The Monday Essay

 High School Education in Severe Crises

It is a severe world crisis; is not so much about content (what to teach), curricula, subjects or  even assessment (ranking and ratings). 


It is mainly about people: about behaving differently in the school environment, and in family and community settings: parents, youth and teachers.

            Most outdoor activities (mountain climbing, camping, boat sailing, or camping and cooking) have almost disappeared in the 21^st century, and with it they joy of life for teens seems to be taken away. But they need to be empowered anyway.

Just like for adult a grim life would be to live only for work, for students a grim and boring life is to manily  take compulsory tests and attend low profile classes. The separation of common life and HS life has been dramatized. 


HS life mainly seems boring and outdated for teen, while outside life may fun, attractive and engaging. We have made this so in the last decade.

             “Edu-tainmet” is not a correct solution either; making everything fun and rosy does not seem a good path either . All good learning requires engaged  and strong effort. This needs to be trained by parents at home; and by the community. In a farming agriculture societies  this was daily life. In a highly digital society,  it is much more difficult to develop these skills and attitudes.

Reaising children does make a difference to school achivement-. To go to an extreme,  American authorAmy  Chu has written, some time ago, an anticle saying  that "Chinese mothers are superior" ( in the Wall Street Journal);   she even wrote a whole book about it--a memoir, she says--The  book  is called: "The Tiger Mother" that has become a bestseller. 


As her husband says it is not about a racial or even a political issue, maybe its  just "old-fashined style of parenting", at least in America.


Parenting does make a big difference for school outcomes. This was supported almost 35 years ago by the Chicago Eduaction Department Head Benjamin Bloom. After extensive reserach of talented children, his conclusion were rather obvious: "talented children has totally dedicated parents".

The Pied Piper of Hamelin

In a popular account it is said: . In the 16th century the story was expanded into a full narrative, in which the piper is a rat-catcher hired by the town to lure rats away with his magic pipe. When the citizenry refuses to pay for this service, he retaliates by turning his magic on their children, leading them away as he had the rats (taken from Wiki Pedia)

This old children story can serve as a "metaphor"  and can  be interpreted in many ways. 


We will claim --the teaching and moarle of this story-- is about a broken social agreements. How trust is broken may be the main issue here. So this is unfair. The pied piper did comply with taking out the rats from the infested citie by the rats. However, he was not paid for. So he avenged this  driving children out of the city by playing the flute,  and by enchanting them--some would say hypnotize them. However abnormal or tricky this  was, breaking deals and confidence has high stakes.

It’s all about respect and people skill, not contents or curricula only.

Most high school reforms in the USA and other countries, deal mainly with content or subjects and curricula. Other reforms deal with better instruction and teaching methods, Other reforms address better assessment and standardized test.  What to teach. Is certainly important, but is has been distorted.

A remarkable fact is that Finland that scores the highest among PISA scores has no standardized tests, does not punish any teachers nor streamlines students and helps everyone. Even powerful Sweden is not up to it. The disciplines Asian are: China (Shangai) and Singapore.  The social prestige of primary teachers is so high, that being an elementary teacher is a very good chance and opportunity to be hired in a multinational corporation such as Nokia.

High School reforms have been maybe missing the point and are still doing so. However, we claim that the main crisis in High school  (HS) education is not about contents only , but how to behave, respect, correct and deal with the three main actors: teachers, children or young and parents. In brief ethics and relations among people matter and matter a lot. Not of more books, PC, technologies, gadgets or the like.

Instruction is and maybe will be delivered by machines, media and hardware driven by  good intelligent software. But instruction is only one part—perhaps minor of the education setup. Up to now good education is transferred and presented by people, parents.


 In Finland scores highest among PISA scores ( a standard of international achievement) ,  standarized tests--a common measure of international school--, achievement. Finland has a strong community and family life,  and  Asian countries who score high in PISA tests, also have social ties and cohesion are high and strong, and long established community  traditions  do matter.


 In the USA and other low or medium scoring countries , it is widely acknowledge that most American families are overworked,  underpaid, stressed out and there is little social protection networks for children and their families. . The reverse is likely to happen in Finland, and other Asian societies.

This educational crisis is maybe not even about money only that may be driving cost up and morale down. We should stop blaming parents and teachers. Blaming will carry us nowhere

As uncomfortable as it may sound in many cases this seems to be the case. A lot of school reforms have been introduced in High school in the last decades

By some accounts a high percentage of American teens, are using and entertaining themselves about 7 hours a day,  with different media: social networks, TV, gadgets and what have you.

Of course at this rate of gadgets use , there is no time to study and all and any school may seem boring. When this mentality sets in, a breeding ground for violence, drug abuse and mistrust sets in unffortunately.

So solutions are not more books or a better teaching methods mainly , Even better teaching may do, of course, but perhaps loving parents, "closer" and affectionate  teachers for well being, and teaching  children and students self-discipline and self-regulation of disruptive emotions. In a major way it is a collective ethics issue. This is may sound very painful and is, of course, a complex issue indeed.

Hidden Assumptions and blaming…does not work and will not work either, blaming:

• Teachers
• Parents
• Students
• Curriculum
• School leadership
• More standarized testing,,,
• "Firing or sacking" teachers... will not do.  Wrong way...

