Monthly Archives: December 2018

A Word about Teaching Teams, continued:

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Nothing generates success more than success itself. When teammates begin to see positive changes in the attitudes, behavior, and academic performance of their students it is incredibly motivating. The more success the team experiences the more confident and motivated they become and the more powerful and enduring the bonds with each other will grow. While we hope teammates will learn to trust and care about one another and will also learn to inspire one another, sometimes people do not get along. As uncomfortable as such times may be, in a team setting it cannot be ignored because it has an adverse effect on everything that takes place.

In the existing education process, teachers might question the capability of a colleague in the next classroom, but their focus is on their own classrooms and their own students. In a team setting, the walls between us do not separate us, they embrace us. They are part of the environment we mold to serve our mission. The need to find resolution makes it easier to reach out to one’s principal, seeking help. Also, it is easier for the principal to respond because they are not walking into a situation where they expect to find someone doing something wrong who must be disciplined. What they find are professionals who need help in solving problems that are, often, nothing more than breakdowns in communications. Because of their shared commitment, team members will be likely respond to such intervention in a positive manner.

There are times when the principal may find a toxic environment that requires that an individual be re-assigned. While this may never be an easy action to take, it is almost always welcomed by most of the team. Often, it comes as a great relief to the person who is re-assigned. In such cases the principal is viewed as a problem-solver rather than a problem-seeker, lurking in the halls to find someone doing something wrong.

For those teachers who have had less than inspiring experiences with principals, please note that we will discuss the subject of positive leadership in a later section of this work. We will be encouraging principals to become positive leaders, not administrators, and we will be encouraging the colleges and universities that educate school administrators to teach them how to be positive leaders, not just administrators.

The team environment we wish to create changes a classroom into a laboratory where we help each child develop their potential, whatever their point of embarkation. We also want to create the same types of bonds between students as we do between teachers and students, and between members of the teaching team. The environment is designed to encourage creativity and innovation. Teaching is craft that is always under development. In the type of collegial setting we seek, teachers will work together to engage students in their own learning adventure and will also seek to engage parents.

Many parents, particularly those who have had negative experiences in school, will demonstrate apathy and even skepticism. When one’s own experience is negative it is difficult to expect better for one’s children. Once parents begin to observe changes in their children; when they see their children making progress; when they find them enthusiastic; when their children are always talking about Ms. or Mr. Teacher with fondness parents will begin to develop a curiosity about what is going on in their son or daughter’s classroom. When they observe their son or daughter enjoying success, parents will want to see it firsthand. Success and winning are contagious, even for those of us sitting on the sidelines. Eventually, parents of our students will be pulled into the process as partners with their child’s teacher; partners sharing responsibility for their child’s education.

As children begin to gain confidence in themselves; when they not only discover that they can be successful at school, but also that they can create their own success, a magical transformation commences. The classroom becomes a secure, safe, and exciting learning environment. As kids learn new things, their imaginations will take flight. Every answer to a question will generate more questions and kids will, also, begin to discover things about themselves. They will discover talents they never saw in themselves and develop skills they never envisioned.

As they begin to view themselves in a new light through the lenses of confidence, children will begin to dream. Gradually, these youngsters will begin to take a little more ownership of their own futures and accept responsibility for the directions of their lives. Most importantly, they will each be a developing a powerful self-esteem that will enable them to exert more control over the outcomes in their lives. They will have real choices about what do in life to find joy and meaning. Their powerful self-esteem will enable them to overcome most of life’s challenges. If they are black or other minorities or members of religious faiths other than Christianity, they will be able to overcome discrimination when it threatens to cut off avenues of opportunity.

The growth and the development of their students will be enormously gratifying for teachers and will bring them the potential for true fulfillment. As the end of a school year approaches, teachers will be pleased to replace saying goodbye with “see you soon.” In The Hawkins Model, teaching teams and their students will continue their important work for longer than an individual school year.

A Word about Teaching Teams!

