the traditional model. Even in the face of data showing that this isn’t the best way to do things, a lot of parents seem to say, "Well, it was bad enough for me, it’s bad enough for my kids." They’re actually reassured by the fact that their children are still getting spelling quizzes, still lugging home heavy textbooks, still filling out worksheets—even though these practices get in the way of quality learning.

Q. And in—

A. Sorry. Can I make one more point here? Assume the critics are right about the sorry state of American education. Given that the evidence overwhelmingly shows that our schools remain very traditional, it’s kind of hard for a fair-minded person to blame the problem on progressive "fads," which are actually rare. In fact, it may be the continued reliance on traditional practices that helps to explain why students aren’t doing better.

Q. So in the book you describe how we can do better?

A. Oh, yes, with plenty of stories of exceptional classrooms as well as a mound of data demonstrating that traditional schooling is not only unappealing but also unproductive.

Q. I guess I don’t have to ask how you feel about those lists of what every first grader or sixth grader should know.

A. This is what I call the "bunch o’ facts" approach to education. Even the kids we think of as smart usually don’t remember those facts for long and often can’t see the meaning behind the facts—or how to connect or apply them. I’m not arguing that facts and skills are unimportant. I’m arguing that kids ought to learn facts and skills in the context of answering important questions and pursuing meaningful projects.

Q. But surely they need to know the basics before they can do the interesting stuff.

A. Nope. It’s just not true that you have to be taught addition and subtraction before you can tackle interesting problems. The best teachers teach these skills through interesting problems. They don’t start with the basics and make students practice them on rows of naked numbers. They start with the need to figure out, say, how many grapes each child can take so there will be enough for everyone. Similarly, you don’t have to learn to read before you can read for understanding; it makes a lot more sense to learn to read by reading for understanding.

Q. Kids don’t need to know phonics?

A. Oh, they do. But the question is how they’ll learn them. The debate isn’t between phonics and Whole Language, as the traditionalists would have you believe. It’s between drilling kids on isolated skills—you know, making them circle vowels in random words—and teaching skills in the context of reading and writing interesting stories.

Q. So what do you see when you visit schools these days?

A. I’m afraid we’re going through a very dark period right now. The best educators are getting tired—or fired. The few oases of extraordinary teaching are drying up. Second-rate schools are becoming third-rate. And it’s all being done in the name of raising standards!

Q. How do you mean?

A. People who know next to nothing about how children learn are imposing heavy-handed, top-down demands for "tougher standards" and "accountability." It plays well in the media. But this movement is truly making things worse for our children. For example, researchers have found that there’s a big difference between getting students to focus on what they’re doing in class and getting them to focus on how well they’re doing it. When we become preoccupied with "raising the bar" and demanding higher achievement, three things tend to happen: first, kids come to view learning as a chore; second, they don’t think as deeply; and third, they prefer easier assignments since the emphasis is on being successful rather than on exploring ideas and you’re more likely to be successful if you avoid challenging tasks.

Also, when people talk about "higher standards" these days, they usually just mean higher scores on standardized tests. But these tests are so bad that the pressure to raise scores leads to lower quality instruction. Every hour spent getting kids to be better test takers is an hour not spent helping them to think like historians or scientists; the result is that it’s actually the demands to raise standards that are responsible for dumbing down our schools. When local officials brag about how scores have gone up, parents ought to reply, "If that’s what’s important to you, then I’m worried about the quality of education my child is getting."

Q. One last question, if I may. What led you to take these positions—and to write this book?

A. A combination of things, I suppose. Like you, I’m an ex-student. I remember being unsatisfied with what I was made to do in school. I’m also an ex-teacher, and ultimately I became uneasy with what I made others do. Only after some time had passed did it dawn on me how little I understood about teaching and learning. I didn’t realize, for example, that the kids should have been doing most of the talking in the classroom, not me. Then there was all the research I did for earlier books on such topics as competition and rewards. This gradually led me to understand how conventional educational practices are driven more by ideology than by good theory or data. Finally, I have a daughter of my own. I’m enough of a parent to insist that she deserves an education that’s less traditional and more meaningful than the one I had. I also hope I’m enough of a human being to insist that what my child deserves is what everyone’s child deserves.

The above is excerpted from The School Our Children Deserve Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards"  by Alfie Kohn (Published by Houghton Mifflin; 0395940397; Sept. 99)

Alfie Kohn, the author of critically acclaimed works on such subjects as competition and rewards, now turns the conventional wisdom about education on its head. In this landmark book, he shows how the "back to basics" philosophy of teaching treats children as passive receptacles into which forgettable facts are poured. Likewise, shrill calls for Tougher Standards are responsible for squeezing the intellectual life out of classrooms. Such         politicized slogans reflect a lack of understanding about how and why kids learn, and they force teachers to spend time preparing students for standardized tests instead of helping them to become critical, creative thinkers.

The Schools Our Children Deserve presents a fresh perspective on today's headlines about education--and
on what our children will be asked to do in class tomorrow morning. It is a persuasive invitation to rethink our
most basic assumptions about schooling.

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