Teachers have a lot on their plate when it comes to measuring achievement. Student success is determined by assessments, graded materials and even technological savvy. The consensus seems to be that to give K-12 students a fighting chance in the real world, teachers and administrators must stay on top of any and all technology trends. While it’s impossible to use every piece of technology to the students’ advantage, there are some legitimate reasons (aside from the cool factor) that teachers should embrace technology in their classrooms.
At-risk students
Technology has made it possible for students who fall off the traditional path to jump back on and finish what they spent most of their childhood working towards. This may be in the form of taking remote classes from home, remedial classes in on-campus computer labs or even by enrolling in full-time online schools, public or private. The technology available for these options benefits students who face difficulties with a normal school schedule including teenage parents, students with short-term or long-term illnesses, teens with substance abuse struggles, or those who had poor academic performance due to learning disabilities or bullying.
Equality through Technology
Technology is also a great equalizer in K-12 classrooms. Students have the same access as their peers to whatever technology is available in their district and specific classroom. While there is certainly some technology discrepancies between one district and another, often based on the socioeconomic status of the families within that district, within each one, students have fair access to technology. In a way, things like computers and mobile devices in classrooms usher in the technology of the outside world and give students who may not otherwise have access a chance to use it for learning purposes.
Having in-classroom technology more directly impacts the graduation rate by providing customized learning experiences. A student who needs extra help on a particular topic need not hold up the entire class, or feel embarrassed asking for that help when there are computer modules and tablet apps available for individual learning experiences. Teachers who spot a trouble area with a particular student can gear that teen towards more exercises to master the topic. Of course, technology is not the magic wand to fix all problems, but it does allow for more flexibility of the learning process which in turn makes it easier for a wider group of students to stay in classrooms until the end of the K-12 journey.
College Prep
K-12 educators used to have the goal of helping their students reach high school graduation, but now the pressure is on to create students who go on to achieve college goals too. No matter how advanced the technology options in a particular school district, they are dwarfed by the reliance on and widespread use of technology on college campuses. High school students who become acquainted with technology for things like course selection, class management and actual learning modules are better.
Other Technology Perks
There are so many ways that academics are enhanced by technology that simply did not exist ten years ago. Today, students can benefit from online learning modules if a major illness or suspension keeps them at home. For students who are struggling under the academic and social pressures of traditional schooling, online learning provides a way to stay on track from the comforts of home. Online learning is just a brushstroke on the contemporary portrait of learning technology. Within classrooms, teachers can encourage students to work individually on a computer or mobile devices, freeing up some time to work in-person with those who might need the extra attention.
Teachers can also communicate more effectively with parents and students regarding upcoming assignments, supplementary lesson plans, and areas where students could benefit from extra practice. With browser-based technology, and cloud-based options, teachers can provide easy access to information and parents and students can log in at their convenience.
Technology is transforming the teaching process into one that is more interactive as well. Instead of waiting to see how much a student knows at the end of a term, progress can be measured in real-time – and adjustments can be made. Teaching is becoming less instructor-centric and more of a collective process.
What do you think? Did I leave any benefits of classroom technology out?
According to research, schools that make a positive difference in the learning levels are led by principals who make a positive contribution to staff effectiveness and students under their charge. In the 1980s, instructional leadership was often depicted as “hands-on” leadership in classroom matters. The majority of recent studies report that the involvement of principals in classroom instruction are indirect, and carried out through building a school culture and leading by example.
However, most scholars now find that a principal’s impact on student learning is small, but has an important place in statistical data. Even marginal impact is vital to acheiving desired outcomes, because policy makers still use these findings to justify their emphasis on the selection and training of school leaders as a strategy for school improvement. The role of the principal in shaping the school’s vision and mission is described as the most influential “avenue of effects.”
School context has been found to have a significant effect on the success of a principal’s instructional leadership. Instructional leadership effectiveness should be viewed as an independent effort, but also as dependent on the learning environment.
Successful instructional leaders work with other stakeholders to shape the school to fit its mission. Instructional leaders directly influence the quality of school outcomes by aligning the school’s academic standards, timetables, and curriculum, with the school’s mission. Leaders are more effective when they are clear about missions, and manage activities that fall in line with practices needed for effectiveness.
The lack of clarity of the role of the principal in instructional leadership has been a problem. Instructional leadership has rarely defined practices and behaviors that the principal should model, making it hard to determine what needs to be considered for effective instructional leadership. Assigning clear duties to principals will help to ensure instructional leadership is carried out properly. Once principals and school leaders understand their roles, they can begin the task of leading their schools toward higher success.
The annual back-to-school season is filled with high hopes for making new friends, meeting new teachers – and, from the view of many policymakers – promoting gains in science achievement. Scientific learning and research carry substantial economic benefits.
Historically, however, not all groups have excelled in science equally. Black and Hispanic individuals as well as women have been less likely to enter or persist in science-related studies or occupations.
These gaps have been well-studied at the level of high school and higher education. These gaps, however, actually start much earlier.
My recent research found that these gaps exist at the level of kindergarten. However, these gaps can also change significantly in the first two years of schooling.
Large gaps in science
In a recent study, my research assistant, Ann Kellogg, and I examined the science performance of over 10,000 kindergarten students who began school in 2010. We analyzed data from a national study called the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K) conducted by the federal government.
The data included science achievement tests that assessed concepts in physical, life and environmental science as well as scientific inquiry. Examples of science instruction in kindergarten includes studying how plants grow, experimenting with erosion on a water table or constructing a picture of the solar system.
Previous research had examined science gaps in early grades. Our study, however, looked at science gaps as early as kindergarten with newer data and better science achievement tests.
Our study revealed large gaps in science achievement in kindergarten between white students and racial or ethnic minorities. And, where science gaps existed, we found that they were generally larger than the gaps in reading or mathematics achievement. However, we did not find significant gaps by gender.
Achievement gaps are not stagnant
On average, black students and Hispanic students performed significantly lower than white students on the science achievement tests in kindergarten. Approximately 41 percent of black students and 49 percent of Hispanic students scored in the bottom 25 percent. In comparison, only 12 percent of white students were in this category.
The difference in science achievement between black or Hispanic students and white students is roughly equivalent to what an average elementary student learns over a period of nine months between kindergarten and the end of first grade. The gaps between black, Hispanic and white students might be expected given similar gaps in mathematics and reading.
What surprised us was that Asian students in our study performed significantly lower than white students in kindergarten on the science achievement test. Approximately 31 percent of Asian students scored in the bottom 25 percent on the science test. In contrast, only 12 percent of white students did so. This gap was present even though Asian students performed as well as or better than white students in mathematics and reading.