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When creating a new education model, it must be designed to meet the unique needs of all students; after all, teaching kids is the purpose for which schools were created. Like any work environment, however, the unique needs of the people who do the work must also be met. We must focus on the needs of teachers, not just to help them do the best job of which they are capable, although this is core to our mission and purpose, but we must also satisfy the personal needs of our teachers; unique human beings, each.

We want teachers to have personal and professional job satisfaction. A student’s academic success is as important to the well-being of the child’s teacher as it is to the student, him or herself. Close, caring relationships that are vital to the success of our students are equally vital to the success and well-being of teachers. We often talk about what the difference a “favorite teacher” made in our lives as we look back through our school years and, if we were fortunate, we may have two, three or more teachers who were special and whom we recall with such fondness.

Teachers also look back over their careers and the faces, smiles, and names of favorite students peek out from behind the curtains of their memories. Just like when we smile while thinking back on one of our favorite teachers, those same teachers are likely to smile when they think back on us. As their students, we recall that favorite teacher’s classroom as a place where we felt safe and enjoyed one of the most successful periods of our school career. It was in their classrooms where we did our best work, where we felt the least fear of failure, and where learning was fun. We can be assured that, for those teachers, our presence made their jobs a little more meaningful and their days a little brighter.

When we go back to the drawing board to re-invent the education process in and with which teachers and students work, we must make a conscious effort to create an environment that fosters these special relationships. We would like to create a classroom environment where every child feels a special bond with one or more teachers and where all teachers feel special connections with as many of their students as possible. We understand that no matter how hard we work, perfection is never attained. There are things we can do to ensure that we get as close to perfection as possible, however.

If you are reading this and finding yourself unable to imagine any way this type of an team environment can be created in your classroom, please be patient. To create such an environment is the purpose for which this book was written. We are going to walk you through the process of creating such classrooms, one step at a time.

One of the reasons it so difficult to envision such classrooms is because teachers work individually, with twenty-five, thirty, or even thirty-five students. Yes, many of you have aides and you may find them invaluable. Most schools also have various resource teachers for reading, special education, English Language Learning and more. Some special needs children have individual aides assigned to help them throughout the day. Most of these resources create value and, as a teacher, you and these colleagues may, occasionally, put your heads together to brainstorm or to come up with a strategy to help some of your students. Often, however, these colleagues are not your partners; they are not teammates. You have your job to do and they have theirs.

In the model that will be introduced to you, we will be relying a team teaching environment with teams of three teachers, working together as partners. Some of you may find the idea of working as a member of a team of three colleagues uncomfortable or frightening. This is understandable but, again, I ask for your patience; be hopeful. In diverse venues, such teams have proven to be extraordinarily successful. Often, team members become more than co-workers or even partners; they become close personal friends and provide a level of personal and professional support that is not possible within the current education process. Teachers as part of a team are never on an island by themselves.

Teams can contribute to unprecedented levels of performance and quality of outcomes and have even been proven to be more effective that management in dealing with performance or commitment issues. This has been found to be true even in strong union environments in manufacturing facilities. When people are working on their own, whether as a teacher in a classroom, a professional in another setting, or a production worker on an assembly line, it is easy for poorly trained and unmotivated people to hide in the crowd where their sub-standard performance goes unnoticed. Even when co-workers bring such individuals to the attention of their boss, many of these managers and supervisors find it difficult to act, even when doing so is their job.

I began my first job as a supervisor in 1972 and have managed units with as few as seven people and operations with as many as several hundred people, at all levels of the organizational hierarchy. In addition, I spent many years working as an organizational development and leadership consultant during which I learned as much as I taught. One of the things I learned is that we must all embrace a simple concept. Most people want to do their job, well. They would like to be respected and they would love to be part of a winning team. They may not know how to do these things, they may struggle to find motivation, and they may not even know to whom to turn for help. If we start with this idea, however, rather than read some measure of evil intent into the behavior of a colleague, it changes everything. This same approach should be applied to one’s students, also. They would like to be successful, but many do not know how and have no one with whom they feel they can talk.