Nevertheless it is a complex issue, we are all involved

This is not a minor or irrelevant issue.

Consider the downgrade of Ireland financial debt crisis, which demanded the intervention of the EU some month ago (2010).  The Irish bank collapse –that led to the EU financial rescue, was linked to the inability of Catholic Church to take responsibility for many cases of pedophiles by priests.

The Irish public outrage, even by catholic members, was pressed by local donations and special judges, to protect the abused ones and deal effectively with the  large “cover-up”  by church authorities. This is a painful example of a strong ethic crisis.

A degraded  outlook has developed the world over the past two decades. “Make money fast”, achieve higher at whatever costs, and overdo others in competition, this is not a minor or irrelevant issue.

With mobile smart phones it has even become fashionable to be an “always connected” chap, as some geeks say 24/7, or how it used to be “round the clock”. This may easily lead to exhaustion, overdrive, hyper vigilance and arousal, all sorts of sleep disorders and even severe relationships stress and breakdowns.

 If our main and even sole issue is work and compulsory entertainment, people start caring les and less about others. They not only democracy is at risk; we may become severely ignorant even brutalized. So drugs are around the corner, and for the grabs.

The American philosopher Martha Nussbaum, argues in one of her latest books that humanity’s crisis is "global·;  and the lack of the education in the humanities, may have far reaching consequences, It might obliterate critical thinking and that may lead to being unable to understand injustice, of course, with serious consequences.

Professor Nussbaum says, the only country were humanities are advancing is Korea.

With many western governments cutting down  budgets in education, art and culture, in a few years we ---a horrible scenario might  be-- young people mastering all sorts of technical machines, (including machine guns and weapons of course ) , very skilled and very oblivious to each others social and natural needs.

Of course red tape is not adequate either. The obstructive   mentality  runs like this.

1)     It can’t be done

2)     I’m irreplaceable

3)     Next

4)     Come back tomorrow

This was or is the “red tape” mentality. We are staring to understand this can no longer go happening,  we do have to change, even at the private level some do have this mentality.
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Back to education , the old proverb runs like this: “to educate a child, you need a village.”

Teens and students love to learn, therefore, it is not that they hate school; probably they hate the format of sitting in a class, for long hours to being taught. Much learning occurs without teaching. This comes like a shocking revelation.

So the classroom format may feel insulting for them. Not that in itself is bad, but with all entertainment taking place outside class, it is difficult for them to bear this. They might even feel insulted, treated like babies.

The Teen “Language Arts” Ordeal

In most countries young teen face the same boring challenges. They are requested or compulsory obliged to read either classis piece or modern literature which they hardy understand and rapidly come to hate. Why is this so common? The contention here is that the context and technologies and daily life and language are mostly alien to the, so is the format: reading books. A skill very few develop by HS age. So teens are almost faced with the wall of insanity, a task they don’t accept nor understand.

The contemporary world is push-button one with quick “fixes” and rapid results. Machines, gadgets and tricks or efficiency you can pay for. Social skills are not enhanced nor developed systematically; Patience and stamina are not requirement nor held in high esteem.  

And no one –adult or teen-- likes to fail or face failure. Our culture does not teach that failure is common in life and many lessons are learned form this.  We tutor systematically kids to reject mistakes or hide them. When they reach the teen years they run away from failure as being burned alive

Faced with reading complex matters, mo the books they hardly care for or understand. This is no blame on literature itself. It is only the context had faded, if not introduced and familiarized by the few teachers or parents that care to understand, they are very turned off from the reading altogether.

It is very complex to “transpose” –for instance—a “Romeo and Juliet” story of the middle Ages to a modern city context. It is possible many attempts have been successfully made, and a few teachers do it, but they are the exception not the rule.

Technologies and contexts have changed much in fi or ten centuries, the way of life is totally different, but the moral and ethical dilemmas are not, they have hardly changed:  courage, fear, resilience, heroism. Most classical and even modern tales deal with these issued. The language, the narrative and the format are specific for each epoch

Al least one decade the modern world has been in a transition from a written culture to a multimedia oral culture again (speaking and acting to each other).  Book  learning and , writing  require long months or years of  strong effort,  so teens  hardly can stand  learning that delivers  no immediate rewards. Book learning, in general,  requires verbalizing, it requires time and rewards that are remioved and   far ahead in the future. Young people hate this. They love short time rewards and brief outcomes. It’s not the right age, or approach, for them to sit for hours and read and write whatever you may present to them

Certainty  it  is  not the right  format,  But they love to learn, that is why video games are “cool” for them, Video consoles  games that incorporate their body are also attractive for them. Change the format, change the outcome.

So what is missing is real life like challenges. Like life, like skating, like surfing these are real challenges, like clubbing, and climbing and rafting. They all engage their bodies and mind to the fullest extent. An old popular saying goes like this: “we only learn what we love”.

So where is the “village?”


 Is it a global village?  Empty chairs and no one at home? 


is it only  a turned on TV  set and no parents or care givers? They must  work hard anyway, (to pay for the bills)


Your guess is as good as mine.

Is anybody there?