Interestingly, unlike the black-white gap, the science gap between Asian and white students closed rapidly between kindergarten and the end of first grade. In fact, by the end of first grade, the gap had reduced by almost 50 percent.
It’s unclear what causes this rapid decrease in the Asian-white science gap. However, what it does show is that achievement gaps are not stagnant.
Prior research conducted by scholars David Quinn and North Cooc showed similar findings. By eighth grade, Asian student performance in science was equivalent to or higher than that of white students. Other researchers have also found Asian students’ performance in science increases rapidly relative to white students throughout elementary and middle school.
No gender gap
Additionally, we found no difference in science achievement between boys and girls in kindergarten. A small male advantage was evident only in first grade. This too is an important finding given the documented gender gaps in the later grades of elementary school.
Prior work has found that boys outperform girls in science at third grade. Similarly, results from the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) show a male advantage in science in the fourth grade.
Our work shows, however, that these gaps in later grades do not extend back to kindergarten. Instead, boys and girls appear to begin schooling on relatively equal footing when it comes to science achievement. It is only as they progress through school that the gender gap emerges.
Science gaps larger
Finally, we found that the kindergarten gaps by race or ethnicity tend to be larger in science than in mathematics or reading.
For example, on the kindergarten achievement tests, the Hispanic-white gap was about twice as large for science as mathematics or reading. Similarly, the black-white gap was slightly larger in science than in mathematics and was about twice as large as the gap in reading.
It is possible that students lagging behind in math and reading struggle even more in science as it requires the application of language and mathematics to scientific content.
In sum, our findings point to the importance of the early elementary grades for equity in science achievement. We show that many gaps, such as the black-white gap, already exist when students start school. We also show, however, that these gaps can change significantly in the first two years of schooling as evidenced by the Asian-white gap and the emergence of a gender gap.
What’s happening in classrooms?
All this means that the early elementary years may be an appropriate point for addressing inequities in science achievement. However, science instruction has not been a high priority in the early elementary grades.
Recent research comparing kindergarten in 1998 to that in 2010 found that teachers cover fewer science topics than before and students spend less time using science equipment.
Our findings point to the need for increased emphasis on science in kindergarten and first grade. I believe, for example, that teachers and school leaders should look for opportunities to incorporate science concepts into reading and math lessons.
Looking beyond the classroom setting, the findings of our work and that of others suggest the need to provide support to informal science learning opportunities. Visiting museums, interacting with nature and exploring novel tools all represent ways in which parents and caregivers can support early science inquiry.
Science achievement gaps begin early. It is important that our policies and interventions take steps in those early years to ensure increased science achievement for all.
As children head back to school, an increasing number of their homeschooled peers will be starting their academic year as well. Homeschooling in the United States is growing at a strong pace.
Recent statistics indicate that 1.5 million children were homeschooled in the United States in 2007. This is up significantly from 1.1 million children in 2003 and 850,000 children in 1999.
The homeschooling movement first emerged in earnest during the 1980s. Back then it was largely led by evangelical Christians. But as the movement has grown, it has also changed. Today’s homeschooling families may increasingly welcome cooperation with their local public school districts.
In my own research, I have seen how diverse homeschoolers now are. This diversity challenges any simplistic understanding of what homeschooling is and what impact it will have on the public school system.
So how do we understand this evolution in American education?
Early trends
In fact, homeschooling was common up until the late 19th century. Most children received a substantial part of their education within the home. In the late 19th century, states started passing compulsory attendance laws. These laws compelled all children to attend public schools or a private alternative. In this way, education outside the home became the norm for children.
It was in the 1970s that American educator John Holt emerged as a proponent of homeschooling. He challenged the notion that the formal school system provided the best place for children to learn. Slowly, small groups of parents began to remove their children from the public schools.
By the 1980s, homeschooling families had emerged as an organized public movement. During that decade, more than 20 states legalized homeschooling. For the most part, evangelical Christians led these battles. Organizations such as the Home School Legal Defense Association, founded in 1983, provided the necessary legal and financial backing for these families.
At the time, homeschooling was seen to be in conflict with secular school systems. Religious parents came to define the public face of the homeschooling.
Reasons for homeschooling
Today, homeschooling is becoming part of the mainstream. It is legal in all 50 states. In addition, a growing number of states are making attempts to engage the homeschooled population for at least part of the day.
For example, 28 states do not prevent homeschooled students from participating in public school interscholastic sports. At least 15 more states are considering “Tim Tebow Laws” – named after the homeschooled athlete – that would allow homeschoolers access to school sports.
The overall homeschool movement is also much more diverse. For example, sociologists Philip Q. Yang and Nihan Kayaardi argue that the homeschool population does not significantly differ from the general U.S. population. Put another way, it is not really possible to assume anything about the religious beliefs, political affiliations or financial status of homeschooling families anymore.
Data from the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) provide further corroboration. In 2008, the NCES found that only 36 percent of the homeschooling families in their survey chose “the desire for religious or moral instruction” as their primary reason for their decision to homeschool. At the same time, other reasons, such as a concern about the school environment, were just as important to many homeschool families.
A new generation of homeschooled children
So, what are the reasons behind this expansion of the homeschool movement?
My research shows that this has been fueled, at least in part, by changes in the public school system. For example, changes in technology have brought about the rise of online charter schools, which utilize remote online instruction to serve their students.
This means that more students are educated in their home at public expense. California, Ohio and Pennsylvania have led the way in this regard. In 2006, it was estimated that 11 percent of Pennsylvania’s charter schools had online instruction. What is noteworthy is that 60 percent of the students in these schools had previously been homeschooled.
In addition, homeschoolers in states such as Michigan have access to public school interscholastic sports. That’s not all. They can, in addition, opt to take certain public school offerings.
For example, homeschoolers can choose to attend school for part of the day, and take Advanced Placement courses in any range of subjects. Such courses are popular with many families because they allow students to earn college credit while still in high school.
Changing face of homeschoolers
Discussions about whether homeschooling is good for children can be emotionally charged. Some scholars are critical about the increasing number of homeschoolers, while some others view homeschooling in a different light.
They believe that homeschooling families are more responsive to a child’s individual needs and interests. They may be better at taking advantage of learning experiences that naturally arise in home and community life.
Indeed, in my own work as a teacher educator, I have come across parents who have chosen to homeschool their children for reasons that are not entirely religious. These include two public school teachers with whom I work. Reasons for parents could range from concern over food allergies, special needs, racism or just that their child might be interested in a career in athletics or the arts.
Given all these changes, it may be time for public educators and policymakers – both so desperate to increase parental participation – to reassess who and what represents the homeschooling movement of today.
