A Personal History of Certification, Teaching and Rebirth

January 13, 2004

Here's our story.

In college we discovered that teaching would be the only satisfying career choice, but as we began taking courses in the College of Education we noticed there was an extraordinarily low signal-to-noise ratio, often times being less than one!

Our skepticism continued after our Bachelor of Science (in Science, not Education), whereupon we enrolled in a Masters program at another University, this one in Education (actually called "Science of Instruction" in an attempt to lend itself credibility).

It was in this two-year program that our indoctrination began in earnest.

We learned that up is down, left is right, and that the reason why our schools are failing is that they aren't progressive enough. We burned incence at the altar of John Dewey, the patron saint of edubabble, and learned that we shouldn't teach subject matter, we should "teach the whole child."

What is especially shocking is that the attitude was that "well, you can learn from history in other disciplines, but not with Education. History just gets it wrong, so you have to go with the theory." That's right, we were actually taught to take precedence of theory over practice, and to reject what history's taught us.

What is really creepy to us now, is that the indoctrination worked. It was brilliant, taking skeptical, practical students and changing core beliefs about education until they matched the party line. (What is amazing is that even after years of teaching in the real world, many teachers still believe the upside-down theories that they were taught in their certification programs! We still did.)

After getting "certified" we began teaching in a middle school in inner-city Philadelphia, where the conduct of the children was appalling. Violence and chaos ruled. The hallways had an unwritten rule: "At least one piece of trash per floor tile." The bathrooms were so covered in graffiti that there were magic marker scrawls inside the urinals, for the simple reason that there was no white space left on the walls.

The principal of the school was an excellent manager . . . of information, that is. So the public never had a clue as to the mind-numbing chaos that went on in our building. Serious incidents weren't reported, and the children were all promoted on schedule.

Water-cooler conversations centered around "if only the parents did this, or if only they were more involved," effectively letting ourselves off the hook for accomplishing next to nothing during the three years the children were with us.

It wasn't all bad. There were pockets of sanity, with individual teachers who were born to be masters of the profession. We don't doubt that real learning went on in those classrooms. But as for the descent into the maelstrom that described the school as a whole, that really was a product of the neighborhood and the parents, we told ourselves.

We found the same mindset at other schools where we've taught, from elementary through high school. It isn't exactly "Blame The Parents! Blame the Neighborhood!" but was more subtle, like "if only we could get better response from the parents," or "if only the kids were more motivated to learn."

We never, ever contemplated that we were the problem, and thus could be, with effort, 100% of the solution.

Then we began planning a charter school, during which time we began doing research into truly effective schools, especially inner-city, high poverty, predominantly minority schools.

Instead of searching for wonderful, innovative programs, we searched for urban school success. Ah, there's the rub!

That was when our deprogramming began in earnest.

In our years of research into effective schooling, we've learned that most folks--at least the folks who talk the loudest--have education reform dead wrong.

The reason why our schools are failing is not because they aren't progressive enough, it is because they are already too progressive already!

Yet time and time again we hear solutions--the exact same solutions that have worked so well in other underfunded, disadvantaged schools--twisted around and served up as the enemy. Meanwhile, the very things that effective schools know to be poison are offered as innovative ways to improve our schools.

Examples of the party line: "We can't teach out of text books." "We shouldn't teach unrelated facts, our curriculum must be integrated." "Everyone uses a calculator in the real world." "You can always just look it up." "The English language is just another tool of oppression for minorities." "Drill and practice stifles children's creativity." "If a kid isn't good in science, let him paint a picture about science instead."

Meanwhile hundreds of schools around the country roll up their sleeves and accomplish the "impossible." They teach using methods the ivory tower educational experts say are harmful to our children, and they outperform their peers.

But few people hear of their success.

Not only do the educational theorists come up with ever-more-sophisticated fiction to explain away school failure, they have numerous mouthpieces repeating the party line, especially with well-funded media campaigns. Thus the public is kept in the dark, because the only message they hear on the airwaves is the message they're "supposed" to hear.

We've had enough.

So, we created ReformK12.

The purpose of our site is to inform parents, teachers administrators, and community members that there is a better way for education reform, and that a huge number of people have it dead wrong when it comes to improving our schools.

Without spending an extra penny, our schools can be transformed into centers of learning. It's not hard to understand, we just need to learn from success.