The Bitter Pills that We don't Swallow

A couple of years ago I did some time (Oops, I mean spent some time) as a high school English teacher. While I have managed to bury most of that experience in the deep recesses of my subconscious, there are a few things I still remember.

I had this student, a freshman, who was like no one I had ever meant. He would talk almost constantly in class, if not to me, then to his classmates. He also had the uncanny ability to both hold a conversation with his neighbor and follow my lecture. I’d call on him sometimes when it looked like he wasn’t paying attention. I’d ask him something about what I had been discussing. He’d answer me, and then calmly resume his conversation right where he had left off.

His work was never very good, but it was always complete, at least for the first two months of the year. After that, however, he changed. He would go from extremely disruptive to sullenly silent, sometimes in the same class. His test scores dropped. He stopped handing in work.

One day I stopped him before class to ask what was the matter.

“Well, Mr. Bananafish,” he said, “can I make a suggestion?”

“Go right ahead.”

“Well, you see, I have a tough time in your class. We read too much, and when we’re not reading, you’re talking. You talk for too long. I can’t really concentrate on what you’re saying.”

I couldn’t believe a student would say something like this. He continued: “You see, I’m more of a hands-on learner.” He made a circular motion with his hands to emphasize this point. “I do much better when I’m doing something, like group work. Everyone else says the same thing.”

This five-minute exchange very likely gave me more to consider than I gave him the whole of my five-month mistake. Did he suppose I came out of the womb reading classical literature? Did he think that the ability to think about ideas for any extended period of time was a gift that you either have or don’t have, like being able to curl your tongue? Did he think anything?

Ay, there’s the rub. He didn’t think; he rationalized. You can’t think about your rationalizations, because if you do, you might realize that they’re wrong. This poor sap is going to go through life thinking that he struggles at reading and writing (and, by extension, thinking), not because they’re inherently difficult activities (difficult for even professionals), but because there’s something about him that renders him unable to do these things well. He’ll go on to live what Socrates called the unexamined life.

And someone had to have put this idea into his head. After all, how many 14-year olds have phrases like “hands-on learner” in their conversational vocabulary? The same people probably convinced him that education is supposed to be fun. It is, sometimes. But more often than not it’s a difficult, solitary, sometimes emotionally painful experience that is anything but fun. Until teachers start to recognize this truth, students will be the same.

Sometimes my kids get sick and have to take medicine. Some of their medicine tastes good. So good, in fact, that they ask for second helpings. Sometimes they pretend they’re sick so they can take it. But I don’t give it to them because it tastes good; I give it to them because it’s good for them. And when the medicine tastes horrible, I still give it to them, and for the same reason.

So too with education. Sometimes it’s fun. Some teachers are better than others at making it fun. But to say that education has to be fun is a mistake. Because most times it won’t be fun. Hold their noses if they must, but they still have to take it, because it’s good for them.