School as Straightjacket?

The other afternoon, I was on the phone to Vermont talking to my daughter. Because she will be two in April, it wasn't much of a conversation; I was simply trying to keep up with her train of thought as she babbled merrily away.

On this particular day, she was obsessed with a dead fly that she had found in her toy chest (this I learned later from her mother): "Dada, bug dead. Bug dead, Dada."

"I'm sorry, Cady. Did you bury it?"

"No," she said. "Sleeping. Night night bug. Shhhhhh."

My chest tightened. Here was a child who was learning through experience and, though she didn't quite get the difference between being asleep and being dead, she intuitively knew that she should be respectful.

Cady's a funny kid. She's in constant motion, but she also loves curling up in my lap and having me read Green Eggs and Ham (even though she knows all the words and definitely "would eat them with a fox"). She loves her putting on her favorite boots (the green ones, shaped like frogs), going outside, and stomping through puddles. She loves trying to stand on her head, playing tag, and being tickled. But Cady's also learning to be compassionate to dead flies.

In short, she's exactly the kind of kid who could be crushed by school.

I realize that as an educator I probably shouldn't be saying this, but too often schools serve as straightjackets for children, straightjackets that force them to color the sky blue; straightjackets that force them to repeat that one plus one always equals two (even though they know that that "Mommy and Daddy made me," and me makes three); and straightjackets that force them to sit still, to stand quietly in line, and to raise their hand before talking.

I don't think that I could bear Cady being confined by school. Of course, schools do teach many important things to student - among them discipline and delayed gratification - but schools also can quash creativity in their ham- handed attempts to standardize learning.

Ideally schools would provide students with myriad opportunities to explore their worlds, to read about foreign lands, to witness caterpillars molt into butterflies, to learn how to sing in a chorus. Ideally schools would be environments in which students thrived, teachers inspired, and peers were friends and role models. Ideally schools would respect our children and teach them how to be creative, compassionate, and courageous. Ideally schools should not straightjacket children.

But not all schools are ideal, so the corollary to schools not straightjacketing children is that we parents cannot straightjacket our children in schools. If our children are confined by schools that are less than ideal, it is our responsibility to find schools that will respect who they are and how they learn, schools in which our children will be challenged, schools in which they will thrive.

I hope that by the time school is ready for Cady, she will be ready for school. I hope that when she goes to school Cady will retain her curiosity, her courage, her sense of humor, and her compassion. And I hope that school will be a revelation for her and not a straightjacket.

--Steve McKibben
2/12/06