We Must Flip Systems to Save America

The United States is teetering on a dangerous ledge, and our democracy is in crisis. Civil unrest is never a coincidence. Those who feel included, those who feel understood, those whose needs are being met, those who feel safe, those who feel like they have power don’t take to the streets. The protests that are happening in every major American city are the product of broken systems.

Photo credit: Flickr/Fibonacci Blue

Democracy, at its core, is a form of government in which the people have the power. When this becomes untrue, democracy fails. In American systems - political, economic, healthcare, education, law enforcement, and others - power has been consolidated by a select few. Those select few don’t tend to look like George Floyd. Or Breonna Taylor. Or Ahmaud Arbery. Or Loreal Tsingine. Or so many others who have had their lives needlessly taken.

Those with the ability to do so have leveraged their wealth and political power to construct in their image the systems that are supposed to serve and be controlled by the people. 

To save American democracy, we must flip our systems and give agency equitably to all. Decisions must be driven by the life experiences, expertise, and intimate knowledge of the communities that are most impacted by those decisions. Top-down hierarchies that systemize marginalization and consolidate power must be shattered, redesigned, and rebuilt. 

Solutions developed without complete understanding of their implications at the point of execution lead to unintended negative consequences at best, and intended negative consequences at worst. Not all who suffer from the erosion of democracy in our systems are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color), but we cannot begin to fix what is broken without acknowledging that race impacts opportunity in the United States. 

As a teacher, I know that education is part of the solution. That’s why I spent the last year bringing together the diverse voices of some of the United States’ most accomplished teachers, students, and educational researchers to share an optimistic vision of how we can create a flipped American education system in Flip the System US: How Teachers Can Transform Education and Save Democracy. Public education is the foundation of democratic society, and the United States can’t be healthy unless our public schools are. But our survival as a democracy depends on flipping all of our systems - not just education.

When 3 Americans (not 3%) own more wealth than the bottom 50% of the rest of us, and the stock market surges as 40 Million Americans file for unemployment during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is obvious that our economic system is not democratic. The American people are being exploited for the benefit of the self-anointed aristocracy. How many Americans will be affected by the economic disaster that is unfolding? How few will benefit from a rallying stock market? How few of those who benefit will be BIPOC, who have been systematically prevented from building generational wealth through racist housing and education policies? 

COVID-19 has exposed the great inequities in our healthcare systems. Black, Hispanic, and Native Americans have been disproportionately affected. Those in the lowest paying jobs have both had less opportunity to transition to much safer remote working and have been most likely to lose their jobs that provided health insurance. Of course, not all of those in poverty are BIPOC, but the systemic economic issues mentioned above have ensured that they are disproportionately represented. 

It’s often mentioned that the path to meaningful change is through voting. And, in a healthy democracy it would be. But, the consolidation of power in our political systems have ensured that each American’s vote is neither equally weighted, nor equally able to be cast. Voter suppression efforts that close polling places in targeted areas, gerrymandering, the egregious influence of money in our political system, and corruption - which has been legalized in many cases to protect the powerful - have all been used to marginalize communities of color and the working class. Everyone who is able must use their vote to demand meaningful change, but we cannot be blind to the fact that flipping of political systems must happen at the same time. 

I have intentionally left our law enforcement systems for last. BIPOC deaths at the hands of police are not isolated events. They are part of interlocking systems of marginalization that lead to power imbalances for entire communities. These deaths are an inevitable outcome when certain members of a society have the systematic agency to wield power over others. Not all police officers are bigoted, but all operate within systems that codify racism - systems that we, as Americans have allowed to perpetuate and erode our democracy. Each of us must own our complicity and commit to action both to repair the damage that has been inflicted and to ensure it stops. 

Democracy is not granted. It is earned. There is no cosmic law that bestows democracy on the American people. If we want to keep it, we must go about doing the work of earning it. And, that work will be hard. All important work is. 

Those who are peacefully protesting right now are doing that work. They need our support. This civic outcry cannot end without positive change, and that change must extend to all of our societal systems.

I will not presume to have solutions to the issues we have with policing in the US. As a straight, white, male, I am about as privileged as one can get. When I’m pulled over I don’t worry about much more than whether I will get a ticket. I can go for a walk in an affluent neighborhood and not be viewed with suspicion. My children have never feared for their lives or those of their family members. 

What I do know is that solutions must be developed, implemented, overseen, and constantly evaluated by the communities that have been most traumatized. That requires those in power and those who look like me to listen, empathize, and be willing to cede some of the power we have in order for others to lead. It’s the only way to stop the cycle we are in. 

If we restore true democratic control of our systems to all the people, rather than a select few, we can prevent American Democracy from being described in future history books as a 250 year failed experiment. Past history has shown us that collective power of the populace can be more powerful than the corrupt few - if the people can come together and demand change. I believe that we can. 

But, the time must be now. Justice cannot wait. Incremental change is prolonged trauma. 

We must unify and act, because the drop from that ledge on which we stand is a death sentence for both our democracy and far too many of our fellow citizens.

