Good Observations (08-27-07)

When I directed the McPherson County Learning Center, I discovered a crucial difference between educating high school students and educating adult high school dropouts. The dropouts were easier to work with.

Now, that might seem strange. In fact, I remember taking the job with more than a little trepidation. I was suddenly going to be the teacher and administrator for a group of people who had caused so much trouble as either be expelled or made to drop out. I would be dealing with people who, at one time in their life disliked education or least did not fit well in the educational system - the very system in which I had been working all of my professional life.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that these dropouts, these so-called misfits, were actually a delight. Going to work became fun, and suddenly my mission as a teacher to help people finally found a group of people who genuinely wanted to be helped.

And that, of course, was the crucial difference. While regular high school students are basically forced to receive their education, those who enrolled in a learning center did so by their own free will. They wanted an education, and that desire to be taught and to learn made all the difference.

I now find myself in a similar situation as the principal of Hill City Grade School. Everyday I am surrounded by children who, by and large, actually enjoy coming to school. They seem to look forward to the classroom and they seem actively engaged in their own learning.

How do I know this? By simple observation. One of my goals this year was to get into as many classrooms as possible as much as possible. I have decided to take nothing with me as I do these little observations, and I have challenged myself to leave all agendas and prejudices at the door. I want to observe and then reflect over what I have seen.

In the first six and one-half days I have logged forty-six observations or visitations. I have pretty much seen every teacher in action at least once, and I have yet to make a negative observation.

The fact that the teachers are doing such a superb job didn’t surprise me. They are all caring, dedicated, and experienced. I expected nothing less than thorough preparation, excellent instruction, and engaging activity.

But what took me a little by surprise was how much I would enjoy these observations. While I enjoyed the classroom observations I made at the high school, the elementary classroom experiences as something else all together.

The crucial difference between what I saw in the secondary classroom and what I am now seeing in the elementary classroom is the same difference between being a high school teacher and a learning center teacher. In both cases, I am now among students who want to learn.

This is not to say that high school students don’t want to learn. In fact they work very hard at what they do and their education is filled with difficult and demanding content. But I have now seen that elementary students, especially the younger ones, seem to embrace the learning. They are so curious about everything and they are always eager to get to the next thing, to learn something new, to experience something different. Every lesson presents something new and exciting to them, and all this enthusiasm makes for a much more enjoyable observation.

Now the challenge remains for how to keep this love of learning and enthusiasm for school going into the later years. When does school stop being fun and start being a job? How can we reach and engage more students for longer into their school careers?

If we as educators are ever able to address these questions, then maybe there would be no more need for learning centers and diploma recovery programs. I do realize that there is much more to why students drop out of school than just the fact they have stopped enjoying their education, but regardless of all that, I plan to sit back and enjoy the good observations I am having at HCGS.