This political season, citizens will be determining who will represent them in the government. This, of course, includes deciding who will be the next president, but also who will serve in thousands of less prominent positions.
But is voting the only job of a citizen? And if there are others, what are they? Who decides who will do the other jobs – and how they should be done?
The concept of “civic intelligence” tries to address such questions.
I’ve been researching and teaching the concept of “civic intelligence” for over 15 years. Civic intelligence can help us understand how decisions in democratic societies are made now and, more importantly, how they could be made in the future.
For example, my students and I used civic intelligence as the focus for comparing colleges and universities. We wanted to see how well schools helped educate their students for civic engagement and social innovation and how well the schools themselves supported this work within the broader community.
So what is civic intelligence? And why does it matter?
Understanding civic intelligence
Civic intelligence describes what happens when people work together to address problems efficiently and equitably. It’s a wide-ranging concept that shows how positive change happens. It can be applied anywhere – from the local to the global – and could take many forms.
For example, civic intelligence was seen in practice when representatives of the world’s governments created and unanimously approved a global action plan last year in Paris. While climate change remains an immense threat, this global cooperation involving years of dedicated debate and discussion produced a common framework for action for worldwide reduction of greenhouse gases.
Civic intelligence describes when people work together to address problems. Takver, CC BY-SA
Another example is that of mayors around the world establishing networks such as the Global Parliament of Mayors to bring elected officials together on a regular basis to discuss issues facing cities, such as housing, transportation and air quality. One of these networks, the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, was launched when representatives of the world’s 40 largest cities wanted to collaborate to address climate change.
Similarly, millions of researchers, teachers, artists, other individuals and NGOs worldwide are working to improve their cities and communities. These efforts are amazingly diverse.
In one such case, groups of church members and others from the community in Olympia, Washington, worked for several years with homeless people and families to develop affordable housing solutions. And in Brooklyn, a group of young people started an experimental School of the Future to develop their ideas on what schools could or should be.
What’s the history?
The term “civic intelligence” was first used in English in 1898 by an American clergyman Josiah Strong in his book “The Twentieth Century City” when he wrote of a “dawning social self-consciousness.”
Untold numbers of people have been thinking and practicing civic intelligence without using the term. A brief look at some notable efforts reveals some historic approaches to its broader vision. Let’s take a few:
John Dewey, the prominent social scientist, educator and public intellectual, was absorbed for much of his long professional life with understanding how people pool their knowledge to address the issues facing them.
The American activist and reformer Jane Addams, who in 1889 cofounded the Hull House in Chicago, which housed recent immigrants from Europe, pioneered scores of civically intelligent efforts. These included free lectures on current events, Chicago’s first public playground and a wide range of cultural, political and community research activities.
Civic intelligence today
There are more contemporary approaches as well. These include:
With a slightly different lens, researcher Jason Corburn has examined how “ordinary” people in economically underprivileged neighborhoods have used “Street Science” to understand and reduce disease and environmental degradation in their communities.
Elinor Ostrom, recently awarded the Nobel Prize in economics, has studied how groups of people from various times and places managed resources such as fishing grounds, woodlots and pastures by working together collectively to preserve the livelihoods’ sources for future generations.
Making use of civic intelligence
Civic intelligence is generally an attribute of groups. It’s a collective capability to think and work together.
Advocates and practitioners of civic intelligence (as well as many others) note that the risks of the 21st century, which include climate change, environmental destruction and overpopulation, are quantitatively and qualitatively unlike the risks of prior times. They hypothesize that these risks are unlikely to be addressed satisfactorily by government and other leaders without substantial citizen engagement.
Civic intelligence reminds us that citizens assume responsibility. Gonzale, CC BY-NC
They argue that with or without formal invitations, the citizen must assume more responsibility for the state of the world, especially since in some cases the leaders themselves are part of the problem.
“Ordinary” people could bring many civic skills to the public sphere, such as innovation, compassion and heroism that are indispensable to the decision-making processes.
The civics classes that are required in the public schools mostly focus on conventional political processes. They might teach about governance in a more conventional way, such as how many senators there are (100) or how long their terms are (six years). But self-governance needs more than that.
At a basic level, “governance” happens when neighborhood groups, nonprofit organizations or a few friends come together to help address a shared concern.
Their work can take many forms, including writing, developing websites, organizing events or demonstrations, petitioning, starting organizations and, even, performing tasks that are usually thought of as “jobs for the government.”
As a discipline, civic intelligence provides a broad focus that incorporates ideas and findings from many fields of study. It involves people from all walks of life, different cultures and circumstances.
A focus on civic intelligence could lead directly to social engagement. I believe understanding civic intelligence could help address the challenges we must face today and tomorrow.
In what might be the most contentious election campaign season yet, the main presidential candidates seem to agree on at least one issue – that the policy around child care for American families needs improvement.
Donald Trump has said he would expand tax credits to enable families to better afford child care, and Hillary Clinton has expressed her commitment to expanding access to high-quality, affordable child care.
We are professors and researchers of social policy. We too struggled to find and afford high-quality care for our children. Our difficulties led us to examine U.S. child care policy in “In Our Hands: The Struggle for U.S. Child Care Policy.” Like us, most families in the U.S. struggle to find quality, affordable child care.
The U.S. has a long history of child care policy initiatives. What can we learn from history to improve the possibility of creating a national child care policy that works?
The early years
U.S. child care began as a charity enterprise in the late 19th century when settlement houses – which provided services and education in poor communities – opened nurseries to keep the children of factory workers in urban industrial centers safe while their mothers toiled.
The first government-sponsored child care was not created until the World War II era. During that time the iconic symbol of a working woman, Rosie the Riveter, was created as part of a propaganda campaign to encourage women to join the paid labor force to assist in the war effort.
Legislation known as the Lanham Act was passed to support the war industry. As part of this legislation, US$52 million was provided from 1943-1946 to subsidize high-quality, full-day, year-round child care for up to six days a week.
The child care supported by these funds enabled women to work when their country needed them. It was short-lived. This funding ended in 1946 and women were sent home to give up their jobs to returning veterans.
Federal policies post war
Until the mid 1960s – close to 20 years – child care did not receive much attention. In 1965, the early childhood program Head Start was created to support part-time preschool programs for low-income children between three and five years old.
This program was part of President Lyndon Johnson’s effort to address some of the educational gaps experienced by economically disadvantaged children when they began school. Head Start continues today. Its programs have been expanded to include support for pregnant women and low-income children from birth to age three as well as children with disabilities.
