Platypus Observant

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I teach high-schoolers. It's a rewarding, but difficult job. High-schoolers' minds haven't calcified yet, so they're frank, open, and teachable at their best. However, their personalities haven't hardened either, nor are they fully mature or socialized. It's a lot easier to get forty year olds to hide their boredom in public. High-schoolers let you know when they're bored in the most blatantly rude and obnoxious ways. So it was of great interest to me to be able sit in on several sessions of Wheatstone Academy this week. At Wheatstone, high-schoolers are subjected to hour long, highly technical lectures given by distinguished college professors, visit a world-class art museum (The Getty), listen to 16th and 17th century church music (which they gave a standing ovation), attend community theater, and read and discuss four dialogs from Plato. Their reaction? Unbridled enthusiasm, wrapped attention, and excellent questions! So it was a week, and not ten months and the only homework was reading the dialogs: that's still amazing! So what's the message? Don't give up on high-schoolers; FEED THEM! Feed them to bursting, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. Make what you're giving them so deep, rich, and "tasty" that they'll push through all the pain and discipline to get more. You want to improve education? Put a copy of Plato in their hands. Is Plato baking their brains? Let them start off with Homer. Homer's to hard? Slog with them through "The Lord of the Rings." Don't show them movies just to get them off your back for a period. Show them Citizen Kaine and talk about it with them. Citizen Kaine too much of a stretch, how about "Batman Begins?" You'd be surprised to see how much mileage the students at Wheatstone got out of that one this week. Sports are great, but make sure that there are opportunities where everyone can be involved, not just the best. Bring back theater, music, and the arts. Oh, and let them talk about religion in school, because the most important questions in life SHOULD NOT BE BANNED FROM THE PUBLIC SPHERE. Besides, how can you teach them civil discourse and tolerance if they're never given an opportunity to really and truly disagree about something that matters?

Comments

Linds said…
Amen! After last summer, I thought exactly the same thing. Then, I was pretty disappointed with the reaction I got when I tried it in the classroom. There's got to be a way to get past the predisposition to hate school just because it's school. I'm working on it.
3:20 PM
James said…
Yeah,I hear you. It's that key point that Academy students are there because the overwhelming majority choose to be there. I had some positive experiences with tracking when I was in school in CT, but that only helps with the best and brightest, and not all the time with them. I'd say it was cultural, but even Shakespeare and Plato make cracks about kids not wanting to have anything to do with school. Sigh...
5:53 PM
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