It is also easy to tell these coworkers to, “see your supervisor or manager” but, sadly, one of the things most lacking in organizations of all shapes, sizes, venues, and purposes is positive leadership. Many supervisors and managers are unapproachable and are the last person to whom a troubled employee might choose to turn. Many of you reading these words have vivid memories of such supervisors, managers, and principals. Even some bosses do not know how to do their own job well nor do they know to whom they can turn for help. We will spend more time talking about positive leadership in a later section of this book.

In a team setting, there is no place to hide and each member of the team is accountable to the team and his or her teammates. While this may sound scary, it is, most often, a source of comfort and support. The fundamental difference in such team teaching environments, even when the principal may become involved, is that the focus is on ways to improve the quality of teaching; not finding fault with a team member. It is always about improving the effectiveness of relationship building, whether with the team’s students or with one another. It is never about finding things team members who are doing wrong, it is always about finding ways for all members to get better outcomes. It is a case where the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts.

Teams are comprised of imperfect human beings and bonding will not always come quickly and easily. Often, however, when members of a new team struggle to come together, the very nature of having to work together for the benefit of the students for whom they share responsibility, begins to change the chemistry of the unit. This seems to be especially true with people who share a deep commitment to their mission.

There are few populations of professionals who have stronger and more enduring commitment to the people they serve than teachers. I think the generosity of teachers is a testament to that commitment. Danny Steele is a principal, speaker, and author who has an enormous following from teachers who support each other on Twitter. In a recent Tweet @SteeleThoughts, wrote:

“To all those teachers who have ever provided a pizza party for a class. . . or donut party. . . or a cookie party. . . out of your own pocket. . . for any reason—Thank you! You probably violated some health guidelines but the students loved it. You made an investment in them!”

If we could tally all the time devoted by teachers, before arriving and after leaving school, along with the money used for school supplies, décor, treats, parties, covert loans of lunch money, et al, it is difficult to imagine a more generous group of workers, professional or otherwise, than teachers. We are not talking about the words they say about how committed they are, we are talking about how they demonstrate that commitment by the things they do, day in and day out. It is this shared commitment to one’s students that make teams work so effectively. Teachers may have varying levels of experience or come from diverse cultures, but they all want what is best for their students. And when they link those diverse backgrounds in a team setting, magic happens.

If you are teacher reading this, and are not a Twitter user, I encourage you to become one. There is a huge support group of wonderful teachers who will be there to inspire you, every day. Start by following Danny Steele @SteeleThoughts and then gradually begin following the teachers and other educators who follow him. This author’s username is @melhawk46. I invite you to follow me, as well.

You are not in this alone and there is a solution if we all work together, not in protests or complaints, but as advocates for a powerful new idea.

[to be continued]

Another 5 Star Review of my novel, Light and Transient Causes

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New Review by TurnEditor:

Personal note from the reviewer:

“Re: Your novel is wonderful!”

“I have just finished reading your novel Light and Transient Causes, which I found at the downtown Allen County Public Library. It is a breathtaking work and one of the best novels I have ever read. In some ways it seems like a combination of Tom Clancy and Spike Lee, but there is much, much more.

I was struck by the portrayal of a dystopian America, by the touching portrayals of family life, and by the growth in many of the characters. Although I have never served in the military, the details you provide of descriptions of military maneuvers and the destruction of the walled section of downtown Indianapolis sound like descriptions I have read of fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. . . .

I also wonder to what extent your novel is a warning of things to come if the country continues on its present path. One thing that concerns me greatly is the base that blindly supports the Trump administration’s policies. Donald Trump will not be president forever, but the people and ideas that constitute his base will live on and may become even more radical.