Need for child care grew as more women entered the workforce. Donnie Ray Jones, CC BY
Feminists, unions and employers came together to support the legislation. These proponents used arguments that noted the unfairness of forcing parents to choose between work and family obligations.
veto, Nixon played on Cold War fears that public child care would “Sovietize” American families. He said it would,
“commit the vast moral authority of the National Government to the side of communal approaches to child rearing over against the family-centered approach.”
The 1980s
For over 30 years following Nixon’s veto, little effort was made to create broad national policies to address the universal child care needs of U.S. families.
For example, in 1988 the Act for Better Childcare Services (ABC), a less comprehensive bill, was introduced by Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd and Republican Senator John Chafee to address the child care needs of low-income families.
During the legislative hearings for ABC, advocates, including parents, state legislators and administrators, and representatives of both liberal and conservative interest groups pointed to the growing body of research that showed the importance of quality education on childhood development. They also argued that workers who had stable child care would be more productive and less likely to leave their jobs.
Initially, this bill passed both chambers of Congress. Due to technical difficulties, however, it needed to pass the House again. Instead of returning the bill to the House, a series of compromises led to the creation of the Child Care Development Block Care Grant, which provided funds to states for child care for low-income families. More recently, funds have also been provided to improve safety and quality of child care.
However, both had limitations. The funds that were provided through PRWORA supported only the child care needs of low-income families.
While the FMLA is not limited by income level, it provides only 12 weeks of unpaid leave for parents who adopt or give birth to a child, as well as for parents or guardians caring for sick relatives, including children (or themselves). These benefits are available only to employees who have worked 1,250 hours in the past 12 months for companies that employ at least 50 employees.
With the exception of some minimal tax credits that were created in the 1950s and have not kept pace with inflation, existing federal child care policies (as discussed above) only help parents in temporary and extreme circumstances: birth, ill health and temporary poverty. They do not meet the regular and ongoing needs of working families.
A window of opportunity?
Child care needs cut across gender, race, socioeconomic status, party lines, geography and ideologies. The current interest in child care demonstrated by both major presidential candidates could provide a rare opportunity for bipartisan agreement.
What can we learn from this history?
In this election, both Chelsea Clinton and Ivanka Trump have issued public statements indicating that their parents understand that government has a role to play in helping parents access child care.
Advocates need to develop a broad-based support, which includes hearing all voices, such as those of child care workers. U.S. Army, CC BY
History also tells us that unless we can come together to create a universal policy that will serve all American families, we may be left with one more piece in a patchwork of policies that fails to address the overarching needs of most working families.
We believe there is a window of opportunity to develop broad-based support not only across party lines but across sectors – business, faith organizations, feminists, employers and unions.
Advocates could take advantage of this. A coalition, cutting across party lines, could work together to create a clear agenda around child care policy. Child care providers have been an undervalued low-wage workforce for far too long. They too need to be heard, as they are an important voice within this coalition.
The question is, this time around, could a divided Congress be persuaded to cooperate around this shared issue despite a history of gridlock?
Tens of thousands of American schools have some form of school garden. Many are located on school grounds and others are run by external community partners. Most are connected to the school’s curriculum. For instance, seeds are used in science class to explain plant biology, fruits are used in social studies to teach world geography and the harvest is used in math to explore weights and measures. Some even incorporate food from the garden into the school lunch.
As a researcher and an activist, I’ve spent the better part of the last decade working to promote a healthy, equitable and sustainable food system. Through this process, I have heard bold claims made about the power of garden-based learning to meet these challenges.
School gardens claim a variety of benefits.
Given the enthusiasm that surrounds garden-based learning today, it’s worth taking stock of their overall impacts: Do school gardens actually improve the education and health of young people?
Promoting school gardens
School gardens have become a favorite strategy of prominent advocates in the “Good Food Movement.” Both celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and First Lady Michelle Obama have been vocal supporters.
Nonprofit and grassroots groups, who see these gardens as a way to provide fresh produce for the food insecure, have forged partnerships with local schools. Then there are service-based groups, such as FoodCorps, whose members spend one year in a low-income community to help establish gardens and develop other school food initiatives.
Philanthropic organizations like the American Heart Association have also sponsored the construction of hundreds of new school garden plots.
Taken together, upwards of 25 percent of public elementary schools in the United States include some form of garden-based learning. School garden projects are located in every region of the country and serve students of all ages, ethnic backgrounds and socioeconomic classes.
Many proponents go even further, suggesting that garden-based learning can inspire a variety of healthy changes for the whole family, helping to reverse the so-called obesity epidemic.
Others, like Edible Schoolyard founder Alice Waters, argue that experience in the garden can have a transformative impact on a child’s worldview, making sustainability “the lens through which they see the world.”
Sure, gardens can help
There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that garden-based learning does yield educational, nutritional, ecological and social benefits.
For example, several published studies have shown that garden-based learning can increase students’ science knowledge and healthy food behaviors. Other research has shown that garden-based learning can help students better identify different types of vegetables as well as lead to more favorable opinions on eating vegetables.
In general, qualitative case studies of garden-based learning have been encouraging, providing narratives of life-changing experiences for children and teachers alike.
Do gardens improve the intake of fresh foods and fruit? RubyDW, CC BY
However, when it comes to actually increasing the amount of fresh foods eaten by young people, improving their health outcomes or shaping their overall environmental attitudes, quantitative results have tended to show modest gains at best. Some of the most highly developed school garden programs have been able to increase student vegetable consumption by about a serving per day. But the research has not been able to show whether these gains are maintained over time.
A lack of definitive evidence has led some critics to argue that school gardens are simply not worth the time and investment, especially for lower-income students who could be concentrating on more traditional college prep studies.
The social critic Caitlin Flanagan has gone so far as to say that garden programs are a distraction that could create a “permanent, uneducated underclass.”
There are no magic carrots
There is no doubt that the power of garden-based learning is sometimes overstated.
Particularly when describing garden projects in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color, popular narratives imply that a child’s time in the garden will rescue her from a life of poverty and chronic disease.
I call this the “magic carrot” approach to garden-based learning. But as we all know, there are no magic carrots growing in the school garden.
For gardens to effectively promote learning and health, they must be supported and reinforced by the community as a whole. Surveys of school garden practitioners show that garden programs have serious potential to enhance school and neighborhood life – but only if certain conditions are met.
Notably, school gardens are most successful when they are not held afloat by a single dedicated teacher. Instead, multiple involved stakeholders can ensure that a garden doesn’t dry up after only a season or two.
For example, participation from administrators, families and neighborhood partners can turn a school garden into a dynamic and sustainable community hub.
