Reflections on Early June Events In and Out of School

How I wish I knew the name of this NQHS graduate!

So already, let me begin by saying that I had strong feelings about three public events I "witnessed" in the last two weeks. Two of them unfolded on my television screen. One of them transpired just blocks from my house.

I didn't attend the North Quincy High School (NQHS) Class of 2024 graduation*, which happened streets away from my house. But I did watch the steady stream of proud families walking toward the athletic stadium where the Class of 2024 was set to receive their diplomas. As a former teacher, I'm always moved by how joyful and meaningful graduations are for families: high school graduation isn't assumed in every family. And this was a graduating class who began high school during the COVID-19 pandemic and had to adjust to multiple instructional "new normals" over the course of their high school careers. Congratulations, Class of 2024.

 

As I thought about how exciting and consuming the end of high school is for graduating seniors, I wondered whether any of them in the days before their graduation had managed to pay attention to the two national news stories that had had such strong emotional effects on me. Had any of them watched the elevating, humbling commemoration of the eightieth anniversary of D-Day**, and all it represented in terms of the merging of national and personal sacrifice for the sake of preserving freedom? So many whose lives were lost or forever changed on the beaches of Normandy that day were very close in age to those graduating.

 

Similarly, had any of them heard Representative Byron Donalds' discouraging, dumbfounding comments about Jim Crow, which he characterized as contributing positively to the strength and unity of Black families? Or had any of them seen Reverend Al Sharpton challenge Donalds on the June 9 episode of Politics Nation****, also disseminated on social media? Donalds responded to Sharpton's questions with many poor answers and non-answers.

Because I know that such events create "teachable moments," it is possible that in their last classroom moments at NQHS, these students had experienced video and audio captures of these events and had had the chance to discuss them. I hope they did. But even without such teachable moments having been orchestrated at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, where I spent most of my teaching career, few if any students would have felt that Byron Donalds got it right about Jim Crow. 

I have to wonder where, how, and from whom Donalds**** learned about Jim Crow. Since I am almost certain he learned that Jim Crow was a problem and danger for African-Americans, even if its most violent manifestations weren't shared or referenced as part of classroom instruction, I also have to wonder when and why in the last few years, he's happened or chosen to "unlearn" what he understood about Jim Crow as a younger, less political person.

I also have to wonder how many American fans of Nazism and autocracy have relatives and neighbors who fought in World War II against the Nazis and pro-authoritarian forces. How, when, and why did these present-day American pro-fascists become convinced that the fascists and mass murderers were the enlightened good guys? Do their robust "beliefs" reflect a lack of historical understanding; a shared, stoked sense of  grievance and marginalization; social and political pressure to unlearn former understandings; and/or undeveloped critical thinking skills, which are especially essential in an era when conspiracy theories, misinformation, and "herd mentality," as Hermann Hesse called it in Demian, abound?

As an educator, retired or not, I do wonder what role American education--as a set of practices, policies, and priorities--has played in this current state of affairs--and what "education" should do next. These are questions of vision and accountability, though education is at most minimally responsible for our nation's bitter divisions. I also recognize that I am asking these questions in the context of the recent vitriolic Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion debates in which education has frequently been characterized as indoctrinating students. I'm sure there's been indoctrination in some classrooms, but not most.

Regardless of anyone's politics, any talk about school-based education must take into account two realities. The first is that so much of value could be taught in schools. The second is that there are a finite number of hours in any school day or year, requiring hard choices about what content, skills, and habits of mind should be cultivated in the available instructional time.

Kris Newton*****, key member of the teacher team

This question of what to teach in the time available reminds me of the disciplined, thoughtful work the teachers of the ninth-grade physics course at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School did years ago. All CRLS ninth-graders--not just the ones who like science and/or are apt to excel in it--take this course, which supports them in developing important understandings of the behavior of matter and energy in the physical world--and, ideally, creates in them a desire to study more physics later in high school. When passing a science MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System) exam became a requirement for these students, their teachers worked collaboratively to identify which conceptual understandings, information, and skills had to be acquired by every student; which ideally should be; and which could be considered enriching and thus more optional.

 

Similarly, groups of history teachers, historians, and government and civics teachers have gone through comparable processes over the years to specify the content, skills, and habits of mind needed by all students to succeed in history class and life beyond high school. Given the breadth and depth of history, their challenge is always "selecting from" without oversimplifying complicated realities and/or overlooking historical events and narratives critically important to different Americans. Faced with the need to teach less rather than more, one possible solution has been for teachers to be completely transparent about what the required history course was "leaving out," and where and how it might be explored beyond or even within the required history course. 