I see that your blog contains many positive ideas for change, so I am going to begin catching up on previous posts as I have time. I am a Christian, so I do not get into despair because I believe that God is in control and is working out his purposes through all of this. I am also encouraged that eloquent, thinking people like you continue to share ideas with those of us who are still capable of thinking and learning.

Thanks again for your novel and your other writings.”

Review at Amazon.com

    By: turneditor

    5.0 out of 5 stars A gripping story with believable characters
    December 24, 2018
    Format: Kindle Edition

    “Light and Transient Causes is a breathtaking work. In some ways it seems like a combination of Tom Clancy and Spike Lee, but there is much, much more.

    I was struck by the portrayal of a dystopian America, by the touching portrayals of family life, and by the growth in many of the characters. Roger Woodbury is probably correct in his criticisms of some of the military details, but I disagree that the characters are one-dimensional and predictable. One of the things that I appreciate about this novel is its depiction of the dilemmas that many of the characters face and how they often have second thoughts about their actions. And although the novel was written before 2016, it has great relevance in the Trump presidency and may serve as a warning about things to come in the post-Trump United States.”

    Excerpts from previous reviews:

    “Powerful, and tightly written. . . Hawkins skill at erasing time barriers and including portions of elements that are very much with us adds to the terror of this theme.” – Grady Harp, Hall of Fame, Top 100 Reviewer, posted at Amazon.com

    “This one will become a future classic. [It} reminded me of other classics like 1984 and Animal Farm. Well written and certainly one that will make you think long after you finish reading it. . . a solid five stars.” – Vermont Reviewer posted at Amazon,com

    “I don’t give 5 stars usually but this book deserves that and more. . . . Well written, well plotted, character development and dialog was excellent. Well done Mel Hawkins, well done!” – BBB Gran, posted at Amazon.com

    “Excellent book with a ton of action. . . . Mel Hawkins keeps the plot tight and clean while keeping the reader entertained. Hawkins also has brilliant insights . . . .” – Cindi Clubbs, posted at Amazon.com

    “This is a superb book. . . . Mel Hawkins has done a splendid job in juggling all the twists, turns and complications of this very believable novel. Books like this don’t come along very often. . . .” – Charlie B, posted at Amazon.com

    “I was fascinated by the book and fearful at the same time. . . . It’s chilling in the sense that it’s all possible in the world we live in today. Awesome read!” – Brian, posted at Amazon.com

    “The best book I have read this year. . . . Absolutely, hands down, knock off your socks book to keep you wanting more. . . . I have read many war novels that fell short with battle scenes; this book was right on the money. . . .” – Cody Mathews, posted at Onlinebookclub.org

    “Spell binding. It is a captivating story that could become reality. . . .” –RMB, posted on Amazon.com

Do We have the Will to Bring About Transformative Change: A Message of Hope and a Call to Action!

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We have the power, intelligence, and imagination to envision a better America and we have, in our possession, a new idea about how we can bring that vision to life. It requires that we challenge our assumptions about how we go about doing what is every society’s most important job: preparing our children for the future. Ultimately, the question is: “Do we possess the will to bring about transformative change?”

Public education need not be under attack! Public schools can be successful. Teachers need not flee the profession. Children need not fail. Teaching need not be stressful and frustrating. Learning can be fun. All kids can learn and be excited about learning. Parents can be effective partners with teachers to help their children get the best possible education. The American dream can be real for every child. People need not be poor and do not need to be entrapped in the cycle of poverty and failure, nor do they need to live under a blanket of hopelessness and powerlessness.

There is no requirement that our prisons be full. Black men and women need not be afraid of being shot by the police, white Americans need not feel threatened every time they see a black man in an unexpected place, Hispanics need not face anger and resentment when they speak Spanish to their children—besides, isn’t being bilingual something to which we should all aspire? Immigration need not be considered a threat to prosperity or democracy. Children of immigrants need not be separated from their parents. Children born in America must not be denied citizenship, whatever the status of their parents. Everyone must be free to worship according to their faith. None of the worlds great religions must be singled out for disdain or preference and their worshipers need not be subjected to prejudice.

