So, I Have A Ph.D. and Written Book. Does That Make Me A Bad Person?

After 34 years of working in education, as a teacher but mostly counselor of some type, I have retired. It is not entirely shuffleboard and bingo time but any work I do now in this realm will be as an individual consultant (www.collegetransitiongroup.com, college and career coaching for teens and their parents). I see CTG as a "take or leave it approach." This is the expertise I offer and if you wish to avail yourself of it, great. If not, that fine. And, oh yes, if I am offering assistance, you need to pay. I may volunteer on occassion but the unfortunate reality of human nature is that free services and products are typically not appreciated. If it costs us something, we are less likely to squander it.  

Unfortunately, in our current state of affairs in education, particularly public education, we are expending an enormous amount of time and effort attempting to re-engage the disengaged. It is a recipe for disaster. and burnout for teachers and other educators. It is hard to persist in the face of apathy for too long. I am done with begging kids to just do their work. When I say done, I mean DONE--as in, never again.  NEVER. NEVER. NEVER.   

I don't entirely blame the kids and the parents. Rather than ask the hard questions of whether schools are designed correctly, we just assume that they are. Just one example, the traditional academic model which is college prep for almost all is an egregious waste of resources and does a disservice to kids. The U.S. needs to develop the political will to grasp that some learners don't prosper sitting at a desk. And, giving them a shitload of ADD meds is not the solution for a lot of kids who just need to be active to not be hyperactive.They are kinesthetic hands-on learners and the kids can be super smart. A significant swath of careers are of this type. The present Tech School model for high school is hardly sufficient for the crisis that we are facing. That is not my opinion. It is a fact and any educator who does NOT know this is ignorant and incompetent. 

Rather than get kids learning this way early on, we force them to persist in the academic model for 12 years (K-12) before letting them learn the way that they learn best. Academic skills are best learned, for these students, in the context of combining the hands on learning with more theoretical skills. We should give every child the opportunity to persist in the traditional academic model. But, if they don't and are turned off--an successive interventions don't create re-engagement, at some point fair the direction needs to change. Seeing a student struggle for years and years is just not ethical and educationally sound. Change context. Not the kid. I know, genius stuff here.

Teachers who cannot explain why academic skills are necessary for life and careers need to be trained to  be able to do so. It is not competent to tell students to just accept this. Relying on mere authority is a poor substitute for an actual credible answer. No wonder some kids don't buy it. Math, for example teaches problem-solving and has enormous cross-domain significance. Cross-domain in just a fancy word for learning in one subject generalizes to learning and life as a whole. 

Maybe this illustration will help, a knife that is sharpened can be used in many situations and scenarios beyond one subject and context. Clean a fish or carve an arrow. Both work and might just help one eat in the Wild.

Sharp minds solve problems and being functionally innumerate (the equivalent of illiteracy in math) makes the young person much more likely to be less quantitative in decision-making. That can create poor-decisions in financial matters just to mention where the lack of skill comes back to bite them in the ass. See the young person of limited means in high school driving an expensive car with large monthly payments who has to work a lot of hours to pay for it over a lot of years in addition to the car insurance. They may be screwed asset-wise for years to come and stuck in a job that may keep them for being able to be trained for a better job. I mean this shit is serious and life-altering. Whatever esteem this student is trying gain will pass but the debt remains.The sheen wears off to rust.       

Here is my defense: Algebra and Geometry teach the skills of solving for an unknown answer on the basis of what is known by following a series of logical steps. It has enormous implications for learning and life to take what you know to learn that which you don't.

It has driven me completely bat-shit crazy when I have the data and statistical evidence for a decision to debate the matter with people who probably got a 350 on their Math section of the SAT and have done nothing to remediate this weakness. And I was no Math genius in school. Just a solid B Math student in a challenging high school who worked hard and does have a special knack for Ph.D. level Inferential Statistics which is difficult. Let me just mention as an aside, I don't hide the fact that I have earned a Ph.D. I try to avoid lording it over others because that is just rude. But neither am I going to be ashamed about my advanced learning. If it causes others to become resentful and put me in the category of an effete elite, so be it.*

I kind of caught the vibe when I wrote my book about the college transition that some educators in my profession thought it was cute and perhaps vain. As if I was a poser who had about the same level of expertise as others in the field. I don't. I know more, perhaps a lot more, about the topic of college preparation. And if that makes others' dismissive, insecure, of whatever, up the skills. 

Somehow in our culture being authoritative about a subject gets processed as a negative by those who have no idea what they don't know. I don't pretend to be an expert on fixing cars or a trillion other things. I understand that I am not knowledgeable and good at everything. But, that which I know, I have worked very hard to attain.  

* The reason why  I mention the Ph.D. thing is that my dad yesterday made a statement positing that my listing my Ph.D. as part of my Google email account was done on my end in an attempt to make others feel inferior. The reality is that Google associated my business account for College Transition Group where it is fairly relevant to list my doctorate (see above for an explanation about expertise) with my personal Google email account. I should perhaps create a Google business email but just haven't got around to it. This is just an interim step in the meantime, that is all. Nothing more than that. It is just  instructive that my dad, who is an educated and intelligent man, processed the Ph.D. listing in a negative light--not granting that it might be much more innocent than that. He assumed an attempt to demean others. The default assumes the highest level of negative intent. This epidemic of anti-authority is deeply rooted in the American Psyche an it is leading, unfortunately, to a diminution of competence. He also said he was weary of looking at pic of my boxers hanging on the clothing rack in the previous blog post. That was a legit point. So, here is something new.