High school today is certainly not like it was 25 years ago. Although there is enormous variation in the high schools of America, it is clear across the board that kids today live in a different world than their parents did. Meredith Maran sent two boys through Berkeley High School and noticed that in many ways BHS represents a microcosm of the United States, with a broad mix of races, religions, and economic classes. That gave her an idea for a book that might help communicate the new realities of high school, and of our social structure.
"Class Dismissed" follows three BHS students through their senior year, recounting their triumphs, defeats, fears, thrills, and overall learning process. Maran spoke with the students several times a week, attended their classes, hung around the campus, interviewed parents and friends, and generally absorbed the culture of BHS. She did this during 2000, which turned out to be one of BHS's most tumultuous years. I'll give the book a "+"-- it is much more complex than it appears at first glance.
Maran chose as diverse a set of kids as possible with a sample of three. Jordan is a middle-class white kid who hangs out with the rich white crowd, does pretty well in classes, participates in sports, and plans to go to a decent college. Autumn is mixed-race (black/white) and working-class, juggling an impossible schedule of part-time work, babysitting her younger siblings, and trying to get good enough grades to be the first in her family with a college education. Keith is a black athlete also without spare finances, but he is less focused on his future, concentrating instead on trying to stay out of trouble with the law and enjoying his time as a popular character at BHS. (My only regret is that Maran didn't choose a student who liked BHS and managed to succeed there-- surely there are some?)
The writing style is engaging. Maran paints a vivid picture of life at BHS by including many quotes from teachers, the principal, and associated parents and friends of Jordan, Autumn, and Keith. The reader gets snatches of hallway conversation, samples of class discussions, and glimpses of lunchtime events, as well as off-campus activites of the students. (Of course, the descriptions must be taken with a few grains of salt. Maran was clearly not present for many of the events she describes, such as the personal conversation between Jordan and his mom in the car one morning. Nonetheless, Maran was there for some events, and the text is spiced up with enough direct quotes to give a believable view of the situations she chose to include).
The premise that makes the book more than a handful of case studies is that it supposedly represents "a glimpse into the heart of a nation" (as it says on the cover). BHS is supposed to capture the essence of America, with black, white, and brown, rich and poor, ambitious and apathetic all struggling toward the relatively common goal of surviving high school and getting onto the next thing. BHS is a public high school, drawing its students from the poor sections of town as well as from the wealthy Berkeley Hills where the professors and professionals reside. It has the usual California mix of Asians, whites, Hispanics, and blacks, plus a sizable population of mixed-race kids. The heterogenous mix might look something like the US as a whole.
I think it is a little overblown to call BHS a "microcosm of America." The politics of the school is overwhelmingly liberal (as might be expected). And besides, it's high school-- how well does that represent real life? America as a whole is a different sort of place.
Nonetheless, the book contains quite a lot of value. First and foremost, it highlights many policy problems we face in public education. Second, it shows the degree to which people will voluntarily associate with others of different races or social classes (not much). And finally, it clearly demonstrates the management challenges of organizing such a diverse group of people (students, tecahers, staff) -- not unlike the challenges faced in companies or other organizations with a seemingly uniform overall goal but a multitude of underlying individual agendas.
Thus, "Class Dismissed" is far more complex than it appears. Sure, it is a description of the lives of a few teenagers and teachers as they work through the issues of transitioning from high school to post-high school. None of the problems they face is unique or especially surprising. But when you stop to think, each small issue is really the tip of a much larger iceberg. As the book progresses, you realize that you have encountered (at a glancing angle) the incredibly deep-rooted and nearly intractable problems of racism, classism, and providing fair public education to every child in America. These are not simple issues. And they are addressed every day by exhausted but caring people who struggle to perform Herculean feats with almost no budget-- for which they are paid very low salaries.
The book left me puzzled about how to tackle the problems of public high schools. I will admit right up front that some of the trouble may be in Maran's choice of what classroom scenes to include. But I was left feeling nonplussed about how kids of today are being taught, if indeed I got an any kind of an accurate picture from Maran.
Mostly the kids seemed not to do much in class other than explore their own feelings and opinions. Sometimes this was in the form of a lively discussion, which is a good thing, but not always. Sometimes it was just writing a paragraph about "how you feel about X," then reading it out loud.
Consider the following topics and possible questions to ask about them:
American history
(A) Consider the draft of the US Constitution as discussed in
The Federalist Papers. How does "Publius" defend the
Three-Fifths Rule? Explain in historical context why this compromise
was necessary to enable the union. Discuss the morality of this
political compromise.
(B) Would you ratify the Constitution as presented? Why or why
not? What would you change?
American literature
(A) Identity is a subtheme of Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon.
How do Milkman and Guitar differ in the way they find their
identities? Discuss the significance of a person's name as
brought out in the book.
(B) How have you explored your own identity? Compare what you've
learned in the process with what the characters in the book learn.
What other ways are there to explore identity?
Public policy
(A) What is significant about our recent sequencing of the human
genome? What is less significant than we first thought?
