The Students Are Watching

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The Students Are Watching

• Schools and the Moral Contract
• by Theodore R. Sizer
• Nancy Faust Sizer
• Katie McNickle
• 11.129

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A Goal for Humankind

• Raise decent principled children to avoid
  barbarism and to protect civilization
• What mechanisms are used?
• Family/clan
• Religion
• Mass Media
• Education

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The students they are watching.

• The routines rituals of a school teach, and
  teach especially about matters of character.
• Modeling. Grappling. Bluffing.
• Sorting. Shoving. Fearing.

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1a. Modeling

• Schools should be urban sanctuaries
• Family-like environment (intimate)
• Goal-oriented (specific or broad)
• Enforceable rules (self-made)
• Voluntary (commitment)
• Intense (high commitment)
• Rewarding (obvious or subtle)
• Safe (physically/psychologically)
• Respectful (of each other)

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1b. Modeling

• High schools Americas most ubiquitous
  intentional communities.
• Original purpose? Prepare youth for the adult
  world.
• Current purpose? Manage students with MINIMAL
  hassle and MINIMAL cost.
• Over time, order efficiency gtgt values

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1c. Modeling

• High schools have three core tasks
• To prepare for the workforce
• To think deeply use their minds well
• To become thoughtful citizens decent
  human-beings
• Goodness without knowledge is weak and feeble
  yet knowledge without goodness is dangerous but
  both united form the noblest character, and lay
  the surest foundation of usefulness to mankind.
• -- Samuel Phillips, 1778

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1d. Modeling

• To become thoughtful citizens decent
  human-beings
• This poses many questions
• What kind of people does our community desire
  deserve?
• How might young peoples values be shaped?
• Do schools have the right to shape a students
  mind?

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1e. Modeling

• Good schools have moral order equilibrium
• Moral order
• Must be voluntary adults and students partner in
  its creation and maintenance
• Equilibrium
• Unified (not necessarily uniform) culture

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1f. Modeling

• High schools should model goodness.
• Goodness is not limited to behavior.
• Judge the school not on what it says, but how it
  keeps.

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2a. Bluffing

• Misleading others by means of an artful demeanor
• Not always offensive, sometimes good intentions
• Advertising vs. teaching both selling ideas
• Difference in the goals/measures of success
• Advertisers have consumer buy product
• Teachers have students stand up to salesmen,
  equipped to make a sound decision

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2b. Bluffing

• Dual purpose of schooling
• Personal
• Help students develop their minds
• Minds are private places to be kept clear, sharp,
  straightforward,
• Social
• Develop relationships with other children
  adults
• Dishonesty is sometimes acceptable (white lies to
  make kids stronger more confident)

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2c. Bluffing

• Is more expected of both students teachers than
  it is possible for most to do well?
• Overload quantity is the enemy of quality
• Superficiality vs. substance
• Do conditions in the school allow each student to
  be known well?
• Anonymity ? corner-cutting
• Reduce teacher loads

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2d. Bluffing

• How does the school pace itself? Is there time to
  work, time to reflect, time to rest?
• Strategically capitalize on windows of best
  learning
• Are the expectations for students and teachers
  clear?
• Lively questions make for lively answers
• Is there a time during the school day for
  reflection and for quiet work?

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2e. Bluffing

• Are the incentives and opportunities for clearly
  demonstrated work clear and pervasive within a
  school?
• If sloppy is acceptable, bluffing makes sense
• If assessments arent demanding, bare minimum
• In its recommendation of students for college
  admission, does the school absolutely insist on
  accuracy as well as advocacy?
• Advocate, but not at the expense of integrity

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2f. Bluffing

• Students are always watching us.
• If we bluff
• College admissions
• Unrealistic coverage of curriculum
• students learn that superficiality ability to
  fake understanding is okay
• First, it is an adult problem.

