By Allan Shedlin
Grampsy and Founder, Daddying Film Festival & Forum (D3F)
"I've never let schooling interfere with my education."
– Long attributed to Mark Twain, but actually said by
one of his contemporaries, novelist Grant Allen
Even though it has been 41 years since I played a daily, active role in a school – as an elementary school principal – I have remained connected through my children and grandchildren ever since. So, it's this time of year when most schools begin (as opposed to the calendar year) that feels like the real beginning of a new year. So many school-related memories come flooding back. As I survey the state of our schools in 2024, this 18-year-old memory came back to me:
Bounding off the school bus in late spring, teetering under the weight of his book-laden backpack, my 7-year-old grandson, Ben, couldn’t wait to ask me: "Grampsy, you used to be a school principal, right? So, maybe you can tell me: how’s a kid supposed to learn if he’s cooped up at his desk all day?! And how’s he supposed to learn lots of other important stuff if all we do is reading and math?"
Although he didn’t really sit at his desk all day, nor do only reading and math, it felt that way to a first-grader attending class in one of Virginia’s premier school systems and getting ready for end-of-year tests that have become fodder for teacher and school ratings. And it increasingly seems that way to teachers and parents throughout the country.
Indeed, ever since the covidious scourge, schools have been trying to make up for "learning loss" – a misnomer I’ve written about previously for the blog – most schools have been spending an increased percentage of time on "teaching to the test." Since the length of the school day has not increased proportionately, the increased time required to focus on these strictly academic subjects comes at the expense of other equally-important areas of learning.
The continued focus on standardized testing for math and reading is in direct contradiction to what we know about child development and how children really learn and comes at the expense of other qualities crucial to lifelong learning and success in life and work, like curiosity, creativity, perseverance, motivation, social skills, self-awareness, and self-control. Given this, it is painfully clear we have a really big national school problem.
Even a casual observer, who spends only minutes with a young child can observe that children prefer, and learn best, when they actively discover things about their world – the very idea that was articulated by my 7-year-old grandson! This ain’t rocket science, folks. But it is likely to diminish our prospective pool of rocket scientists. (BTW, Ben is currently coding for NASA.)
John Dewey, the American philosopher and educator, once said "What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all its children." With that idea, I consider Ben a surrogate for my other four grandchildren – AND all the other children attending our nation’s schools.
Having spoken with many teachers and parents around the country, it seems to me that my grandson served much like the proverbial canary in the coal mine, sounding an alarm, giving us notice that something catastrophic is imminent if we don’t heed the warning signs and change course.
Like the youngster in Hans Christian Anderson’s The Emperor’s New Clothes, a child called out what we can all see for ourselves but have been too "polite," scared, or cowardly to mention: All our students are at risk – no, “in trouble” – because we are not allowing them to learn in ways we know align with what research (and common sense) tells us about learning and child development. If we continue on a course of sacrificing the joy of learning and discovery to the obsession with test scores, children will continue learning that school is not a place to think independently, ask good questions, and create hypotheses but, rather, the place to regurgitate the "right" answers.
Here are some important things we know about how children (and adults) really learn:
Both cognitive and non-cognitive abilities and skills are necessary and must be encouraged/supported
Best learning takes place in a dynamic, interactive process
Optimum learning occurs when learners see a utility in what they are learning
Things we are most apt to learn are things we have discovered ourselves through experience, not stuff we have learned by rote memorization to achieve good test results.
It would be of great value if the silent majority of teachers and parents, who really know better, joined Ben – and all the children he represents – in a new "conspiracy" and cried out in a singular, powerful voice to say: "Enough sacrificing our learners to the gods of testing!"
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." – Albert Einstein
Let’s get back to the real basics of learning and inquiry so that excellent test results might follow. We might even consider re-thinking what and how we test. As a matter of fact, there is an independent school I know, exempt from taking its state’s exams, where the principal recommended that teachers provide answers on end-of-year student "tests" and asked the students to come up with good questions that might lead to those answers.
With calls for positive parent involvement in schools getting louder, rather than banning books and terms like "climate change," "diversity," and "gender equality," it would be more productive and beneficial for students if educators and parents focused more attention on promoting the arts and physical education, as well as open-minded social and emotional learning. In the long-term, our communities would be much better off.
For more information about how you can foster a more positively-engaged partnership with teachers and school administrators in your child's learning, check out resources provided by these Daddying Film Festival & Forum (D3F) Circle of Friends organizations:
Allan Shedlin has devoted his life's work to improving the odds for children and families. He has three daughters, five grandchildren, as well as numerous "bonus" sons, daughters, and grandchildren. Trained as an educator, Allan has alternated between classroom service, school leadership, parenting coaching, policy development, and advising at the local, state, and national levels. After eight years as an elementary school principal, Allan founded and headed the National Elementary School Center for 10 years. In the 1980s, he began writing about education and parenting for major news outlets and education trade publications, as well as appearing on radio and TV. In 2008, he was honored as a "Living Treasure" by Mothering Magazine and founded REEL Fathers in Santa Fe, NM, where he now serves as president emeritus. In 2017, he founded the DADvocacy Consulting Group. In 2018, he launched the DADDY Wishes Fund and Daddy Appleseed Fund. In 2019, he co-created and began co-facilitating the Armor Down/Daddy Up! and Mommy Up! programs. He has conducted daddying workshops in such diverse settings as Native American pueblos, veterans groups, nursery schools, penitentiaries, Head Start centers, corporate boardrooms, and various elementary schools, signifying the widespread interest in men in becoming the best possible dad. In 2022, Allan founded and co-directed the Daddying Film Festival & Forum (D3F) to enable students, dads, and other indie filmmakers to use film as a vehicle to communicate the importance of fathers or father figures in each others' lives. Allan earned his elementary and high school diplomas from NYC’s Ethical Culture Schools, BA at Colgate University, MA, at Columbia University’s Teachers College, and an ABD at Fordham University. But he considers his D-A-D and GRAND D-A-D the most important “degrees” of all.
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