Lessons Learned and Mistakes Made #2: I Never Learn

So in the course of the last few days The Innovative Educator has posted about how she really never learned anything in school.  Her message seems to be that we really don't need teachers to learn and that teachers do not have a monopoly on teaching and that we can learn how to read and write and do all sorts of other things without actually attending school.  Some of the points made are valid, if not obvious, but she also seems to be very adamant that in all the time that she attended school, she didn't learn a single thing she either already knew or learned elsewhere (I think the phrase "test-prep factories" is in there somewhere too).  Granted, it's a ploy to get people fired up so they'll take the bait and get defensive*, but in both the posts and comments, there seems to be enough vitriol for it to be genuine.

I don't have a monopoly on teaching and knowledge and there's a lot of things I learned in life that I never learned in school, but learned from my parents, from friends, from experience, and even from television (and while my father happened to have a teaching license, I'm pretty sure Cookie Monster doesn't).  But as a teacher, I'd like to offer a reply.  So I took a few minutes (I think it was 20, but I wasn't timing myself) to think of all of the classes I took in the thirteen years I spent as what she would consider a prisoner of the New York State Public Education System, starting in kindergarten in the fall of 1982 and concluding with my graduation in June of 1995.  It's a small sample, mind you ... and I don't think it refutes The Innovative Educator's assertion that you really do learn nothing in school, but I thought it was worth a shot.

WHAT I LEARNED DURING MY THIRTEEN-YEAR PUBLIC SCHOOLS SENTENCE

KINDERGARTEN:  how to tie my shoes, how to properly write a lowercase n, how to properly support blocks so you can stack them higher than you had before, why it's not right to eat paste

FIRST GRADE: why keeping a neat desk is important, basic addition and subtraction, how to read vocabulary words meant for third graders, long vowel sounds and short vowel sounds, the definition of the word "motto," what a computer was

SECOND GRADE: asdfjkl; are home keys, borrowing in subtraction, multiplication tables, how to spell "any", how an election works, the names of my senators and congressman

THIRD GRADE: what slang is, how to write in script (aka cursive), different types of dinosaurs, how to play the recorder, what a run-on sentence is and how to correct it

FOURTH GRADE: multiplication of numbers with several digits, complicated long division, the properties of the sun, what was on the moons of Jupiter, the color of Libya's flag

FIVE GRADE: metal expands when you heat it and contracts when you cool it down, what AIDS was, the biological functions involved in human reproduction, the effects of narcotics on the human body, why you don't chew gum when you have braces

SIXTH GRADE: how a pulley works, how a piston engine works, Newton's three laws of motion, what happened to Prometheus when he stole fire from the gods, the history of opera, why I suddenly didn't think girls were icky, why neatness counts in book reports, the basic tenets of Islam, what the SALT treaty was about

SEVENTH GRADE: what happened at the Battle of Saratoga, who Ethan Allen was, the role of The Crusades in the Age of Exploration, why chorus class was a nightmare, how to strengthen your topic sentence, how to organize yourself for eight classes instead of one, how to write a bibliography, the classification of various drugs, how to perform CPR, scientific taxonomy, how to solve for x, how to say "My name is Thomas" in French, "measure twice, cut once," how to use a drill press, what happens when you don't put the leavening agent into your recipe, what you need to run a small business, how to chart your genealogical history

EIGHTH GRADE: the names of the bones in the body, the function of hormones, how the kidneys work as a filtration system, what afterbirth looks like, the causes of the Spanish-American war, the causes and effects of World War I, how families on the homefront in World War II functioned and coped, how to take a small-sized picture and draw it on a larger canvas, how a printing press works, how to create a structure that will support a significant amount of weight, how to sew a button, how to conjugate different verbs in French, the basic components of literary analysis

NINTH GRADE: classification of different rocks, what experimental error is and how to compensate for it, the difference in salt content of various oceans, how to do calisthenics military style, basic layout and design in PageMaker, how to animate something on a computer, how darkroom chemicals work, the difference between pitch and yaw, how to write complete paragraphs in French, the structure of China's government, the basic tenets of Hinduism, modus tollens, properties of a circle, how to solve for the angles in an isosceles triangle, how to spell isosceles, why Romeo was too dumb to check Juliet's pulse

TENTH GRADE: What happened during the Protestant Reformation and its effects, how to type 80 words per minute, the causes and effects of the French Revolution, why 1848 was an important year in European History, how to have a lengthy conversation in French, how to prevent the spread of AIDS, what happens to hair when you put it in a Bunsen burner, what happens when you light a magnesium fuse, how to balance a chemical equation, how to put spin on a ping pong ball, how to provide proof to back up a point made in your intro, how purpose and audience affect your voice, the proper use of a semicolon

ELEVENTH GRADE: what a Christ figure is, the function of the various areas of the brain, classification and treatment for various psychological disorders, the difference between Jeffersonian and Jacksonian Democracy, the importance of Marbury v. Madison, the importance of Brown v. The Board of Education, how to argue in front of the Supreme Court, the details of My Lai, the importance of the 1980 U.S. Hockey team, the Coriolis effect, gravity is 9.8 m/s^2, what happens when you leave pizza in the oven too long, how to make fluffy french toast

TWELFTH GRADE:  DNA mapping, where the G spot is, how to write a lede, how to report objectively, show don't tell, the function (or dysfunction) of bureaucracy, the nature of the epic hero, the limits on free press in high school, how to edit video, how to filibuster, the principals of capitalism, microeconomics vs. macroeconomics, how to tell a Manet from a Monet.


But who am I to say anything, right?


*Hence, the title of this post.