The tines of my clam rake are shiny again, as the rust is polished off by the sand that hides my prey. Spring is here again. I love clamming because, well, just because. I am pretty good at it, too, because I love it and persisted at it. It's not rocket science, true, but there's an art to spotting a keyhole, the mark of a quahog.

What would you teach in class if all your children had decent livelihoods waiting for them that did not require advanced math or public speaking skills? What if you had a child who loved clamming, was good at it, and who wanted to learn more about the world?

I suppose you could argue that he could use geometry to calculate the angles of his rake tines, and biology to find new clam beds, and language arts to create better copy for his business ads, but these are excuses, really, to teach what we want to teach, in 48 minute chunks, 5 days a week.

(When was the last time you used something you learned in high school you could not have learned on your own anyway?)

What would you teach a child interested in knowing more about the world aside from economic aspirations?

Yes, well, um, of course, but such a child is rare, you see, we must focus on the global economy, on future jobs we cannot predict, on beating the scores of China or Korea or Finland--we must prepare them for the "real world."

If you believe that children are not interested in learning about the world, you need to watch them outside of school.

It might just be that they're just not interested in what's happening in your room. Even if it's "on the test."

Imagine if you had to learn about clamming--trivia about the various rakes available, the various shellfish. Where are they found? How do you read a DEP map? How do you get a license? How do you read the tides, the wind, the water temperatures?

You might argue that learning about the particulars of clamming is, well, ridiculous, and I'd agree.

Tell me how "Us[ing] mathematical formulas to justify the concept of an efficient diet" grabs your interest.That's just one of our "cumulative progress indicators"(specifically 5.3.12.B.2) for biology. Now do this for multiple subjects.

And we wonder why the dropout rate is so high....

That's me clamming somewhere in New Jersey, and even saying that much is too much.

READ MORE - The NJ Clamming End of Course Exam

This year New Jersey requires incoming freshman to pass an end of course biology exam before receiving a diploma. In theory, this is a wonderful idea. As an added bonus, it protects my position.

The state has decided that competency in biology matters more than cooking, than music, than art, than shop. It matters more than learning a second language, more than theater, more than auto maintenance or civics.

This made sense back in the 19th century, when a family could be trusted to teach children how to get along in the world. How to slaughter chickens, how to grow grain, how to shod a horse or darn a sock.

This made sense back in the 20th century when a family could be trusted to teach children how to change a tire, replace a faucet, find the faulty tube in the television, sew a hem, or scramble eggs for breakfast.




For many of my students, maybe most, holding them to a minimum standard of competency in biology is no big deal. It is possible to pass a biology course without grasping much, and you do not need to be an Einstein a Pasteur to meet the state standards.

Still, when we live in a time when many children would go hungry even if given a sack of fresh flour and a cup of yeast, we need to think carefully how we want children to spend their time in compulsory and public education.

***

Yes, families have an obligation to teach their children.
Yes, more children are in cities now than on farms.
Yes, an educated citizenry is vital for sustaining certain industries.

No, you do not need a college education to be useful, nor does higher education guarantee better government. We need literacy, we need numeracy, we need a sense of place, and we need a sense of time. Instead, this is the proclaimed aim:

A high school should be a place where all students are prepared with the knowledge and skills necessary to enter postsecondary education and pursue meaningful careers.

Arne Duncan, Teacher in Chief

The neo-tech priests (bless me, Father Gates, for I have sinned....) confound capitalism with democracy, and colleges with competency. Our teaching/business/technology classes have been served well by higher education.

That it is possible to be charged with educating generation after generation of children without ever having set foot outside a classroom, without ever working a factory line, without ever picking up a shovel or a wrench or a clam rake, without ever having earned a living beyond the classroom walls has skewed our view of what education means.

No, you do not need to be a stevedore before you teach in public education, but it doesn't hurt.

What does hurt, though, is a generation of education specialists who literally grew up in classrooms, earning praise and grades for pursuing specialized knowledge chunked into particular subjects divvied up back in the 1890s.

How about this, Mr. Duncan?

A high school should be a place where all students are prepared with the knowledge and skills necessary to pursue meaningful lives as citizens of Bloomfield, New Jersey, and the United States.

I've worked on the docks, in hospitals, in barges and on boats, in a retail store, in shelters, and in a bottling factory. Now I work in a school building.

The scary part?

Just about everyone I've ever worked with outside of a school building had little positive to say about schooling, beyond the social aspects. A few did say they they wished they had stayed in school longer, doomed as they are now in a troubled economy, but an advanced education is not the panacea for employment that the policymakers believe (or say, anyway).

Highly educated is not synonymous with well educated. Just about anybody I know outside of education gets this. Many in education get this, too, but not enough of us, not nearly enough.

Yep, the inimitable (but emminently copyable) toothpaste for dinner

READ MORE - "Meaningful careers" or meaningful lives, Arne?