America can, indeed, be great again, in fact, greater than it has ever been, and we need not be a divided people. The very things that divide us are, in truth, the things that keep the reality of America from matching our vision. Prejudice and bigotry impede rather than enhance the quality of life in America. We need not deprive our citizens of access to healthcare services or see the costs of healthcare become prohibitive. We need not place our environment at risk to have a strong economy or strip away regulations that were established to protect our citizens from abuses from those who would sacrifice our safety and well-being for the sake of profits.

Considering America great again does not depend on restricting the freedom of the press; questioning the integrity of our electoral process; or branding an entire race, ethnic group, or religious faith as unworthy of freedom and justice. Our greatness as a free people is not enhanced by withdrawing from the world community any more than our economy is enriched by protectionism. Like it or not, the future of the United States of America requires interdependency and the same can be said for the future of the world community.

America’s strengths and weakness are a reflection of what the American people have learned rather than a representation of who and what they could be.

All the problems facing American society and threatening the future of our participatory democracy are rooted in the historic ineffectiveness of our system of public education. Neither the interests of American society nor the world community are enhanced by ignorance, illiteracy, innumeracy, gullibility, or closed-mindedness. We need our young people to leave school with solid academic foundations, portfolios of a broad range of skills, and the ability to think exponentially (outside the box) with creativity and imagination. We need them to be able to accept the responsibilities of citizenship. We need for them to provide for themselves and their families, to understand the cogent issues of our time and to participate in their intelligent discourse. Ultimately, we need our young people—all our citizens, in fact—to be able to make thoughtful choices in the face of the extraordinary challenges that await us in balance of this 21st Century.

We cannot have citizens who are so poorly informed about critical issues that they will follow, blindly, high profile dilettantes based on jingoistic platitudes and outdated dogma on whatever side of the political spectrum they reside. We need our people to be sufficiently informed that they can distinguish between real and fake news, the latter of which is poorly disguised propaganda.

We want to create an abundance mentality in which everyone believes they can participate in the American dream because, if we work together, there is enough of everything for everyone. This is an enormous challenge, I know, but it is one that is possible if every American possesses a quality education. There are, indeed, deep prejudices in the hearts and minds of millions of Americans and we cannot legislate an end to bigotry and resentment. What we can do is ensure that all Americans, regardless of their race and/or ethnicity are able to fulfill their responsibilities as citizens, which, in turn, increases the frequency and quality of our interactions with one another. If we live and work in closer proximity with one another our similarities are magnified relative to our differences.

This can be an accurate representation of our society, but it requires that we abandon an obsolete education process that has allowed millions of our children to fail, has driven hundreds of thousands of qualified teachers from the profession, has created extraordinary anguish on the part of a significant percentage of the rest, and has left huge populations of men and women unable to participate in the American dream.

We must replace an education process that is structured like a competition to see who can learn the most the fastest. It is an education process that fails children on both ends of the academic achievement continuum. Children who had the misfortune to start from behind are pushed ahead before they are ready, placing them at an even greater disadvantage when success on subsequent lessons requires the application of knowledge and skills they were not given time to learn. This sets up children for failure, particularly disadvantaged children. A disproportionate percentage of these disadvantaged children are black or other minorities, and kids who come from homes in which English is not the mother tongue.

The incessant repetition of this practice erodes the diligence of educators and conditions them to tolerate some level of failure. It also inures teachers and educators to the tragic consequences with which their students will be forced to deal. Sadly, policy makers and government officials are so far removed from the suffering to which they contribute they are oblivious and learn nothing from it. These powerful men and women have not learned the lessons from “systems thinking” that help us understand how our own behavior contributes to the outcomes that do us harm. (Systems thinkin is a concept introduced by Peter Senge in his book, The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization (Doubleday, New York, 1990).

