A different path...

I was watching a piece on education on PBS tonight.  It happened to be on a charter school in Oakland California that educates only young, black boys.  All the students start their morning with a rally round the flag pole, chanting inspirational sayings. Then they go off to their classes and are expected to excel.  And to the amazement of many, apparently over all the kids do.

Why are these kids excelling?  Well first of all, maybe because they are in an environment where they feel safe.  There are no girls to show off for or compete against, so they only have to compete against their male peers.  There have been many studies which have found that unisex schools take away a lot of the stress of competing and showing off, especially as kids get to the critical teenage years. This works for both boys and girls.  If you raise your hand and take a chance on answering a question, no girl (or in a girl's school, boy) is going to see you make a mistake.

Secondly, they have been taken out of the regular school system where many have struggled with peer pressure NOT to perform.  It's not cool to be the brain, it IS cool to be a member of the in crowd... or gang. And the class sizes at this school are small.  When you have 30 or more kids and 1 hour to teach them a concept, you better hope they get it without individual assistance. It makes sense that small class sizes make it easier to catch the ones that are missing the point. Taking a small group of kids, putting them in an ideal environment is bound to get results. Even if they were screw ups before.

Trouble is ...  Many of these young men are going to get to the end of their high school career and say what now? Not all kids are college material, not all kids are driven to succeed, many kids would be happy just to make a good living at a respectable job... whether it's an electrician, a plumber, a bridge builder or running their own business. We need more than just doctors, lawyers and stock brokers to run our world. We need to give them a path to success either in a trade school or a university, and teach the kids along the way that success comes in many shapes and sizes.

If we look at education for ALL our kids this way, and provide different paths for different folks, then I think we could say we succeeded in making our country a better place.