Many experienced practitioners have also shown that garden-based learning is more powerful when its curriculum reflects the cultural backgrounds of the young people it serves. When children of Mexican descent grow indigenous varieties of corn, or when African-American youth cultivate collard greens, the process of growing food can become a process of self-discovery and cultural celebration.
In other words, if kids grow kale, they might eat kale, but only if kale is available in their neighborhood, if their family can afford to buy kale and if they think eating kale is relevant to their culture and lifestyle.
Creating valuable green space
As my own research has highlighted, there are organizations and schools across the country that incorporate garden-based learning into broader movements for social, environmental and food justice.
These groups recognize that school gardens alone will not magically fix the problems our nation faces. But as part of a long-term movement to improve community health, school gardens can provide a platform for experiential education, create valuable green space and foster a sense of empowerment in the minds and bodies of young Americans.
Children across the U.S. have now returned to school. Many of these children are going to schools with sworn police officers patrolling the hallways. These officers, usually called school resource officers, are placed in schools across the country to help maintain school safety.
According to the most recent data reported by the Department of Education, police or security guards were present in 76.4 percent of U.S. public high schools in the 2009-2010 school year.
In many of these schools, police officers are being asked to deal with a range of issues that are very different from traditional policing duties, such as being a mental health counselor for a traumatized child. This is an unfair request.
Days after the recent tragedy in Dallas, for example, as he grieved for the five slain officers, Dallas Police Chief David Brown referred to this problem when he said,
“We’re asking cops to do too much in this country… Every societal failure, we put it off on the cops to solve. Not enough mental health funding, let the cops handle it. … Schools fail, let’s give it to the cops. … ”
For the past decade I have been studying how we police schools and punish students. My recent book, “The Real School Safety Problem,” and a growing bodyof other studies point to the fact that, indeed, schools ask police to do too much in schools.
Not only is it unfair to the police, it can be harmful for children.
Policing schools
Though there are no national data collected on exactly how many police officers are in schools, estimates suggest that the practice became popular in the early 1990s, as society began to rethink policing and punishment in the community outside of schools. That resulted in more rigorous policing practices and expansion of our prison system.
However, for over 20 years, school crime has been plummeting. Between 1993 and 2010 the number of students who reportedly became victims of a violent crime at school decreased by 82 percent. Since most schools are now safe places, officers in them aren’t needed to respond to many crimes.
So they are being asked to do many other tasks.
Most schools are safe places, so officers are asked to do other tasks. Eduardo Munoz/Reuters
There are no national data on what officers do while at schools. But studies in specific schools find that officers are being asked to deal with mental health problems, family crises, self-injurious behavior and manifestation of childhood trauma. They also mentor students and teach law-related courses.
Every jurisdiction makes its own decision about what officers should do in schools, and the training that they should receive to work in schools. The National Association of School Resource Officers does offer a week-long basic training course. That training does include a component on counseling and mentoring youth, but it is not clear how comprehensive the sessions are. Moreover, not all officers are required to take the course.
But students’ mental health and other problems are, not surprisingly, often beyond the skills gained from a week-long course. Even if they are trained, police officers are not mental health professionals whose years of training and practice teach them how to calm youth down, assess mental health needs and address the underlying causes of student misbehavior.
What are the consequences?
I have found in my prior research that the presence of officers can change the school environment in subtle ways – from one that focuses on children’s social, emotional and academic needs to one focusing on policing potentialcriminals.
For example, in one school I observed what happened when a student overdosed on multiple bottles of cough syrup. Rather than the school seeing this as a mental health issue or suicide attempt, the school turned to its “go to” person for handling difficult student issues: the officer.
After dealing with the initial emergency and ensuring the child went to the hospital, the officer’s (and thus the school’s) only response was to investigate what crime the child could be charged with, not what help he needed.
Other research, too, shows that the presence of police in schools can result in increased arrests of students for minor behaviors. For example, a 2013 study by criminologists Chongmin Na and Denise C. Gottfredson found that schools that added police officers subsequently saw more weapons and drug crimes, and a larger number of minor offenses reported to the police.
A 2016 study by University of Florida law professor Jason P. Nance found that the presence of a police officer predicted greater likelihood that student misbehaviors would result in an arrest.
Who gets hurt?
Childhood trauma is often a cause of serious childhood misconduct. Black and Latino students are at a greater risk than white students of having experienced childhood trauma. Youth of color are also more likely than white youth to attend schools with police officers. This means that students of color, who may have greater need for mental health care than white youth, are instead dealt with by police officers who are untrained or insufficiently trained in responding to trauma.
African-American boys are arrested at school more often than other students. North Charleston, CC BY-SA
It is therefore not surprising that recent research from the University of Chicago Consortium found that the arrest rate in Chicago for African-American boys was twice as high as that for students in the school district, overall.
Policing can be counterproductive
Police officers in schools often serve as mentors and role models. For example, the officer I described above – who looked to charge a potentially suicidal student with a crime – had volunteered to work in a school because of his desire to help kids. He took time to advise youth and be a positive influence in the lives of many. Often students would come to his office to ask for advice, and just “check in.” He would respond with care and compassion.
Though there is no sound evidence that police officers in schools prevent crime, it would be reasonable in my view to place officers in those few schools where there is violence. Despite steep declines in school violence, nationally, there are some schools where teachers and students face frequent threats of violence.
Having said that, the cost of the daily presence of police outweighs the benefit in the majority of schools. For example, the officer I describe above as a caring counselor and role model switched roles dramatically when he thought a crime might have been committed.
Then he would act like any traditional officer focused only on law and order. In those moments, he failed to address the underlying cause of the problem. By relying on him as the primary responder to student problems, the school replaced a focus on social issues and mental health with a focus on law enforcement.
The result is that children do not receive the help they need, and officers are placed in a no-win position by being asked to respond to students’ needs as if they had the same training as a mental health professional.
The fact is, policing alone cannot solve all societal problems.
At the root of many of these issues are complex sociological reasons. For example, there is good reason to believe that the rising mortality among white Americans is related to the declining economic fortunes of white working-class men over the past four decades.
But how is the general public to understand these issues? And how are they to know how best to respond to such concerns?
Surely, hundreds, if not thousands, of articles and university press books could provide insights. The problem is this bounty of expert knowledge can hardly be accessed by the general public, politicians or practitioners.
I am the director of the Public Engagement Project at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I lead a peer mentoring group that provides training to scholars on how to be public intellectuals, work with practitioners and policymakers, and influence social change.
But the challenge is that such public engagement does not count within the academy. Faculty evaluations rarely consider articles written for the popular media.
Now, in a move of far-reaching significance, the American Sociological Association aims to start a conversation among university scholars and administrators about how to include “public communication” in the assessment of a scholar’s contributions.
