This is my maiden entry in the Rice blogosphere, but I have stalked the REEP Blog for a couple months now. My name is Kap McWhorter and I have sojourned in education for the better part of the last decade. I have held administration and teaching positions in both private and public schools. I have been everything from the Campus Pastor/High School Religion teacher at a small private school to my current position with Humble ISD as Small Learning Communities Coordinator. Smattered amidst these varied experiences are extended periods of work in the non-profit sector and global relief organizations. These seemingly incongruous experiences have found harmony in my current work in directing Finding Heroes, a non-profit organization committed to providing meaningful learning experiences by connecting students and educators to the needs of their local and global communities.
 I met a colleague, Raymond Green (REEP and YES Prep), for dinner in town last night at Barnaby’s—amazing food and conversation. I have lived in the Houston area all my life; however, when the battery on my cell phone died while leaving the city, and along with it my GPS, I was instantly aware of not only my obvious directional ineptitude, but also the apparent lack of any perceivable logic in the civic design of our great city. As I picked my way out of town and back out to the burbs, the lack of intention behind the city’s growth pattern became even more acute. Houston is a prime example of what is termed Urban Sprawl—the decentralization or spread of a population without a well-defined center, characterized by discontinuity and a sort of leapfrog development pattern.
Perhaps it was the strange mixture of my dinner conversation with the angst of being lost in my home town, but sprawl became a hauntingly appropriate metaphor of the current crisis in education. William Damon, in his current work, Path to Purpose, describes adolescents much like my GPSless experience, “adrift.” In his study, less than 20 percent of adolescents expressed any clear vision of what they want to accomplish and why. A shocking 25 percent expressed no aspirations at all, many of whom claim to see no point in ever developing any. Like Damon, we educators perceive, “For too many young people today, apathy and anxiety have become the dominant moods, and disengagement or even cynicism has replaced the natural hopefulness of youth.” Damon has placed the target squarely at the source of the problem—we have failed to create opportunities for students to find any meaning or purpose to the growing obligations of their world. Unfortunately, we have not addressed this disengagement at the core, but rather responded by treating the symptoms through increased expectations. Rigor is the word of the day. Don’t get me wrong, I think raising the bar for our students is essential, but if we keep acquiring new cognitive real estate through heightened expectations without providing opportunities to develop a larger sense of purpose, we risk amplifying our students’ estrangement rather than alleviating it. We will respond with expansion rather than intention—cognitive sprawl.
We must address the essential question, “WHY?” We must value the punk, I mean challenging, student who asks from the nether regions of the back row, “What’s the point?” If we continue to oblige students to achieve greater expectations with justifications like, “Because it’s important…it’s going to be on the test…you’ll need this in college,” we will end up sounding like this brief song from my kids’ favorite cartoon.
For real inspiration and innovation to return to our classrooms, we must model for our students the courage to ask dismantling questions and the resolve to authentically respond. We are charged with connecting students to their learning and their learning to their world. When they can affect meaningful change in the world with the skills they acquire in our schools, they will be inspired to exceed our expectations rather than obliged to merely meet our standards.
What do you think? I’d like to hear your thoughts. Drop a comment below!
Kap-
I was thinking about the “GPSless experience” description that you referred to in your blog, and I can see why we would perceive that about or students at times…I personally work with students in a different enviorment than a classroom, and what I perceive to be the case is that students have a GPS, but there is a disconnect to where we think students should be going and the “hows” to get there and where the student thinks he/she should be going and “how” to get there. We teach to standards that are centered around a world that changed at a very slow pace and with very little emphasis on technology (the “how” to get there). Our students’ world changes so rapidly these days (technology and access to immediate information) that I feel we have missed the boat not on the GPS but trying to use an paper map instead of a GPS…
First of all I love Barnaby’s!! It is one of my favorite places to eat
Our students can access information quickly with their given technology (iphones, ipads, internet etc) and very few of us have tapped into the way students access info as a means to their learning in the classroom. Our students are social and have immediate access to their social groups through Facebook, Google Plus etc. and it is our challenge and our responsibility to connect to students where they are on the “hows”. I hope that (before I retire), we will focus on the “hows” so that the “whats” are learned at a high level of rigor. I am hopeful and I an optimistic
Thank you Kap for the insight and for making the world a better place to live and work….
