TWO

A week or two ago I was in the office. A little boy complained bitterly, “I hate reading group!”

Moments later I saw him making his way back to class. To kindergarten.

I don’t get it. Why are we trying to teach five-year-olds to read? And if they have trouble (which is only natural), why are we torturing them with “reading groups”? (Of course, some gifted kids are reading at 2 or 3 years old. But they’re outliers.)

The United States got spooked by the math and reading scores that came out of Asia at the end of the 20th century. Never mind that we were testing all of our students and they weren’t testing all of theirs, so the comparisons were false. Never mind that even though their children scored so high on the tests, their college students, when they came to American universities, struggled with open-ended questions and creative thinking.

As a result of those test comparisons, Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act, which required states to develop assessments in basic skills.

The pressure on the littles began.

The theory goes, if we want every child to be proficient in reading by third grade, we need to teach reading earlier and earlier.

No one seems to see the law of diminishing returns.

We not only don’t get better readers. We get students who loath reading.

I can’t believe that that’s the point.

In Europe, the expectation is that all students will learn to read, eventually. Europeans are much more relaxed about when.

THREE

There’s an even bigger change, though, in terms of academics. Until the early 2000s, I used to say that the American education system valued independence, creativity, and results. And we got independence, creativity, and results.

Now (I’d say) we value cooperation, kindness, and success.

Personally, I have always found that increasing independence and creativity increases results. I think the fact that the American education system has diminished independence and creativity plays a big part in how we struggle to achieve success.

And we might actually be getting an excess of kindness, if that’s possible. A colleague just told me about a child in her class who bullies the other students constantly. Instead of deciding to have nothing to do with him, the other kids endlessly and instantly forgive him. And he relies on it. “I just have to say sorry. They say, ‘oh, ok,’ and they let me play again.”

FOUR

I never had a school shooting drill before the year 2000.

FINALLY

May your students behave. May they all love to read. May you practice creativity. May you all be safe.