Do What You're Paid For: the distance between the mediocrity of work and the goals of education

The majority seem to follow the science.

The Weather Network had an interesting poll today.  The American Academy of Pediatrics suggested that later start times for adolescents would allow them to function better with their funky circadian rhythms.

It's a fact of our biology that our sleep patterns change during adolescence.  Being a teacher I've been aware of this for a long time because my job isn't to punish students but rather to develop their best expression of skill and ability.

The comments on this poll are your typical internet nonsense.  It makes me wonder how most people think (or don't).  The most vocal opponents (a minority in this poll) seem to think school should be about forcing students into alignment with adult expectations, however mediocre, biology be damned.

Some pretty nasty assumptions in these acerbic comments...

Is school about 'commitment, dedication' and the benefits you get from these values?  Of course it is, but it is also seeking your best work.  Unlike the 'adult' world where showing up and doing what you're paid for is the expectation, school is (should be?) about excellence.  I don't want a forced effort and I'm not looking for a pass, though many of my students are.  I wonder where they learn those values?

There are jobs and companies that do embrace excellence, but they are a minority.  If you're working for a pay cheque (and the vast majority are), you're an advocate of the show up on time-do what you're paid for-and-grow up school of adulthood.  For a lot of students school is the last place where they are encouraged to seek their best effort.  The rest of their lives are spent venting their spleen and dragging everyone down on internet comment forums.

Top performance isn't only a matter of effort.  I hear a lot of students tell me, "I'll put in an effort in senior years and get the grades I need to get into university."  They get to grade 12 and suddenly realize what squandering years of foundational skill building really costs.  I have that Incompetence poster up in my class.  It's not meant to be cruel, it's meant to remind students that I'm not there to waste their time or hold them in room for a certain amount of time (like most jobs they'll have when they graduate).  I'm looking for optimal skills building for each student (they're all different).

One of the reasons so many people enjoy watching professional sports is because you're seeing people performing at their very best.  A pro athlete isn't just putting in an effort, they are maximizing their anatomy with diet, sleep and hours upon hours of training and practice.  You're seeing their excellence as the tip of a massive iceberg of commitment.  The doing of unpalatable things isn't the point, excellence is, and you don't reach it by ignoring basic facts of biology.

I worked in private business for fifteen years before I became a teacher.  With very few exceptions, work involved being there on time and doing what you're told.  When I attempted to display initiative it was considered difficult to manage.  One of the reasons I became a teacher is because I have the professional latitude to produce my best work.  I don't just work to a clock, I work to a higher goal.  Rather than aim students at the lowered expectations of the working world, perhaps it's time to embrace excellence.

A few months ago I read an interesting article on the conflict between capitalism (read: neo-liberal devaluation of human capital) and education systems.  These Weather Network poll responses are firmly in that neo-liberal mindset of reduced human capital.  You're a cog in the machine: do what you're told, be consistent, show up on time... if that's what education becomes then we truly are lost.

Head Space

For the first time in my ten years of teaching I didn't teach summer school or take an additional qualification this summer.  I did build a deck that you can land a helicopter on, restore a motorbike I found in a field and travelled across most of Ontario, but I've been far away from thinking about teaching.

What have I learned from my summer of George?  I'd be a very good retired person.  I'm seldom idle, I love learning new things and resolving engineering challenges.  I get a great deal of satisfaction in taking something broken and making it work.  Mechanical sympathy has always led me into technology, I tend toward an empathetic connection with machines.  I also enjoy working with my head and hands in concert (not just one or the other).  I spent the summer practising the engineering process, perhaps I can take a more active modelling role in the lab in order to keep that experience alive (for myself as well as for my students).

The writing didn't slow down, it just changed focus.  Putting experience into words allows me to meditate on that experience and clarify my thinking about it.  It's nice to know that whatever I'm doing, writing is a natural response to it.

I'm now in the process of re-engaging with teaching.  Empathy tends to lead me in this as well, though I find the irrationality and randomness of dealing with people exhausting and frustrating in comparison to the simple honesty of machines.  The education system is all about people, from the social complexities of dealing with fellow teachers and administration to the hugely varied psychology of students, it's a complex system that is more about fecundity than resolution.

After a summer of making things work I'm most anxious about returning to a process that is often irrational, opaque and unsolvable.

Once more into the breach dear friends...