I see this report as critical. When we include public communication – not just peer-reviewed scholarly communication – in evaluating faculty, we encourage them to share their knowledge with the members of society who could most benefit from it.
The problem
It was late in my Ph.D. training at the University of California Berkeley that it dawned on me how the knowledge produced in my discipline was not getting out of the proverbial ivory tower.
During a heated argument about the American economy, my brother took issue with my assertion that for many Americans real wages had stagnated since the late 1970s.
The year was 2000 – before the 2008 recession, before Occupy Wall Street, before Bernie Sanders. The changes in the economy and the social policies that had for decades been driving the stagnation at the bottom of the income distribution and growth at the top were well-established within sociology.
But it was not so well-known outside of the discipline. The reaction of my well-educated, well-read and normally agreeable brother attested to that.
It was at that moment that I realized that the fruits of my profession – all those painstakingly researched facts and carefully considered analyses – were not reaching even reasonably well-informed people.
Since cofounding the Public Engagement Project in 2007, I have seen this problem over and over again. Crucial research-based information on, for instance, housing discrimination, health impacts of chemicals in our everyday environment or the causes and consequences of health inequities, remains largely unknown to the outside public and politicians. This is information that could inform and have an impact on policy.
So, how did we end up in this situation?
There are many forces at play. An important one is that research universities only reward peer-reviewed research. They do not teach scholars – or count the time it takes – to communicate with anyone else.
Where are the academics?
This disconnect between research – often publicly funded – and the society that stands to benefit from it has not gone unnoticed.
For example, in 2014, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof called on faculty to make their voices heard. In his column “Professors, We Need You!”, Kristoff wrote,
“Some of the smartest thinkers on problems at home and around the world are university professors, but most of them just don’t matter in today’s great debates.”
Scholars such as Steven Pinker and Jill Lepore have argued that faculty must learn to seize, rather than shy away from, the power of story and idiom. Such creative tools need not diminish heft, as professors often fear. Instead, they can help communicate complexity.
In fact, many initiatives inside and outside the academy are now seeking to address the absence of professors in public dialogue and debate.
The National Science Foundation requires grantees to spell out the “broader impacts” of projects. And private foundations are supporting new channels of communication between academics and decision-makers. Other initiatives, all over the country, are aiming to shore up the public communication capacities of scholars, including this very publication, The Conversation.
A challenge though has been our disciplinary training which emphasizes “methodological and theoretical” contributions. That makes it hard for us to explain the broad significance of our work to noninitiates.
Academics can become mired in academic jargon, or just fall silent.
But like any new skill, mastering writing for the public requires community, commitment, courage, and a lot of practice.
The Public Engagement Project at the University of Massachusetts offers an example of crucial peer support. A group of seven to nine faculty, drawn from across the disciplines, engage each year in peer mentoring of colleagues during a semester-long Public Engagement Project Faculty Fellowship.
Why it matters
The process of learning a new language can be humbling. But the benefits are tangible.
For example, one Fellow, who prepared a policy memo to share with lawmakers, was asked to provide scientific advice to her national senator. Her public outreach also resulted in her appointment to the U.S. EPA’s Science Advisory Board.
In another example, a general interest article written by a chemistry professor reached more readers than the scholar had in all the preceding decades of work.
The benefits of taking work to a lay audience are significant. PopTech, CC BY-SA
In my own work on adolescent sexuality, culture and families, I have found that my articles for general audiences resulted in much greater visibility for my academic publications.
Furthermore, as a result of writing for practitioners and lay readers, new ideas emerged for future research projects, and other opportunities came up for public engagement.
What was most rewarding was that I found a way to reach parents with information that could improve their relationships with their teenage children.
A significant benefit that I have seen in my work with the Public Engagement Project Fellows is that it helps scholars clarify their thinking. In a recent article, researchers Jonathan Wai and David Miller report similarly:
“not only did the process [of writing for the public] improve the quality of our writing, but it also brought more clarity to the way we were thinking about scientific problems.”
We know faculty public engagement matters for society. From my experience, I also also know that it matters for individual faculty. They report a greater sense of purpose, fulfillment, a better mastery of their topic area and new chances for future funding.
But does the public engagement work they do – the hours they spent crafting an op-ed or a policy brief, and cultivating relationships with policymakers, practitioners or the news office – matter in the eyes of those tasked with assessing their productivity and their value?
The answer all too often is no.
That is where, the American Sociological Association’s August 20 report, “What Counts?,“ comes in. The report draws attention to the place where the rubber meets the road in any academic’s career – namely, the process of being granted tenure. The report proposes that universities consider how to include the work of faculty who engage in public communication in tenure and promotion cases and in overall faculty assessment.
Tenure is the make-or-break of academic life – a process through which a faculty member either gets promoted or loses a job. What counts in this process are publications in peer-reviewed journals or university press books.
Public communication is seen, at best, as a nice, but unnecessary bonus.
Research matters
“What Counts” does not tell individual sociologists, members of tenure and promotion committees, or administrators that faculty should engage in public communication.
What it does is recognize that many faculty do already engage in public communications, and that such work has much to contribute to the world and the discipline.
It urges leaders in the discipline to start a conversation about counting this work in tenure and promotion. It outlines three criteria for evaluation: The first criterion is the content of the writing. The second is quality and rigor. And the third is public impact.
Finally, the ASA report notes that women and minority scholars are less likely to gain access to high-status news outlets and more likely to be attacked when they take public positions on contentious issues.
So, “What Counts?” also asks the question of “Who Counts?”
For when we return to such pressing issues, like the rise of Donald Trump and the Black Lives Matter movement, what stands out is the question of whose voice counts and who feels not heard. This question pertains not only to people in the streets and at the rallies, but also to experts.
Research matters. It can help us understand and act in the world – in a more informed way.
When First Lady Michelle Obama reminded Americans during the Democratic National Convention that she lives in a house literally built by slaves, it once again sparked discussion of slavery in the United States’ history.
The White House is not the only famous building built by enslaved African-Americans. Slaves and the wealth created by their forced labor were used to build many American institutions. For example, the Smithsonian Institution’s storied “castle” was built using limestone quarried by slaves. Universities too benefited from slavery and enslaved labor.
We are slavery scholars who are attempting a challenging task – helping recover the lost stories of those individuals who built some of America’s oldest institutions.
Building schools with slavery
Donors made rich by the products of slave labor endowed schools in the North and South. Sometimes those donors willed enslaved laborers to schools and to churches. That is how a religious order – the Jesuits – ended up as owner of hundreds of enslaved humans in Maryland in the 1830s.
