Education Where One Size Fits All

In ancient Greek mythology, Procrustes was a brute who ran an inn along a traveled road. He had a single bed for weary travelers, and Procrustes boasted how his special bed would perfectly fit every guest. After the sojourner bedded down for the evening, Procrustes would bind the guest to the bed. If the guest was shorter than the bed, he was stretched to fit. And if he was too long, his limbs were amputated and trimmed down to size.

Eventually, Procrustes met his superior in Theseus who fitted Procrustes to his own bed. But being a mythological character, Procrustes did not die. Instead he lingered in hiding for his chance to use his talents again. And after many centuries, he found work drafting educational policy for the government.  Verberans a mortuis equum.

There is little point in me further exposing and condemning those myopic policies that have been publicly ridiculed for over a decade except that nothing seems to change. Moreover, I support testing and accountability. I simply find arbitrary labels of failing to be pointless, especially when they are irrespective of the demographics and socio-economic condition of the school district and its inhabitants. Additionally, I grow weary of the expectation that schools must focus on ensuring all students achieve at a single unrealistic level which ignores high achievers and steals time away from the arts. Finally, I deny as inaccurate and unjust the criticism that schools are not working to stop bullying in the hallways and are instead making all our kids fat solely because of the school lunches we serve in our cafeteria.

I have no call to action with this blog post. I simply needed to vent. I will have something more positive and purposeful next time. 

1 to 1 Laptops Close the Cell Phone Gap

Does not every school have an achievement gap somewhere among its demographics? I know we do. One of those gaps is between the middle class students and those socio-economically disadvantaged--of low socio-economic status (SES).

But there are different gaps between students that are generated by their family's earning potential. There may be a gap in student achievement, sure. There is also a gap in how students dress. And there's a distinct gap between students as shown by their competence and confidence using the latest technology. Nowhere is that gap more evident than students with their cellular telephones.

Although maybe not entirely determined by SES, on top there are the students with the smart phones. They have access to all the data plus really cool apps all day, all the time. Next come the multi-media phones, followed by the standard cell phones and track (pay-as-you-go) phones. Finally comes the huge gap between the haves and the have-nots with no cell phones at all.

When we became a one-to-one laptop school 4-12 this year, our initiative narrowed the technology gap and also the cell phone gap. Suddenly cell phones just are not quite as cool when every student has a much more powerful laptop always beside him/her. Students report far less use of cell phones at school, whether being used openly in the hallways or secretly in class.

Working to close the technology gap between the whole student body and the low SES students has been one of the more rewarding high points of my career.