<story><title>How My School and District Failed its Students</title><url>http://www.anurbanteacherseducation.com/2011/02/tfa-alumnus-describes-barriers-to.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>maxharris</author><text>My solution? Make attendance voluntary by abolishing truancy laws. Disruptive students don&apos;t want to be there, and forcing them to go doesn&apos;t teach them anything.&lt;p&gt;Human beings can&apos;t be forced to think. This runs absolutely counter to all kinds of notions and traditions, but it&apos;s how nature is. Wishing, legislating and expecting that facts be otherwise won&apos;t work any better here than it would in the physical sciences (imagine how you might react to such a stance against thermodynamics or the inverse square law).&lt;p&gt;Edit: if you disagree, say &lt;i&gt;why&lt;/i&gt; instead of just voting me down.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>michaelchisari</author><text>From my knowledge of radical education approaches like Summerhill or Ferrer&apos;s Modern School, I would agree with that, with one caveat:&lt;p&gt;Students don&apos;t have to attend class.  They just have to go to school.  They can choose, on a daily basis, what class they want to be in.  If they disrupt, they&apos;re kicked out of class for the day, since attendance at that class is a voluntary association.&lt;p&gt;To get credit and a grade for a class, you have to complete X homework assignments and pass Y amount of tests.&lt;p&gt;If a kid decides they wants to hang out all day in the cafeteria, good for them.  Teachers might want to check in on them and see why or offer books or computer access to do some self-education.&lt;p&gt;You&apos;d also want to diversify the classes if possible.  Add classes in video game design, automotive engineering, etc.  Make these classes enticing, and &lt;i&gt;hard&lt;/i&gt;.  Rope the kids in to hard classes by making them seem like blow-offs.&lt;p&gt;But most of all, let the kid choose to learn, and you have a lot more power over the kids who come in just to disrupt.  You also have the added social pressure of the other kids, who will recognize that the disruptors &lt;i&gt;don&apos;t have to be there&lt;/i&gt; and are only ruining it for everyone.&lt;p&gt;Never underestimate the motivating power of boredom.</text></comment>
<story><title>How My School and District Failed its Students</title><url>http://www.anurbanteacherseducation.com/2011/02/tfa-alumnus-describes-barriers-to.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>maxharris</author><text>My solution? Make attendance voluntary by abolishing truancy laws. Disruptive students don&apos;t want to be there, and forcing them to go doesn&apos;t teach them anything.&lt;p&gt;Human beings can&apos;t be forced to think. This runs absolutely counter to all kinds of notions and traditions, but it&apos;s how nature is. Wishing, legislating and expecting that facts be otherwise won&apos;t work any better here than it would in the physical sciences (imagine how you might react to such a stance against thermodynamics or the inverse square law).&lt;p&gt;Edit: if you disagree, say &lt;i&gt;why&lt;/i&gt; instead of just voting me down.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jmm</author><text>Ha. The pickle here is that we (the government, the bleeding hearts, those capable of compassion) have to acknowledge that these kids were dealt a pretty bad hand, and that they are, after all, still kids.  So we owe them a fair shot and some patience -- it&apos;s not acceptable to give up on them as products of the system.  Because in one way or another we&apos;re part of the system.  &lt;i&gt;And they&apos;re kids.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;My sister participated in the New York Teaching Fellows program (similar to TFA) and worked in Spanish Harlem and her experience was much the same as the author&apos;s.  So I&apos;m not saying the current situation and the current programs are ideal or well managed, but there are interesting hope-inducing projects and people out there.&lt;p&gt;p.s. Go watch season 4 of The Wire and see if it tugs at your heartstrings a bit.  It also paints a good picture of how screwed up the school system itself is in poor urban communities.  Not to mention how pedogogical innovation is treated in the academic setting...&lt;p&gt;p.p.s. If you&apos;re curious about the role of academic philanthropy and the Broad Foundation which the author mentions, have a read: &lt;a href=&quot;http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=3781&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=3781&lt;/a&gt; . I haven&apos;t read a counterpoint to that piece yet, so I&apos;m not sure how well the criticisms stand up.</text></comment>