Schools
Entirely Secondary: YOU Can Change Schools
"When you get that visitor badge at the Principal's Office think of it as a ticket to save our schools."
(Editor's note: Entirely Secondary is written by San Leandro High School English teacher Jerry Heverly. The title is inspired by education blogger Joe Bower who says that when his students do a science experiment, learning is the priority. Getting the correct answer is entirely secondary. Today's installment is part two of .)
By Jerry Heverly
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I recently read a book about an inner-city high school in Indianapolis, Indiana (Searching for Hope by journalist Mathew Tully). Manual High School is, I’m certain, very similar to high schools in Tampa or Schenectady or Denver. It definitely shares characteristics with San Leandro High School.
Tully spent hundreds of hours at Manual and repeatedly he remarked on the apathy that permeated the place. Just about anyone who has spent a few hours in a modern high school knows how quiet and suffocating the place is during the school day (they liven up somewhat once that last bell rings).
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Nothing resists change like a high school. The teachers remember how they were taught and they act out their roles as descendants of those earlier generations faithfully.
Tully’s book is filled with the usual ‘solutions’ (more tests!) but he did make one suggestion that I liked very much: “{T}he school should be filled with volunteers,” he wrote, “whose job it is to help clear away…obstacles.”
So think of yourself as an obstacle remover!
My vision of a high school is City Hall. It’s a place that citizens can use if they have the need. It’s a little intimidating, but if you have business to do there you somehow find your way around. And you do have business in your local high school.
Almost half the kids I see in a typical school year have little idea why they are there—except that mom or dad insists on it. They don’t see a high school education as related to later life. A very high percentage of my students don’t think that a high school diploma has any connection to a better life, despite what innumerable adults tell them to the contrary.
I have students who semi-intentionally fail English because it means they won’t have to stay home in the summer and be bored. Summer school—like the regular year—is Facebook in the flesh.
Face it, a high school diploma is easy to get (over 90% of our seniors get one). And it has little connection to one’s ability to get to work on time, or to do valuable work once you get there.
I think it’s your job to change all this. Imagine a school filled with citizens, some doing volunteer jobs, some just there to be witnesses.
Some teachers would hate it. But I’m convinced that a school filled with community members would be a school that most kids would find ‘relevant’.
It would be a place that had an organic connection to life after school and to life outside of the schoolhouse door.
It would be a part of the city of San Leandro and students would, by osmosis, realize that the work they are doing is the umbilical cord that links them to adult life.
So when you get that visitor badge at the Principal’s Office think of it as a ticket to save our schools. Introduce yourself to a teacher. Use that natural charm to inveigle an invitation to watch. Or volunteer to help.
Be patient; change doesn’t come quickly or easily and the teacher understandably might be suspicious of your intentions.
You pay the taxes. Act like it.
(Look for another installment of Entirely Secondary next week.)
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