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3a. Sorting

• Is everywhere
• Which high school to pick? (academic)
• Who do I sit with in the cafeteria? (social)
• Are grades a good way to sort?
• Are As from one teacher, one school, one
  subject, comparable to another?
• SATs indicative of first collegiate year,
  nothing after
• Teacher recommendations highly objective
• Excerpt 3

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3b. Sorting

• Students might get hurt by being misplaced
• To avoid hurt, many schools allow self-sorting
• Students can be as lazy or productive as they so
  desire
• Most students have to do no more in school than
  most of them wish, or at least no more than the
  adults advising them believe they can do. p71

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3c. Sorting

• Careful sorting is excruciating
• Schools require a logical structure
• BUT students of the same age are not identical in
  energy, intellect, interests, social/emotional
  maturity
• Students change
• Teachers cannot be pigeonholed either
• A generalized, prescribed path will not work
• It is both discriminatory, ineffective

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3d. Sorting

• Why sort?
• Families concerned w/ race, class, other
  stereotypes
• Parents wanting serious peers
• Efficiency for teachers
• Reduce variety No differentiation!!!

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3e. Sorting

• Some sorting is profoundly destructive
• Categorically tracking into faster classes does
  not necessarily improve learning
• Tracking into slower classes becomes a
  self-fulfilling prophecy
• Essential
• Establish a sorting system which is flexible
  reasonably respectful of peoples wishes
• This takes care, time, flexibility, patience,
  money

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4a. Shoving

• To push, to jostle
• A form of trespassing
• Going where you are not invited
• Crossing what are supposed to be boundaries
• Upsetting other people or things
• Showing that you are BIG

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4b. Shoving

• Fine line between kidding around malicious
  shoving
• Some shoving is invisible (example dirty jokes)
• Some is not physical (example rudeness)
• Rudeness casually deliberate disrespect
• Overlap with bluffing

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4c. Shoving

• Solutions? Rules, strictness, titles, structure
• Better solution? Confront discuss the problem
• Participants may learn to design procedures
  offering basic respect to all members of the
  community

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4d. Shoving

• Ironic thought
• Great scholarship urges students to uncover new
  ground, break the mold, use their imagination to
  go places they are uninvited (SHOVING!)
• Construction may require destruction
• Violence may precede harmony
• Rudeness may be necessary to achieve something of
  special value
• Teachers must try to create a certain kind of
  trespasser
• Courtesy, documentation, a purpose

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5a. Fearing

• Fear works for some of the kids, some of the
  time.
• Unanxious expectation
• Anxiety drains energy, stifles thought,
  distracts
• Lack of anxiety creates listless smugness
• Expectations set a standard, give a target,
  encourage
• accomplishments
• Distant/irrelevant targets threats promote
  paralysis
• Trick? Finding the balance.

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5b. Fearing

• Make sure what is demanded, is achievable.
• Kids are scared enough on their own
• New schools, bigger than elementary
• Homeroom teachers know only your place in the
  roster
• Bathrooms are scary where smokers/delinquents
  hang out
• Cafeterias even worse trying to find friends
• Puberty and maturation awkward and embarrassing
• Peer acceptance

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5c. Fearing

• Does fear have a place in school?
• Only fearing of the right kind
• Of what is new, of possible failure, of public
  humiliation
• Having high hopes for oneself vs.
• Freezing kids up only closes down learning is
  counterproductive
• Fine line between the two

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5d. Fearing

• Is it moral to invoke fear in another?
• Yes, if fear is clearly in the persons ultimate
  self-interest
• General rule of thumb
• Inspiration encouragement are better tools than
  threat
• Threats often result from anger, which is a poor
  platform for reasoned decisions
• Without the time to know students personally,
  fear will be used too frequently and
  ineffectively.

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5e. Fearing

• Our main fear should be that we will fail to
  provide the education necessary to create
  citizens who are in the habit of using and
  trusting their minds. p112

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6a. Thinking

• If we care about our childrens values how as a
  matter of habit they treat others and how aware
  they are of why they do what they do we must
  look in a mirror.
• Do as I say, but not as I do
• No message is more corrosive, especially for
  teenagers
• Avoid hypocrisy

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6b. Thinking

• Morality is not achieved
• It is ongoing
• Goodness depends on what people do every year, in
  fact, every day
• Prizeworthy schools
• Have inside every single head (students
  teachers, producers consumers)
• A clear reference to principle in every decision
  made
• A determination to do the best thing
• It is an active process.
• We must move from nouns to verbs

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6c. Thinking

• Moral education for the children begins with us
• Lives we lead, and therefore, project
• Routines by which we keep our classrooms,
  schools, school systems
• Policies we have come to treasure
• Times when we have used our imagination and
  courage (and time money) to devise even better
  policies

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6d. Thinking

• The students watch us, all the time. We must
  honestly ponder what they see, and what we want
  them to learn from it.