The Path Not Taken

The local school that my son does not attend is $8.4 Million in debt, needs to cut 70 positions (including 30 teachers), plans to close and possibly to sell one of the Elementary schools, all just to hold the property tax increase to 6%.  Two years ago, the School Department opened a new state-of-the-art $70 Million Middle School.  

Going from state-of-the-art to layoffs in two years is a frightening whiplash, and you might wonder if the local public school is a nurturing work or learning environment these days.  No longer in that school system, my son’s path not taken, it is edifying to compare our curriculum to the public school system; what are the “pros” and what are the “cons?”

One hallmark of the public school system is the “No Child Left Behind” Act, signed into law in 2001 by the Second Patrician of Kennebunkport, Maine.  “We’re gonna spend more money, more resources, but they’ll be directed at methods that work,” he growled, “Not feel-good methods. Not sound-good methods. But methods that actually work.”  Throwing money at the problem proved a futile waste.  

The No Child Act was reviled and despised by teachers and parents for its emphasis upon standardized tests.  “Teaching to the test” brought draconian penalties for schools that fell behind.  The focus on math and reading left less time for science, history, music and the arts.  Recess was cut back.  To avoid sanctions, some states lowered their definition of “proficiency.”  The Act drove the expansion of charter schools, further draining money from public schools, especially those carrying a debt load for buildings and infrastructure.  

“The skinny kid with a funny name” President changed the law in 2015 – the Every Student Succeeds Act – that reduced testing time and gave the States more control over accountability.  But regardless of the metric, math and reading levels continue to drop; as of 2024 “The Nation’s Report Card” shows only 22% of high school seniors demonstrate “proficiency” in math and 35% in reading.  The system seems flailing.  

Homeschooling once seemed out of the question, but when COVID struck during my son’s 1st grade, we were forced to homeschool.  He returned to the public school for years 3 and 4, but then abruptly began Middle School in the 5th grade.  Nationwide, COVID brought increased rates of inattention, anxiety, depression, and behavioral changes such as opposition and aggression. For my son, the classroom situation became unbearable by the 6th grade and so – at his request – we launched this holy experiment.  

Our great unknown is “compared to what?”  Am I preparing my son to succeed in life?  And “What is success?  What is our standard of proficiency?”  Here at an art farm we value emotional intelligence more than sheer mental horsepower.  Too many are the stories of brilliant minds – MENSA even – who struggle with mental health issues, left unaddressed.  The IV league is not for us.  I value honesty more than politeness; I prefer to live close to the ground.  I believe, in fact, the purpose of life is healing, not the acquisition of assets, honors, or accolades.  I may be in the minority, but not silent.

We are required to submit an annual assessment, which is handled by Our Aristotle, a State of Maine Certified Teacher, who works in the public school system, while pursuing a double Masters in Education and Social Work.  A remarkably perceptive young man, he was the student teacher for my son’s 5th grade class.  They have worked together in a classroom, as well as via the internet.  His insights are invaluable.  He speaks clearly with my son.  One of his gifts is that he is ADHD.  

His students are of the “Anxious Generation” and the data are chilling: 20% of US adults ages 18 – 25 report high levels of anxiety; for the period 2010 through 2022 Emergency Room visits for nonfatal self-harm among teens ages 10 – 14 spiked 311% for girls and 171% for boys, while suicide rates for the same age group increased 117.4% for girls and 66.5% for boys.  The system is failing, horrifically.  

Our Aristotle, who works on the front lines of the Public School System, explained to me, “Relationships are key.  The system gets in the way of relationships because it is focused on output, on tests, on metrics.  That does not mean you cannot get a good education in the System, but anxiety makes it harder to learn in the System; to thrive there you need to ignore the influence of the negative teachers.  Individual teachers do care about education but the system values output.”

The relational approach is based upon the attachment theory of how infants and children form relationships.  Developed in the 1960s, the idea is that infants need a strong and secure relationship with at least one caregiver to provide the security and protection for normal emotional development.  Absent a secure nurturing environment, children develop as Anxious-Preoccupied, Dismissive-Avoidant or Fearful-Avoidant.  Our Aristotle explains, “Attachment is the blueprint for how you relate to others.  It can change over time but change is hard fought.  Public school becomes a matter of survival if there is a strong attachment to the parents.”  The antithesis of the Tiger Mom; attachment bolsters the sense of self to provide deep rooted courage and self-reliance to push back against social norms, opening to the vulnerability of a different path.  

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics), our Aristotle argues, is about output, training for high income jobs producing more output in pursuit of the ever expanding Gross Domestic Product.  The Second Patriarch of Kennebunkport admitted as much, shortly after the trauma of September 11, telling the country, “Fly and enjoy America’s great destination spots.  Get down to Disney World in Florida.  Take your families and enjoy life, the way we want it to be enjoyed.”

“The goal of education,” Our Aristotle continues, “is for kids to transcend us, not to focus on output.  They need to learn what good and bad is; the purpose of education is to create a society in which ‘we the people’ can think critically to fight back against oppression.  Public education is for all, not for the royals.”

The key to this goal is reading and writing.  STEM topics are helpful, but, to Our Aristotle, are meaningless without a solid grounding in words, an understanding of language and how the mind frames thoughts, in order to comprehend what is virtue.  The ability to think critically is, he says, the key to the fulfilling life.  

John Dewey, a foundational American philosopher known as the “father of progressive education,” advocated against the rigid rote memorization of the Gilded Age in favor of child-centered experiential learning.  He viewed schools as vital democratic communities preparing children to live well and gain skills to contribute to the greater good.  

In My Pedagogic Creed, written in 1897, Dewey notes that “to prepare [students] for the future life means to give him (sic) command of himself; it means so to train him that he will have the full and ready use of all his capacities….education is a regulation of the process of coming to share in the social consciousness; and that the adjustment of individual activity on the basis of this social consciousness is the only sure method of social reconstruction.”  Our Aristotle explains, “School should be about helping people to become critical thinkers who can create their own knowledge of the world. Because we are all inherently good, if we are able to direct our own learning, we’ll naturally come to see the world through a pro-social way. I think that kids go down the “wrong” path because they feel totally disengaged with their learning, and they feel disengaged from their learning because school is mainly about compliance.”

In The Child and the Curriculum, published in 1902, Dewey advocated for the child’s relationship to the subject matter because the relational allows the student to link the information to prior experiences, deepening the connection with new knowledge.  Dewey opposed a curriculum focused on data and facts with the student as passive recipient, where “the child is simply the immature being who is to be matured; he is the superficial being who is to be deepened.”  

Our Aristotle challenges the authoritative model where educators are the experts, “An educator should be a coach for the students’ own journey in teaching themselves… connecting current learning to previous learning makes it relevant rather than [some] nebulous piece of information that they need to learn because we said so…. many times in school I was forced to learn something in order to perform well on an exam, but I didn’t retain any of it because it seemed like “school” stuff…[the goal is] to meaningfully engage in my world which, in adulthood, becomes bridged with the broader social world.”

Ever deeper we go, our meditation on the purpose and process of education.  

https://www.anxiousgeneration.com/research/the-evidence