Amy
“our”
Kap – Great blog.
First off, I’m going to comment on the first thing that comes to my mind and although it may sound familiar as I think people use it over and over again like beating a dead horse but here it goes…it starts at home. I’m sure you know this and have addressed this before but that student sitting at the back of the class stating “Why should I care?”, “What’s in it for me?” has another world we don’t know about. We can talk about changing “their” world and giving them ownership to change when in reality, most times, we don’t know “their” world. In my opinion this is just one of many challenges when facing the apathy of change and as to WHY we do it. I can think of personal experiences in that of dealing with students in the past, that of my experiences growing up in East Houston as well as various children served by my former non-profit.
Second thought: I could go on and on about this one. Basically, I think anyone that chooses not to embrace the various forms of technology and be a part of the network of social media and other forms of sharing information (i.e. this blog) is only going to make it harder on themselves to connect with the future generation. It’s just the way it is. Can we change it? Not too sure. Can we embrace it and leverage it for good? Of course we can.
Third thought: I can think of so many people who I can call friends that have gone on to walk the talk. What was it that made them know “why”? We talk about the future but what can we learn from the past?
Thank you Kap for keeping it real.
Thanks for sharing these insights Kap.
As usual you made me think and contemplate something in an unusual way.
As an educator I have often found the 30,000 foot view of our educational landscape disorienting. It’s the educational sprawl from the vertical view. For me it just doesn’t make much difference to look at the whole wide picture.
I don’t mean to belittle your point in any way, but rather focus the attention to the only position that seems meaningful to me (a classroom teacher). For students to feel that what they are learning is somehow meaningful there needs to be a human connection that makes it powerful.
The only way to connect with students, have them make their learning meaningful, and have them aspire to a vision is to create relationships in the classroom and school. It always comes back to the same adage for me, “No student will care what an educator knows unless they know that the educator cares.”
Then with that relationship built there needs to be a strong commitment from both parties (educator and student) to communicate in meaningful ways. How can this be fostered and built? Unfortunately it is just hard work one teacher to one student at a time. In my opinion this is the problem with every new thing that comes down the educational road. For every knew gimmick, gadget and goal to succeed it is only going to be possible if students and educators truly care about each other.
I agree with Amy that technology can help, but technology alone won’t win the day. We see this with the poor passing rates of online classes for most students. Technology in the classroom can inspire and open a wide world of knowledge but those kinds of solutions must be built with the human touch in mind.
And last, although I agree with Andrea that if it ‘starts at home’ that is a strong foundation of support that definitely inspires students to learn. However in my experience, if a parent/guardian or family is not supporting a student there can still be very strong progress made. It only goes to underline my original thought:
Educators that care get the most from their students regardless of the situation.
How do we ‘fix’ this nationwide? I do not think there is any key or fix. A very large part of me thinks it is inconsequential. I guess am just too busy with my own personal charge and my own micro-view of education. It is the only real change an educator can truly make – one student at a time.
Kap,
Great educators will always choose to fight the good fight – and that means positive relationships with young people. We must care and we must inspire greatness in others. Keep up the good work!
David-
As usual, you are reading my mind and stealing my thunder. You essentially wrote the opening paragraph for my next post. I agree that there is no magic bullet or “fix.” True innovation doesn’t begin with a new plan or strategy. These all-too-common approaches are novelties, not innovation. Innovation occurs when we can inspire students and educators IN THE CLASSROOM. Check out the article I wrote on this approach and let me know what you think: http://www.findingheroes.org/2011/06/bottoms-up-for-social-action/.
Thank you so much for the FindingHeroes link, it is way cool!