 

Though I'm not a history teacher and not part of these conversations, I can't resist saying that I believe that every student in America needs to understand the causes, effects, purposes, and legacies of both Jim Crow and World War II. And every student has to begin to understand them during their  K-12 educations: many Americans don't study American history formally after middle school and high school.

 

So even though I've just talked about important content, I must now assert that lots of educational accountability is not about content. There was a method to my madness above in mentioning both the MCAS and Reverend Sharpton's interview of Byron Donalds. In an educational environment in which exam results are important determinants of their futures, students must develop cross-disciplinary skills related to literacy and logic. In particular, they need to become savvy readers of multiple-choice and open-ended questions who can understand what those questions are asking; what kinds of thinking are needed to answer them; and what responses to them constitute actual answers, not tangential or obfuscating facts or analyses. 

 

Upon recognizing this, we teachers at CRLS recognized that we needed to step up our instructional game. For example, because many multiple-choice questions****** require students either to infer from one or more specifics, to summarize, to compare or contrast, or to generalize, we needed to help students recognize and acquire the language signaling each of these thinking requests. This meant becoming more deliberate about the language we ourselves used to elicit student responses: while asking our students "what do you think" might lead students to infer, conclude, or react, they were better served when we used the specific thinking language they were likely to encounter on the exam. 

 

In addition, we needed to abandon well-intended but potentially misleading teacher mantras such as "the answer is in the text": too often, we noticed when we analyzed test data, when students weren't sure which multiple-choice answer to select, they chose the response that contained language quoted directly from the text rather than the response that inferred something from that language. We also had to warn students about the danger of relying too heavily on prior knowledge: something they understood about climate change, for example, might have nothing to do with the aspect of climate change being discussed in the reading passage about which the test was asking them questions.

As a result of our and their efforts, many of our students got better at knowing when responses to questions weren't actually answers to them and why--which makes me believe that when politicians respond to questions with non-answers, many American students know it. Fortunately, the critical thinking skills students develop in classrooms, even when one of the goals is test prep, are widely applicable beyond the classroom.

 

Meanwhile, it's fun to think of the scores these politicians******* would have gotten on the MCAS, given their penchant for non-answering. Most never would have graduated from high school.

 

Most Americans, especially younger ones who haven't sworn loyalty to particular political parties, employers, and organizations, aren't nearly as stupid, illogical, or hoodwink-able as many politicians think. In my experience, young people, especially when deeply engaged (though engaging them deeply can take a lot of effort),  are observant, astute, discerning, and thoughtful. Too often, if politicians and the media talk about them at all, they are pathologized, pitied, or disdained--or viewed only as a market or future workforce, not as people with lives in the present. Young people know this. They know how they do and don't matter to many of those who have political power.

 

These younger Americans, unlike many politicians, are seldom motivated exclusively by money and power. They have hopes and fledgling visions of their personal futures as they embark on the adventure of adulthood. No doubt as time goes on, many of them will encounter the forces in American life that pressure or tempt them to go against their better judgment in the ballot box and their daily lives. I hope the graduates in the high school class of 2024 will hold onto their values, their critical thinking skills, and perhaps, most importantly, their dreams, even if those dreams need altering now and again. I hope they will find sources of inspiration and hope as they make their ways.

* Photo by Greg Durr of the The Patriot Ledger: North Quincy High graduation ceremony at Veterans Stadium under a setting sun on Monday June 10, 2024: https://www.patriotledger.com/picture-gallery/news/2024/06/11/north-quincy-high-school-graduation-2024/74055686007/

** Screen shots of image found on the following link: http://www.outandaboutinparis.com/2011/08/normandy-american-cemetery-and-memorial.html Retrieved on June 9, 2024, and 

*** Screen shot of tweet of @PoliticsNation tweet posted on June 8, 2024.

**** Screen shot of Byron Donalds on The Daily Beast website: https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-the-push-to-make-rep-byron-donalds-donald-trumps-veep-pick

***** Screen shot of photo of Kris Newton on CPSD website: https://crls.cpsd.us/school_news/kristin_newton_chosen_as_2023_m_a_finalist_for_the

****** Screen shot of photo found on the following link: https://www.palomar.edu/testwritingstrategies/wp-content/uploads/sites/97/2015/04/multiple-choice-test.jpg

******* Screen shot of photo related to the following link on the San Diego Union Tribune website: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2019/11/27/standardized-tests-reward-kids-from-wealthy-families/