At the other end of the performance continuum, high achieving students are asked to slow down and wait for classmates to catch up. This is also tragic because when confronted with boredom and impatience, learning ceases to be fun, leaving hungry young minds to look to social media, video games, and even more harmful diversions for excitement, intellectual stimulation, and mindless distractions. When they get to high school, these students may be diverted into honors or advanced-placement programs but what happened to them in elementary school has diminished their enthusiasm for learning.

One of the dysfunctionalities of our existing education process is that it is brittle and unadaptable thus providing teachers with neither the opportunity nor the authority to differentiate between the divergent needs of their students.

As much as I admire teachers and administrators, only a minute percentage ever see the struggles faced by students, whom they proudly declared ready for graduation, when these young men and women find themselves woefully unprepared for the demands of the workplace, institutions of higher learning, or the military.

Every employer witnesses the tragedy when they turn away young men and women who lack the essential academic foundation and skills required of the jobs for which they have applied. Even those employers that offer remedial instruction to help new hires overcome their functional illiteracy and innumeracy, find these young people unmotivated to learn and unwilling to work hard. Even job candidates with impressive academic credentials are often found to be unmotivated and unimaginative. Employers are mystified when they discover that the “book smarts” of the men and women they recruit do not translate well in work situations. On the other side of the equation, these young people are frustrated to discover that what they have learned does not meet the expectations of their employers.

In many of my blog posts, I have shared stories about the difficulty young men and women have, typically recent high school graduates and second-semester seniors, when striving to pass the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) to qualify for enlistment in the military services. They may have been able to pass a test or meet some other criteria to qualify for a high school diploma but a few months later they are unable to apply what they had been expected to learn to the real-life challenge of achieving enlistment eligibility. When these enlistment candidates fail to achieve the minimum score for enlistment, they can retake the exam a second time, after a thirty-day period; a third time after another thirty-day period; and, a fourth time after an additional six months. Even with the use of study materials, few of these young adults ever achieve a passing score. Cramming for exams does not give one the mastery required to be able to utilize what one needs to know in life; mastery requires that we know it.

[to be continued]

My Motivation to Develop an Education Model that Works for All Kids!

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My wife and I have four grandchildren. The eldest is a little girl who was adopted by the eldest of our two daughters and our son-in-law. She is of Mexican descent with beautiful, thick black hair, brown eyes, and golden-brown skin. The second is a little boy, who was adopted by that same daughter and son-in-law, has skin that is a beautiful, rich brown with eyes to match and who came out of his birth mother’s womb with a natural Afro. Our youngest two grandchildren are the biological offspring of our youngest daughter and her husband. The eldest (and our third) is the palest of whites, bordering on pink, and her hair is as red as her father’s beard. Our fourth, not yet three years of age, has skin not quite as pale as his big sister’s but hair every bit as red.

These four children represent our family’s beautiful rainbow and like all grandparents we love them so much that it hurts.

These kids have magnificent smiles that light up our lives even more than the lights of the holiday season and laughter that warms us during the coldest of times. Such smiles have reminded me that throughout my whole life, whenever I have been blessed to see children smile, I am blind to any of the other features, that for reasons that are difficult to fathom, cause some human beings to pass derisive judgment. For me the smile of any child is a source of incalculable joy that is as common to the shared universal human experience as anything else in life.

I have spent my entire lifetime striving to understand why our world is so full of hatred over issues as insignificant as the color of one’s skin. I still struggle to understand why differences in eye or hair color are perceived as different shades of beauty while differences in skin color produce such extremes of enmity.

I was blessed to be born to parents who taught that we are all children of Creation and that we were blessed to live in a country in which we are all considered to be equal under the Constitution.

In 1951, I was equally fortunate to live in a neighborhood and attend an elementary school that was twenty-five percent black. It was at school where I learned to be a friend and playmate with one of my black classmates before I ever learned of the existence of bigotry and racism. Somehow, I never noticed that when I was playing with my black friend that my white friends were off doing something else and vice versa.