The sale of humans to endow Georgetown is only one of the most dramatic examples of how wealth made from slavery supported education and universities. In some years the vast majority of students at the University of Alabama came from slave-owning families. Even at less elite southern colleges, more than 50 percent of students came from slave-owning families.
The profits from slavery funded education. Indeed, this was often an explicit part of the wills left behind by slave owners. For example, when one Alabama slave owner, Absalom Morton, died in 1845, his will instructed that his slave, David, be rented out and the profits used for his cousin’s education.
Faculty, too, owned enslaved African-Americans.
For instance, Frederick Barnard, the namesake of Barnard College in New York City, owned several female slaves when he was the chancellor of the University of Mississippi before the Civil War.
Schools did their part to promote slavery as well. For example, in 1825 when slave owner John Robinson died, Washington College (now known as Washington and Lee University) in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley inherited about 80 people from him.
This is the story we’ve been looking to tell: Robinson instructed the college to not sell the slaves for 50 years. He further instructed that the “strictest regard be paid to (the slaves’) comfort and happiness.”
But when the college found that renting them proved a burden, it sold about 50 of them to Samuel Garland of Lynchburg, Virginia for about $US20,000.00, roughly $500,000 in today’s dollars.
Robinson Monument, Washington and Lee. Alfred Brophy, CC BY
What happened to the Washington College slaves?
Samuel Garland bought these slaves to work on his family land in Hinds County, Mississippi. So, Washington College’s slaves most likely walked from their home near the James River in Lexington, Virginia, down through Knoxville and then on to the Garland land in Mississippi, a journey of around 800 miles.
Robinson Hall, Washington and Lee University. Alfred Brophy, CC BY
Samuel Garland made a fortune in Mississippi off enslaved labor. But like many who made their fortunes in the deep South, he used his money to live in Virginia. He built a mansion on “Garland Hill” in Lynchburg. By the time of his death in 1861, Samuel Garland had slaves on two plantations in Hinds County and another one in Coahoma County.
Rebuilding lost histories
But no one should forget that these are just dramatic vignettes about a system that held millions in bondage.
Hundreds of thousands of humans were sold as chattel and moved from the upper South to the lower South of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana before the Civil War. Families were ripped apart and tremendous efforts were exerted to reunite after emancipation.
Millions were held in bondage. Slave quarters at the Whitney Plantation in Wallace, Louisiana. Edmund Fountain/Reuters
What happened to those families?
Last year, Georgetown started to track down the descendants of those enslaved people who were sold by the Jesuits. This spring they found some of the descendants of those people sold nearly 200 ago. Many live in Louisiana and some have retained the Catholic faith of their ancestors.
The New York Times editorial board suggested one form of repair should be scholarships for descendants who attend Georgetown. Georgetown’s president has met with some descendants and is listening to their ideas about how best to acknowledge and repair this legacy.
That leads to questions about other schools, too. What happened to those dozens of enslaved African-Americans who were forced to leave their homes and walk 800 miles to labor on Garland’s plantations?
What did it mean to be torn away from family and friends? To be uprooted after the promise of remaining near all they knew?
Looking for descendants
We are writing about this in part because we want to remind people that there are many such stories of slavery and uprooting, of pain and sorrow, of perseverance and strength.
Legacy of slavery: statues of child slaves at the Whitney Plantation in Wallace, Louisiana. Edmund Fountain/Reuters
In the stories of a few we can trace the trajectory of our nation’s history, reconnect families and attempt to confront the demons of our collective pasts. If we wait any longer these memories and connections will be lost.
Many don’t want to remember. And that is understandable.
As historians we want to provide maps for those who do want to know now, and for those who will want to know in the future.
We are looking for people who are descended from those enslaved African-Americans once owned by John Robinson, then by Washington College and later by the Garland family. In an effort to capture any memories passed down through the generations, and to possibly reconnect relatives, we want to interview anyone who knows anything about these people and their families.
If you or anyone you know is willing to speak with us please contact us at [email protected].
The growing popularity of culturally responsive instruction is slowly causing traditional trends to be reversed. Teachers are increasingly being expected to adapt to the demands of a multicultural classroom. Given the wealth of diversity in our nation’s public schools, it is no wonder that instructional theory is advocating a shift toward a pedagogy that emphasizes a comfortable and academically enriching environment for students of all ethnicities, races, beliefs, and creeds.
Culturally responsive pedagogy is a student-centered approach to teaching in which the students’ unique cultural strengths are identified and nurtured to promote student achievement and a sense of well-being about the student’s cultural place in the world.
Given that a majority of teachers hail from a middle class European-American background, the biggest obstacle to successful culturally responsive instruction for most educators is disposing of their own cultural biases and learning about the backgrounds of the students that they will be teaching. A common side effect of being raised in the dominant European-American culture is the self-perception that “I’m an American; I don’t have a culture.”
Of course this is view is inaccurate; European-American culture simply dominates social and behavioral norms and policies to such an extent that those who grow up immersed in it can be entirely unaware of the realities of other cultures. A related misconception that many teachers labor under is that they act in a race-blind fashion. However, most teachers greatly overestimate their knowledge about other cultures, which manifests itself in a lack of cultural sensitivity in classroom management and pedagogical techniques.
Here are a few practical techniques to avoid those common pitfalls and become a culturally responsive teacher in an era where this is a necessity:
Get your students’ names right. It may sound simple enough, but a teacher who does not take the time to even know the names of his or her students, exactly as they should be pronounced, shows a basic lack of respect for those students. Teachers should learn the proper pronunciation of student names and express interest in the etymology of interesting and diverse names.
Encourage students to learn about each other. Teachers should have their students research and share information about their ethnic background as a means of fostering a trusting relationship with both fellow classmates. Students are encouraged to analyze and celebrate differences in traditions, beliefs, and social behaviors. It is of note that this task helps European-American students realize that their beliefs and traditions constitute a culture as well, which is a necessary breakthrough in the development of a truly culturally responsive classroom.
Give students a voice. Another important requirement for creating a nurturing environment for students is reducing the power differential between the instructor and students. Students in an authoritarian classroom may sometimes display negative behaviors as a result of a perceived sense of social injustice; in the culturally diverse classroom, the teacher thus acts more like a facilitator than an instructor. Providing students with questionnaires about what they find to be interesting or important provides them with a measure of power over what they get to learn and provides them with greater intrinsic motivation and connectedness to the material. Allowing students to bring in their own reading material and present it to the class provides them with an opportunity to both interact with and share stories, thoughts, and ideas that are important to their cultural and social perspective.