What will be the key issues for the public to discuss during the next
3-5 years?
(B) How do you feel about genetic research? Would you want to
know your own genome (why or why not)?
Environmental law
(A) Decide your opinion on whether the US should ratify the Kyoto
Treaty in its present form. Write several bullet points giving
your key arguments. Now respond to each bullet point from an
opposing
point of view.
(B) Describe a local effort in your neighborhood to preserve the
environment. Did you agree with the action? How effective was it in
terms of its goal, and were there any unintended effects also?
Call me a blatant, unashamed traditionalist, but I think the (A) questions are more appropriate for a solid education than the (B) ones.
The differences between (A) and (B) are subtle, but important. It is a matter of focus-- the (A)'s rely on taking an "observer's" perspective of a situation, while the (B)'s have a "personal" focus. Now, being able to form and articulate personal opinions, as well as relate outside events to your own life, are critical skills for communication and personal development. And most people could certainly use more introspection than they have. And I am not saying the (B) questions are "easier," for they are not. But they they lack the breadth of the (A) questions. After all, the (A)'s do require some thought about one's personal values and perspective. And in addition, they train the mind in thinking critically about other perspectives, including those totally outside of the students' experience.
Frankly, if you only, or even mainly, approach learning through personal experience, you are missing a lot. You are leaving out historical context. You are leaving out the possibility that people can do what seems totally outrageous now, but made perfect sense at the time. You are leaving out a lot of diversity by requiring everything to pass through the student's personal lens. You are also training students that they are the center of the intellectual universe, and their personal viewpoint is privileged and always relevant. (It may be often relevant, but not always).
"Class Dismissed" gave the impression that the (B) questions are now commonplace in high school, and the (A)'s nowhere to be found. If that is the case (again, Maran may have distorted the situation), we should call today's high school students "Generation First Person Singular." What does it mean to ME?
Now, there is some validity to the personal approach. There is no doubt that students must feel engaged with their studies, and they should expect that what they are supposed to learn is somehow relevant for their lives. They should not be asked to learn things just because we tell them to-- that sounds awfully totalitarian, and is surely the recipe for a lot of high school dropouts. Since teenagers spend significant time dealing with "how they feel,"-- teenhood is an important time of self-discovery and exploration-- it is probably an easy sell to get them to pay attention by tapping into the thought process that is already going on in their heads. Hence, the (B)-type questions.
But wait. This isn't even the whole picture. Despite the (B) bias, BHS is explicitly dedicated to preparing students for college. It has eliminated the vocational program it used to have. (This isn't covered in the book, but I found out later that it was considered racist because it was mainly populated with black students, so it was terminated). I find this limiting-- see the comments below on tracking.
And since students are supposed to go on to college (which many do, to BHS' credit), there is also the inevitable focus on test scores. Standardized tests such as the SAT or the new high school graduation test (which students must pass at some point before they can graduate, regardless of grades) not only flatten students onto a one-dimensional scale, but the scale itself has not been shown to measure anything meaningful. To learn material for the tests, students must sacrifice the learning of vital reasoning and interpretation skills, exactly the things developed by working through the (A)-type questions above. There is no doubt that some memorization and dull drilling are required to master the basics of any subject-- grammar, Japanese history, Spanish, biology, C++ programming-- but the standardized tests are too broad-brushed even to test this basic knowledge. Hence, they mostly detract from actual education.
(These types of tests could be better, and they could even be useful. They just aren't right now. Like in the discussion of tracking below, the issues are mostly of implementation. I get the impression we are going in the wrong direction right now, with greater and greater focus on the numbers, "accountability", and uniform standards across the country).
So kids of today seem to be fed a noxious combination of brute-force learning directed at passing tests (which they obviously rebel against) and less-than-rigorous analysis based on their own perceptions and time frame. Neither activity encourages critical thinking or the development of overarching principles to live by (aesthetic/artistic, moral, or philosophical). That is not to say that plenty of high school kids don't go ahead to develop a long-term view of events; the ability to perceive how people far away in time or political alignment experience the world; or the discipline to work through hard problems even though they are unpleasant. It's just that they do so despite much of their schooling, not because of it.
[Actually, there were some examples of classes at BHS in the book that delved into these topics. They even did so in a good way-- somewhat tangentially, rather than addressing them head-on. Also, one class involved working at a non-profit organization for part of the time. I wish Maran had covered it more fully. From her description, it sounded like the potential of this experience was poorly exploited. Too bad.]
How did we get to this state? My impression, both from the book and from following the general press, is that public education is stuck in a massive quagmire created by the conflicting interests of students, parents, teachers, and administrators. We can't satisfy all parties at once, and the situation is further complicated by an inability to measure results or progress by any reasonable method.
That means that the failure of producing well-educated students is not the teachers' fault by any stretch of the imagination. It's easy to blame them because they are at the front line (and because some teachers indeed burn out-- who wouldn't in these circumstances?). But in fact the enormous conflicts between all the players have created a nearly impossible situation. The students surely lose the most.