When I first witnessed the hatred that my white friends had for my black friend, I was devastated. My black friend and I never played together, after that. At the time I did not understand whereas he probably thought to himself “I should have known better.” This was nothing new in his life. For me, innocence was forever lost but I never lost my perception of diversity as something to be cherished as beautiful.

Later, at the age of 20, I was privileged to spend a summer working in a churchyard in Philadelphia, providing a place for young children to gather and play, safe from the reaches of the gangs whose territories sandwiched our little oasis. All these kids were black, save one. While I was responsible for the boys and girls between the ages of 8 and 16 who came to play in our churchyard and game room, I played with them far more than I supervised. While my job was to keep them safe and be a mentor, I must confess that these youngsters taught me far more than I ever could have taught them.

For the first nine years after college and the military, I worked as a juvenile probation officer where I supervised a multi-racial group of boys and girls between the ages of nine and seventeen. I also worked with their families. I have vivid memories of sitting at a kitchen table, having a cup of coffee with the mother of a young boy or girl—some white and others black—who was desperate to understand why her child was failing in school and seemed unable to stay out of trouble. “My kid’s not stupid!” they would often say. I had no answer for them, but I agreed that their sons and daughters were not stupid. In fact, their “street smarts” was apparent.

A decade later, I was one of the founding board members of a local Boys and Girls Club where, once again, I was privileged, as a volunteer, to be around, play with, and serve a diverse group of children. When in an environment where these children felt safe and received unconditional affection, patience, and affirmation their joy and laughter was contagious. These kids were voracious learners, quick to listen to adults with whom they felt a special connection. They were anxious to soak up whatever lessons their adult leaders might offer. If they struggled with a lesson, they sought the help of their trusted friend.

Often, the adults would scratch their heads and wonder why so many of these children, so full of life and curiosity, were failing in school. I was only beginning to comprehend.

More than a dozen years later, when I decided to relinquish my leadership and organizational-development consulting practice to focus on my life-long dream of writing books, I worked part-time as a substitute teacher for my local public school district. In those high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools, I was able to walk in the shoes of public school teachers and observe, first hand, the struggles of so many of these teachers and their students. Once I got over feeling overwhelmed by all that was swirling around me, I began to wonder why these classrooms were so different from the game rooms and playgrounds at the Boys and Girls Club or the churchyard in Philadelphia.

What I learned about children during these significant chunks of my life was that whether black, white, or shades of brown; rich or poor; male or female they are all just kids and they can all learn from someone who cares about them if given a fair opportunity. Whatever their backgrounds there are more similarities than differences between them.

They all laugh when they play or act silly; cry and bleed red when they get hurt; get mad when they lose; celebrate when they win; get embarrassed when they are made fun of; yawn when they get sleepy; respond to warmth and affection with warmth and affection; and, suffer egregiously when abused by their parents, feel disconnected in many of their classrooms, or when bullied by their peers.

All these boys and girls are capable of learning; they are all curious about the world around them; and, they all get discouraged and feel humiliated when they fail. They all suffer great loss of self-esteem when they give up on themselves after repeated failure and no longer believe in their ability to compete in classrooms that never should have become competitive environments in the first place.

They all deserve our respect not only as individual human beings but also as members of their unique cultural traditions. The only difference, once they arrive at school, is their level of preparation and motivation. They all deserve the best we have to offer and the very fact that so many of these children fail provides irrefutable evidence that what we are doing does not work for everyone.

Despite the heroic effort of our teachers, it is here, in our elementary schools that we will find the roots of the problems that beleaguer us as a nation and society. Whether we are teachers, administrators, policy-makers, or deans and professors of schools of education, we must be willing to pull our heads from the sand and stop defending the indefensible.

