Working with You is Killing Me
Once upon a time, when I was, like all people in the greater Washington Metropolitan Area, that most-nebulous of jobs—a consultant on a government contract—a colleague gave me a book entitled, “Working with You is Killing Me.” Partly a joke, partly serious, he knew I was having a difficult time working with another person on staff, and he knew it made my working there quasi (full-on) miserable. I freely admit I never faithfully read the entire book, though I have on occasion, over the last ten years, thumbed through its contents--“Change Your Reaction, Change Your Life,” “Fatal Attractions at Work," and my personal favorite “The Business of Boundaries."
This book came to mind as I sat at my kitchen table in the
daylight-less morning of daylight savings time, reading the BBC, like all
normal people at 6 AM on a Saturday. I came across this headline:
If you, like an American teenager, cannot be bothered to
read the full article, I will summarize for you and (BONUS!) add my own
commentary:
- The PISA test is an international test developed by the OECD that measures student abilities in reading, maths, and science.Note: The British pluralize math. It’s charming, just like Will and Kate giving out shamrocks to the Irish Guards on St. Patrick’s Day. This more than makes up for centuries of brutal oppression of the Irish people. Oh, and PISA stands for Programme for International Student Assessment and OECD stands for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Should you be interested, read more here.
- Moving forward, the OECD wants to include questions on the PISA test that measure “global competency”, or how to be a critical consumer of information.Note: A week’s worth of NY Times contains more information that the average person would come across in their lifetime in the 18th century. Mind-blown? It should be. Thus, the pressing-yet-long-established need to differentiate between real news, moderately true news, possibly fake news, I-wish-it-were-fake news, full-on fake news, and pointless-but-interesting news (my favorite).
- The PISA test is given to fifteen-year-olds in OECD member countries around the world.Note: I have taught fifteen-year-olds for the last seven years, and I use the verb “taught” very loosely here. In my school, sophomores are randomly chosen to sit for the test. The US has (currently and historically) mediocre/sucky test scores compared to schools in other countries. The scores from the Shanghai province of China always blow us out of the water, but they can beat their kids and give them oxygen to deal with stress, so it’s probably not an apples-to-apples comparison.
Absolutely, students and adults should know how to
distinguish between what is true and what is not. They should know how to make their font size consistent on a blog post. They should know to
corroborate their sources—a good start would be to know what the word
corroborate means. They should ask questions and not blindly accept posts on
social media as truth. Social media algorithms only lead us to people who have
similar interests, rather than creating spaces for discussion (although, I
think mine is broken, since I have never worn a bikini in my life and am
therefore not in the market for a $7 one). Students get their news from
Twitter, memes, and Snapchat. They know what DJ Khaled had for breakfast and heard
that Hitler fell down a well as a small boy, but if you ask them why Animal Farm is so important, they are at
a lost (If only George Orwell were alive today and tweeting). It’s maddening. It’s
also something that schools can help fix. Schools can fix it all. Racism,
hunger, poverty, media literacy, character, morals, and content (esp. maths). We
have a tall order to fill.
A “school” is a building. The people inside the building are
what counts, and good teachers already teach and model being a critical
consumer of information in an increasingly connected and broken world. But here’s
the problem: the good are always outnumbered. The valiant fight against ignorance and all the other Very Bad Things
listed above is a noble crusade, but it’s a difficult one. You’re up against a
huge wave of apathy and a culture of learned helplessness, an unmanageable number
of kids, mediocrity on the part of many adults, piles of paperwork, and a
school system run by people who have no idea what’s best for kids because they
don’t work with kids anymore. It will break you. It has broken me.
Don’t worry. I’m not actually broken. Just hungry, all the
goddamn time.
Working in Schools is Killing Me (a touch dramatic, no?). I gave it the old college try, but I think I may have to throw
in the towel come June. This makes me very sad, despite the
reassurances of multiple parties that change is good, and the idea of being one
thing for your whole professional life is utter bollocks. I gave it my all, or at
least most of my all, most of the time. I hope I put something good out there,
and that some of the 1,000+ kids I’ve worked with over the years took something
meaningful from our time together.
I have always had a habit of writing down quotes that I
like, such as this one from one of my favorite professors at William and Mary on my last day in his class almost twelve years ago: “I’ve got news
for you. You are the talented tenth WEB Du Bois was talking about. You may not
like it. You may think it sounds elitist. But you are. You are the bulwark
against the unreason, and it is your job to lead and to do.”
Professor, I tried to lead, and I tried to do. But I have to
bow out soon.
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