This just leaves me all the more confused about how to tackle the problem of educating our current teenagers. To what degree should we educate to the reality of the kids, and to what degree should we try to use their education to shape them into functioning adults? While the latter may sound manipulative, we have surely failed the kids if we don't try to steer them somehow. Many kids clearly demonstrate that they feel adrift and would like some help. We should help them. We shouldn't let all the agendas drive us to compromising quality, or standing in confusion while no learning happens.
One particular issue that gets significant coverage in the book is "tracking." This means having several "levels" of the same classes, in which the material is covered with different degrees of sophistication. For instance, the "honors" English class may read 4 college-level books per semester and have discussions and class essays about the themes presented in the books, while the "B-level" class may struggle to get through one high school-level book. Students are placed on "tracks," wherein they take all honors, A-level, or B-level courses; the track they get on is usually determined by the school.
The dark side of tracking is twofold: it segregates students, and it prejudges them. A less prepared student may never have a class with an advanced student, destroying any possibility of their learning something from each other's differing viewpoints. Tracking puts kids into artificially homogeneous groups.
But more worryingly, once a kid has been labeled "slow" by being put in the bottom track, this destiny is self-fulfilling. The kid reads simpler books, learns less math, science, and history, and rarely interacts with the "smart" kids. Not surprisingly, such students know less than their honors-level counterparts after a few years, and so they come to believe that they are dumber than average. They subtley (or even less-than-subtley) get the message that college is probably not for them, and sure enough, many of them don't go. (Not that college is for everyone, but the possibility of going to college is for everyone; everyone should at least consider the concept). Did the tracking separate students by ability level, or did it contribute to creating those differences?
I believe these problems are mainly ones of implementation. Tracking can be done very badly, with self-esteem-destroying labels and no flexibility for moving students who seem to be on an inappropriate track. At its worst, tracking makes students get much less out of a school than they might without it.
But is tracking inherently wrong? I would say no. When implemented well, tracking gives students much more than they would get out of a non-tracked program. It gives the kids who are less educationally sophisticated a chance to develop needed core skills. It also gives well-prepared kids the opportunity to tackle material that challenges them. Both types of kid could get frustrated on an inappropriate track, leading them to disengage, lose respect for or interest in learning, or drop out.
(By the way, it may sound like "less educationally sophisticated" and "well-prepared" are just euphemisms for "dumb" and "smart" above, but that is only partially true. Some kids just "bloom" later than others, and suddenly seem to acquire passion and study skills overnight. On the other hand, there is no need to shy away from the fact that some people are smarter (in terms of school) than others. That's not a dirty thing to say, nor is it a reflection of human worth).
We serve the smart students poorly if we hold them back, just as we serve the slower ones poorly if we leave them behind. What's the point of a school that doesn't serve its students? It can be fundamentally unfair to treat people as identical, even while you treat them as equal-- that is, after all, one of the core messages of "diversity". (And it is not just another form of "separate but equal"-- the problem with that system was that it was not equal!). This is why it's a travesty not to have a vocational program if there is demand for it.
The most important point is that the tracks remain flexible and are never used to exclude a student from a challenging course ("Oh, I don't think you can handle the honors course, Johnny." Phooey! If Johnny wants to, give him a shot! You should be thankful to have such "problem" students). And that students on every track have caring teachers who know who the kids are individually, try to deliver stimulating lessons, and work to bring them to their full potential. Easier said than done, of course. If you think tracking is complicated, consider that it's probably simpler to deal with than the rat's nest of standardized testing. Not to mention racism, bullying, cliques, and gang troubles on campus.
Am I naive to be thinking about the subtle differences between (A) and (B)-type questions when these looming issues are overshadowing the high schools of America? I am stark, raving mad to support the idea that schooling should help students develop "overarching principles to live by"? I don't think so. I think the most important lesson from "Class Dismissed" is that we have lost the forest for the trees. We are so immersed in achieving high scores on state-mandated tests and following proper bureaucratic procedures that we no longer even think about what an education is. It is certainly not be the same thing it was 25 years ago, but I suspect it is also not what we are delivering to high school students today.
And so I end on a humble note. Despite ranting a bit in this review, I am unsure how to approach the changes that need to be made in the educational system. I only know that it will take a lot of work, better communication and compromise, and many of the skills that I mentioned we ought to be teaching our young adults. I have a keener appreciation for the frustrations that must be felt by all who are dealing with the public high school system of today.
"Class Dismissed" will make you think about the serious challenge of delivering good public education. Berkeley High is not quite America, but it does point toward some larger problems that we as a society ought to be discussing more openly and thoughtfully. I urge you to read not only the words in this book, but the rich subtext between the lines.
[Can I answer just one (B)-type question? A personal note I want to add is that Rick Ayers, one of the English teachers mentioned in "Class Dismissed", is my uncle. It was cool to read about him there, and I feel proud of the effort he is putting into making BHS a better place. Way to go, Rick!]
Copyright © Kim Allen 2002