The fact that so many children are failing, particularly minorities and the poor, is not a predisposition of birth or a fact of nature. That children are failing is nothing more than an outcome of a flawed system of human design. The performance gap between white children and black kids and other minorities is an outcome our traditional educational process is structured to produce. Like any other production, service-delivery process, or software application, our education process can be reinvented to produce the outcomes we want and need.

This flawed system is not the fault of teachers and other professional educators. Rather, the culpability of educators is that they are the people in the best position to identify the failure of this flawed educational process, yet they hold back as if they are afraid to act. It is critical that we understand that this lack of action is not because they are bad people or incompetent professionals rather it is because they have learned to perceive themselves as powerless.

Teachers must be challenged to accept that, for professional men and women, powerlessness and hopelessness are functions of choice.

Education Infrastructure: To Ensure Our Future, Focus on Desired Outcomes

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Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

OP ED COLUMNS

http://www.journalgazette.net/opinion/columns/20181206/education-infrastructure

Mel Hawkins

Thursday, December 06, 2018 1:00 am

The Journal Gazette’s Nov. 30 editorial, “Students first,” offers evidence of the dysfunctionality of the political process with respect to education policy.

Our system of education is a national tragedy and is at the root of all our nation’s challenges. That millions of our nation’s children suffer irreparable harm makes the American education process a disaster of unprecedented scope and scale.

Children in charter, parochial and public schools are failing throughout the U.S., and each failure has tragic consequences for the children and our society. Even the students who seem to be succeeding are not learning the things they will need to know, nor are they developing the skills they will need to have meaningful choices in life. Neither are they being prepared to find creative solutions to the unimaginable challenges the balance of this 21st century will present.

That our teachers are being asked to shoulder the blame for the unacceptable outcomes of an obsolete education process is just one more travesty. These dedicated men and women are as much the victims of our flawed education policies as are their students. Not only are they blamed for the struggles of their students, we refuse to provide them with the level of respect and compensation they deserve for doing one of the most important and challenging jobs in American society. The fact that we are driving so many of these men and women out of the profession is just one more symptom of the obsolescence of the American education process.

Possibly we should invite teachers to participate more fully in the policy-making process. The problem, however, is that the solutions to the challenges of preparing our children for an uncertain future will be found outside the boundaries of conventional wisdom.

Perhaps we should examine the challenges facing education in America the same way we must address our nation’s crumbling infrastructure. Over the past century the world has changed exponentially while the structure and function of our education process have changed minimally. In our schools today, it takes an extraordinary effort on the part of teachers and principals to implement innovative ideas and solutions that will endure and not be ground to dust by the unrelenting glacial power of the existing education process.

The education process impedes rather than facilitates the ability of educators to respond to the unique requirements of a diverse population of children with disparate needs. The recent focus of education reformers on charter schools, voucher systems and high-stakes testing to hold teachers and schools accountable has done more damage to public education than we could have possibly envisioned.

Ironically, high-stakes testing is telling us what we need to know. These tests are not measuring the performance of teachers and schools, however; rather they measure the efficacy of the education process itself.
Our challenge must be to reinvent the education process to produce the outcomes we want.

What are those outcomes? That every child learns as much as they are able at their own best pace. That students retain what they have learned and are able to use their knowledge and skills in real-life situations and not solely for the purposes of passing standardized tests. That as these students discover they can be successful, they begin to develop a healthy self-esteem that will enable them to overcome obstacles and control most of the outcomes in their lives. That as they progress along their developmental paths, they are able to partner with their parents and teachers to take ownership of their futures.

Education must not be a competition to see who learns the most the fastest. Rather, it must be a process that provides each and every child with a menu of choices about what to do in life to provide for their families, to find joy and meaning, and to participate in their own governance. It must enable them to make thoughtful and reasoned choices and help them work together to find new and innovative solutions to the problems facing a world undergoing unrelenting change and facing unprecedented challenges.

These things are possible and within our power to accomplish if we are willing to challenge all our assumptions about what we do and why and, then, open our hearts and minds to new ways of thinking and doing.