Be aware of language constraints. In traditional classrooms, students who are not native English speakers often feel marginalized, lost, and pressured into discarding their original language in favor of English. In a culturally responsive classroom, diversity of language is celebrated and the level of instructional materials provided to non-native speakers is tailored to their level of English fluency. Accompanying materials should be provided in the student’s primary language and the student should be encouraged to master English.
Hand out praise accordingly. High expectations for student performance form the core of the motivational techniques used in culturally responsive instruction. Given that culturally responsive instruction is a student-centered philosophy, it should come as no surprise that expectations for achievement are determined and assigned individually for each student. Students don’t receive lavish praise for simple tasks but do receive praise in proportion to their accomplishments. When expectations are not met then encouragement is the primary emotional currency used by the educator. If a student is not completing her work, then one should engage the student positively and help guide the student toward explaining how to complete the initial steps that need to be done to complete a given assignment or task. Once the student has successfully performed the initial steps for successful learning it will boost his sense of efficacy and help facilitate future learning attempts.
While popular among educators in traditional classrooms, reward systems should be considered with caution in a culturally responsive setting. Reward systems can sometimes be useful for convincing unmotivated students to perform tasks in order to get a reward (and hopefully learn something in the process) but they have the undesirable long-term side effect of diminishing intrinsic motivation for learning. This effect is particularly strong for students who were already intrinsically motivated to learn before shifting their focus toward earning rewards. Given that one of the prime goals of culturally responsive instruction is to motivate students to become active participants in their learning, caution and forethought should be used before deciding to introduce a reward system into the equation.
A culturally response, student-centered classroom should never alienate any one student, but should bring all the different backgrounds together in a blended format. Teachers should develop their own strategies, as well as take cues from their students to make a culturally responsive classroom succeed.
References
Culturally responsive teaching is a theory of instruction that was developed by Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings and has been written about by many other scholars since then. To read more of her work on culturally responsive teaching and other topics, click here to visit her Amazon.com page.
Few things make us as competitive as getting our children into the right school. That is why families are willing to spend so much money either moving house to get into a good state school’s catchment area or sending their children to a fee-paying school.
But the vast majority are stuck with the local school, good or bad. So how can we create a level playing field for students? Unfortunately, it seems we are still a long way away as too many teachers continue to exhibit a tendency towards gender stereotyping by making assumptions about what girls or boys are suited to, such as boys being “better” at science. But, as outlined in a recent report, there are actually simple ways to avoid this.
Obvious actions
The report by the Institute of Physics highlights what can be done to ensure that boys and girls are offered the same opportunities and encouragement to pursue each and every subject. The IOP’s initial motivation for the work is the paucity of girls proceeding to Physics A-level: a mere 20-25% of the A-level cohort.
The factors at work in schools that affect the progression of girls to physics post-16 were detailed in a 2012 report. Building on this first report was another, which demonstrated that gender stereotyping is as damaging for boys, putting them off subjects such as Psychology and English. This third and most recent report aims to identify actions that every school could and should take to eradicate this unnecessary stereotyping, in order to ensure that all children can follow their dreams and fulfil their potential in whatever direction it lies.
Common examples of stereotyping include telling a girl “you do maths like a boy” (I’m not even sure I know what that means) or, perhaps even worse, “girls can’t do maths”. Too many parents have asked me how they could influence teachers to stop giving such negative messages to their daughters.
The actions seem so obvious. They include identifying a senior champion and providing training to counter stereotyping. Also, it should not need to be spelled out – yet it clearly does – that there should be a strict policy that all subjects are presented equally to students in terms of their relative difficulty and teachers refrain from making any remarks about how difficult they find particular subjects. Similarly obvious is the recommendation that sexist language should be treated as being just as unacceptable as racist and homophobic language and that all teachers should receive training on unconscious bias and equality and diversity awareness.
For all in or interacting with the teaching profession, whatever your subject speciality or at whatever level, I would recommend you read the full list of proposals and, if you have time, the full report.
A recent newspaper article illustrates the problem well. The head of Frances Holland School in London, one of those fee-paying schools wealthier families aspire to get their girls into (it is a single-sex school), was quoted as saying on motherhood and career: “I believe there is a glass ceiling – if we tell them there isn’t one, we are telling them a lie.” She added that: “Young girls have massive options these days and some of them will make a decision that they don’t want to combine everything and that is as valid as making the decision that you do want to combine everything.”
This doesn’t go quite as far as the headline, which read “Girls must choose career or motherhood, says top head”, implied, but it does suggest that those who do try both won’t get very far. It’s a deeply damaging message and dispiriting to see it run in a national paper.
Surely this is not the advice we should be giving to young girls making crucial decisions about their futures. Why aren’t teachers acting according to the IOP guidelines and treating boys and girls in the same way? By and large, babies have two parents who, once the pregnancy and birth are over, should be working out how, as a pair, they can bring up the child. A head teacher who implies it is the mother’s sole responsibility has neither caught up with the law about parental leave nor our changing society’s expectations.
A recent report claimed that the mother was the main earner in a third of families (the bulk of these being low-income families). Head teachers have a responsibility to encourage aspirations and not to deter dreams. They should make sure that their pupils are aware of reality but not smothered by anachronistic views.
Positive role models
That girls are still discouraged from subjects such as maths and physics by teachers, as well as peers, parents and the media, is deeply disappointing. Forty years ago, this would perhaps have seemed less surprising. Indeed, back then, it was probably the norm.
Shortly before the report was published, I engaged in a public conversation with Dame Carol Robinson, a prize-winning chemist who holds the unique distinction of being the first woman to hold a chair in chemistry at both Cambridge and Oxford (where she now is). I was trying to tease out what motivated her, how she had set out on her career and how it had unrolled.
Even a brief conversation with her highlights her most unusual career path, starting with the fact that she left school at 16. She left in part because of the lack of encouragement she received from both school and family to stay in education of any sort. She simply wasn’t expected to make a career for herself, so education presumably seemed irrelevant. In fact, while working at Pfizer in Kent she was able to get further qualifications.
Ultimately, she moved back into full-time education to complete a PhD in Cambridge – without ever getting a first degree. After that she took eight years out to bring up her three children before going back to work. Yet now she is an acclaimed professor, and a fellow of the Royal Society with many awards to her name. (You can listen to the whole conversation here.)
Surely she is proof of the fact that not only can women be successful in the physical sciences, but that you can get to the top of the game and still be a mother, indeed still have a period as a stay-at-home mother. You might think that would not need saying, but apparently it does. Even today.
In a generation, perhaps aspirations – for boys and girls, regardless of subject, class ethnicity or any other irrelevant category – really will mean we have reached equity. I have to live in hope, but we are clearly a long way off that happy state as yet.
