John Thompson retired after many years as a teacher in Oklahoma. Although he usually writes about politics, he has recently been writing about what he learned in the classroom.
He wrote:
If we want to prepare our students for the 21stcentury, educators, patrons, and politicians should relearn the lessons of history as to why classroom instruction is only one of the education tools we need to develop.
After more than two decades of failures, the corporate reform belief that individual teachers can transform public schools has been disproven. But, holistic learning requires a team effort where we bring students out of the school, as well as bringing members of diverse communities into the school. This narrative describes the learning that my young friends and I shared when exploring nature.
The first time I took inner city kids camping and fossil hunting, a couple of minutes into the first lesson I became hooked by my new career. A third grader shouted that she had found a “real live dinosaur nose! It still has blood on it!”
Sleepy Hollow Camp was the type of progressive institution you would expect from the veterans of the civil rights campaign “Freedom Summer” who helped lead the program. Sleepy Hollow was committed to positive behavioral reinforcement. We received marvelous professional development for picking up on warning signs before misbehavior escalated, for disengaging when necessary, and for re-engaging kids in a constructive manner. The data from the families’ applications for the program gave us extremely valuable information. Outstanding social workers helped us to interpret the students’ records. Professional development included cooperative games and culminated in a “ropes course” for building teamwork.
Sleepy Hollow’s professional development for environmental education was fantastic. We were provided the hands-on materials about our camp in the Arbuckle Mountains, where “twice this ancient mountain range had been worn away. But three times it rose from the sea.” We identified plants and animals that flourished “where the American South met the West, and as a result we had as much biodiversity as anywhere in the United States.”
When teaching such lessons to adolescents, it did not take long for them to recognize them as metaphors for their lives. The children first raised the issue of respecting the diversity of people, as well as biomes. And kids sought the reassurance that people who have been beaten down, like mountain ranges, can rise again.
After each long day of adventures, an evening campfire was always perfect for celebrating new friendships, reflecting on the day’s discoveries, and contemplating the meaning of life.
Rashad, one of the teen leaders at camp who was well-known at his middle school for political protests involving Black Nationalism, took charge of the evening talent shows. He excelled at satire, and my lessons often inspired the jokes and dance numbers. In such a setting, the power of children’s moral consciousness in driving the intentionality required for deep learning was clearly illuminated.
August offered extraordinary meteorite showers as the campfires were dimming. Walking back to the cabin or the tent, the kids were quiet and contemplative knowing that they were sharing something profound. Those night- time reflections borrowed the language of the Black church. We were all lying silently in our bunks one night when the cabin’s leader, Tyson, volunteered an account of a family tragedy. He asked if we knew the story behind the song “Amazing Grace,” and told his cabin mates about the slave trader, John Newton’s, conversion at sea and his becoming an abolitionist. Tyson then sang for us an incredibly beautiful version of the hymn.
I came to know Richard a bit more intimately after violence broke out after a turtle was killed. Members from another street gang knew how devoted Richard was to wildlife, so they provoked a fight by killing a turtle he had adopted.
The wiry and high-strung 8th grader began our most intense conversation with a calm account of the death of his grandmother along with six others in a boiler explosion at an Oklahoma City school. Summing up the lessons he learned through mourning, he spoke in a low voice, “I think about things – deep things,” while his eyes darted back and forth, frantically, on high alert for danger.
Richard switched the subject to tales about his days in California living with a rich uncle, an “O.G.” (Old-time Gangsta.) Richard talked about how he would plan ways to invest the family’s wealth to help the underprivileged. Pumping his fists and striking out for emphasis, Richard repeated again, “I think of things – deep things.”
But everything changed for Richard when his uncle was busted on drug charges and all their money was lost. He claimed to not being upset by all of that. It brought him closer to real suffering and prompted new ideas for helping the poor. By this point in our conversation, he exhibited the explosive force of a television evangelist, proclaiming, “I think of things – deep things!”
Back home, his once-powerful uncle still had enemies, and Richard was now more vulnerable and afraid. But that just made him identify more with people who never had power and made him wish he could do good – not just for people, but for all of the earth. That is why the turtle’s death upset him so much. Again subdued, Richard wrapped up his sermon, “I think of things – deep things.”
Richard’s peers confirmed that his uncle had had money, power, and a reputation, and that I would understand when we returned to the city and saw his family. It was on the bus ride home that I fully grasped the trauma and fearfulness that dominated Richard’s home life. In those two weeks away, the camp had become a safe zone for him and he grew more and more agitated the closer we got to the inner city. He sat pensively, practically glued to me for the ride home.
Richard’s suffering was also apparent to the other students and I was struck by the empathy that they expressed. Even the kids who were the most “down” with the “Crips” — the gang that rivalled his uncle’s “Bloods” — started to treat him with kindness. Something transformative had happened over the course of the two weeks at camp.
Richard was picked up by his uncle. Someone who had once displayed power and inspired fear was now a broken man and clearly an alcoholic. Richard made a point of introducing me as his friend, and the uncle earnestly voiced appreciation. Though we had just met, the former gang leader grasped my hand and forearm and made it clear that he needed to communicate his deep appreciation for helping his nephew. Like many others, O.G. grieved for the pain he had inflicted upon his family.
This, and countless other poignant conversations, illustrates the challenges faced by children and educators alike in trying to overcome the legacy of poverty. But it also points to solutions. Simply put, there is no substitute for honest and painful discussions with young people about the troubles and transgressions of their past, and often grim and anxious aspects of their present. Long after high-profile tragedies are forgotten by society, trauma endures for many survivors. Despite such stress and tragedy, Richard, his friends, and even his uncle, managed to hold onto their moral core.
This could be the rock upon which school improvement in the inner city is founded.
Diane Ravitch's blog 