Friday's Five - Myths in Education

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Friday's Five is a feature every week where I pick a new topic and list five items that I think fit best.  Then I ask you, my readers, to share your thoughts in the comment section.  For an archive of past topics, check the Friday's Five Page.  If you'd like to make suggestions about future topics or discuss topics I bring up on the blog with others, make sure you click the "like" button on the right hand side of the page to join A Teacher's Life for Me on Facebook.  Don't be shy about sharing the blog and Facebook Page with others.  Each post has a "Tweet" button on top and buttons on the bottom that allow you to share in several ways, including e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter.

We live in an age where information is free and easily accessible.  There are many benefits to 24-hour cable news, high speed internet, and social networking.  Many of my previous posts have focused on ways that we can prepare our students for the information age.  Being able to identify bias and misinformation is of paramount importance when being constantly bombarded with new facts, ideas, opinions, and theories.

In this post I'd like to examine a few beliefs about students, education, and schools that are both widely believed and untrue.  These myths about education are holding us back in developing the 21st century education system that our students deserve.  They have permeated our culture to the point that educators often base decisions on these bits of misinformation.  Many people call for "educational reform," but until we are willing to focus on the learning process of each student, "reform" will continue to mean change that benefits a few people in position of power.

Myth #1 - Failure is a bad word.

Our fear of failure has crippled us.  Failure is an opportunity to learn.  One quality shared by all successful people is the ability to learn from mistakes.  Walt Disney was in financial ruin and had lost his most well known character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, to a competitor before creating Mickey Mouse.  Abraham Lincoln lost a senate election before becoming the greatest of American presidents.  We could spend all day making a list of people who failed and then became great success stories.  We focus so heavily on the "right answer" in class and not on the critical thinking that goes into decision making that we rob children of the opportunity to grow from their mistakes.  We focus on correctness and not on learning.  As a result, the one thing our children learn best is that failure is not something to learn from, but something of which to be ashamed.  Imagine a world in which people, companies, and governments did not learn from mistakes, but rather repeated them over and over again.  That world will soon be a reality unless we start teaching our children to think differently.

Myth #2 - All students need to learn the same information.

Do you think that Steve Jobs, Maya Angelou, Yo-yo Ma, Warren Buffett, and Lady Gaga needed to learn the same content in school to become successful?  Do we really believe as a society and an educational system that the ability to find the right answer to math calculations and getting the main idea from short passages are what paved the way to success for those who achieve it?  Successful people have a few things in common, none of which is reading and math ability.  They are innovative in their fields.  They are passionate.  They understand others and how to communicate with people.  They learn from failure.  These are the things that should be focus upon in schools.  The information that students learn should be determined by their strengths and passions.  I'm sure that Lady Gaga didn't need a high school computer programming course or Algebra II, but that Steve Jobs would have found both interesting and useful.  We need to allow our students to identify that which will allow them to be successful, and then provide the opportunity to pursue those passions.  Standardization kills greatness and promotes mediocrity.

Myth #3 - The teacher is the most important factor in student achievement.

I'll be the first to say that teachers should never use parents or a student's home life as an excuse for a student not learning.  Actually, I did.  Doing so allows us to stop examining what it is that we can improve upon in our own practice.  With that being said, however, a plethora of studies show that socio-economic situations are a vastly higher factor in student success than the teacher in the classroom.  Several recent studies have shown that student achievement in US schools with low poverty is higher than schools in countries that have similar low poverty levels.  Those same studies show that our high poverty schools perform as well as those in Sub-Saharan Africa.  Until we begin to address the inequities in how we fund schools and the issue of poverty we will never be able to claim that we are doing a good job of educating our future generations.

Myth #4 - Good grades are an indicator of future success.

This myth happens to be based on past fact.  A few decades ago it was true that if a student worked hard, attended school, and got good grades that they would be able to find a good job.  It simply isn't true any more.  Due to the speed at which knowledge is growing, we are preparing our students for jobs that don't even exist yet.  Employers aren't looking for workers who are good at reading, 'righting, and 'rithmatic anymore.  They want employees who can think on the fly, bring new ideas to the table, and adapt to rapidly changing economic environments.  Those are things that are all but ignored right now in schools, and certainly don't show up in a student's grades. 

Myth #5 - Teachers will improve if we provide financial incentives.

I think that everyone agrees that it would be fantastic to have a great teacher in front of every student.  The question becomes "How do we develop those great teachers?"  Merit pay seems to be the current focus.  The problem is that most teachers don't know how to get better.  Most teachers were educated in a system that was well designed for the factory model of the Industrial Revolution.  The college courses they took were rooted in the same model.  For the past decade we have not only followed the same model, but have taken it a step further by focusing increasingly on narrow standardized tests that are the ultimate example of a desire to place the importance on knowing information rather finding and using it.  In order for us to improve the quality of our teachers, we need to provide them the opportunity to learn how to prepare students for the 21st century.  They need professional development.  They need to be encouraged to network with other teachers, discuss great pedagogy, and share successes.  They also need to be allowed to take risks in their lessons, have lessons fail, and learn from their mistakes.  Merit pay allows for none of those things.  It simply provides more money for teachers in better socio-economic areas and punishes teachers working with our most needy students. 

Now, it's your turn.  What are your thoughts on the above myths?  Do you disagree?  What other popular beliefs about education are holding us back from giving our students opportunities to learn?  What suggestions do you have to overcome such misperceptions?  Please share with us in the comment section and pass the post along to others, both inside and outside education, via Twitter, Google+, Plurk, or Facebook so that we can hear as many points of view as possible.