A Dickens of a Tale
Most of us remember the scene in Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” where the ghost of Christmas future opens his robes to reveal a neglected boy and a malnourished girl who represent, respectively, “Ignorance and Want”. The ghost warns: “Beware them both, but most of all, beware this boy.” In Wisconsin education, this tableau has been played out countless times, but with the scenario turned on its head and the children’s roles redefined as “Knowledge Denied” and “Opportunities Lost”.
The Department of Public Instruction (DPI) puffs itself up and pontificates that the educational needs of ALL of our children must be addressed. However, they have a curious definition of “ALL”. No one is arguing that children with special needs and learning disabilities should not receive the assistance they require to access educational resources. But what about the other children: the “Average” student and, (dare we say it?), our “Best and Brightest” kids?
It is no secret that these higher-median children have been sorely neglected in Wisconsin, especially those that come from a disadvantaged economic environment. Usually, the unique help each of them receives is limited to that required to achieve passing grades in classes that, to them, may be redundant, mistargeted and boring. This loss of potential is tragic when, with a modicum of help, the Average student could be capable of Above-Average work, thereby vastly improving his future educational opportunities and financial prospects.
In addition, the Best and Brightest children may occasionally be socially awkward and can lack the confidence to seek assistance in locating supplementary educational materials. Guidance and psychological help may be necessary so that, for instance, they can resist the peer pressure to “dumb themselves down”. So, our ghost may ask, why are these children not part of the “ALL”-inclusive designation? Perhaps because may of us believe they will learn at a higher level and accelerated pace in spite of the teacher’s attention. Yet, research has shown this hope is vain at best, and that teachers do indeed enhance the educational experience of nearly all children, even those that are prone to question our assumptions.
So do we need more specialized teachers and higher costs to accommodate this “top half instruction”? I submit that we only need heightened instructor imagination as may be required to bring businesspeople and other resources into the classroom. Here we would couple them with the services of existing special education staff. Traditionally, special education has not been focused on the average-to-higher achievers, but many of the tools used by special ed would certainly benefit the presently neglected higher achieving children. Special education teachers are familiar with techniques on adaptive learning styles and cross-mode education; these can work for everyone, regardless of cognitive ability. Learning enhancement can be as simple as, for instance, teaching children to read aloud to themselves if they are auditory learners.
Of course, this requires a re-think by DPI and would result in a thrombosis for the educational establishment. But the alternative is, with opportunities denied to them, the above-the-median learners will seek to fill their knowledge vacuum as best they can: on the street, in inappropriate adult venues, and all the worse for us, in other states and even other countries. Then will we indeed need to “beware these children.”