More Human Systems
A school is a human system, which can be defined as a grouping of people that all interact and affect each other in both explicit and implicit ways. Further, systems are embedded in other systems. Each grade is a system, each siloed subject matter or department is a system, each family system is existing in the greater school community system, and lastly, the school itself is embedded in the larger community, society, and greater educational landscape.
This is a paradox: the very humanity we crave also makes it virtually improbable that we could see it objectively enough to shape it. As a behavioral scientist, I know that systems work to survive at all costs. Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the human cost of our school system trying to survive.
I have three children, and, like many parents that have multiple children, I observe that while they share parents and family routines, they are very different people. They are also young and still forming. Their thinking is as malleable as their height. One thing they agree on: “School is pointless.” Despite their educator dad, they report that hoop jumping behavior is the best defense against school.
My children have experienced a range of schools; among them, they have attended private independent school, public school, online high school, and home school. When they say, “School is pointless,” they are being developmentally hyperbolic, but they are also trying to tell me something.
Here is what I think they are saying about the water they are swimming in:
School systems reward sameness, no matter what their diversity statement says, and sameness is not a desirable goal.
The evaluative gaze of the system built with source code obsessed with measuring success is a perfect invitation to perform learning instead of engage in learning. “What do you want me to do?” becomes far more important than “What I want or need to learn to do what I want to do?” Underneath this is a more dangerous assumption that we (adults) know better than them what they need to know, or worse, that we just know better in general. They look at our flaws, hypocrisy and wonder why we are so confident despite the evidence.
If there was a school or school system fit for me, this is not it. I am a misfit here, and so, I might as well jump through these hoops that they have set out for us and enjoy hanging with all the other misfits doing the same thing.
We have a system that was designed for everyone, and paradoxically, struggles to meet the needs of individuals in it. But, for sake of thinking, let’s look at three specific student profiles:
Profile #1: The A Student: Surely the system works for the A student. The kid that loves to sit quietly and follow directions, and is willing to put their own interests on hold for the #1 goal: approval. Their grade grubbing seems to know no limits. “Can I get extra credit? “Why do you want it, you already have a 97?” What a strange question this child thinks. Why would a prison warden dolling out extra desserts for good behavior wonder why I wouldn’t want extra dessert? This student looks successful in our system, and enters the world disconnected from self desiring external validation through whatever success metrics are available. These students often excel at the expense of happiness, and they are risk avoidant and unwilling to play games without clear rules so as to be able to reverse engineer the outcomes. The world they are going to enter is too chaotic and too complex for them to use this skillet successfully. They are underwhelming to employers.
Profile #2: The Struggler: This student just doesn’t seem to be that bright. This student experiments with different levels of effort to achieve results, but as they come in, they slowly realize that this is not the system for them. They create lives of meaning in their heads or in other parts of the world or on the internet or in organizations outside of school. This child knows that school is a place where they are told they are underwhelming, and even though they have worked harder and performed better, better was never good enough to actually matter to the wardens. These kids are largely ignored by our system, and they return a similar level of interest for our programming.
Profile #3: The ADHD Behavior Problem: This student could power a small city with their energy, and we almost literally try to restrain them into their seats for 6-8 hours a day. These kids are creative, divergent, want to move and get distracted by novelty. They would thrive in an alternate universe, but in this one, they are stuck at their desk. They loosely fit into two categories: the kid that tries to get it under control and feels bad for how much of a problem they are. Their anxiety about not fitting is all aimed internally, and these kids develop deeply ingrained ideas about how bad they are or how dumb they are. Many carry these ideas into adulthood. The other category is the defiant angry version of this child. This child externalizes their anxiety and instead of self-hate, they hate outwardly as a defense of self. School is a battlefield, and they go to battle.
The common thread between these profiles, and the common thread even if you were to look at hundreds more, is that school is just not a place where being naturally or authentically who you are is rewarded. The system requires a numbing assimilation, and I could write equally compelling faculty or staff profiles that would also illustrate the way that this system does the same for the adults. More human systems would be designed around the reality of each learner’s unique traits – seeking growth and purpose rather a uniformity.
What do our inhuman systems want students to do?
Learn to read by 2nd grade (you might need to substitute an earlier grade in your community) or you are behind.
Sit quietly, usually in some sort of line.
No talking, stop talking, talk quieter, talk less, talk more.
Work together (without any instruction on how to do this in a system propagated by siloed, solo work), but not on tests. On tests, don’t look at your neighbor’s work. Also, don’t use the supercomputer connected to the most networked source of knowledge in human existence that is in your pocket. That is cheating.
Do your homework. “What if I don’t need to do it to understand it or do well on an assessment?” “Do it anyway, otherwise you will get a zero.” “So, I need to do it even if I don’t need to do it?” “Yes, this is how life works. You need to learn how to do things you don’t want to do.” “But that is why you are unhappy.” “We aren’t talking about me.”
In short, our system requires one basic behavior for success: Hoop jumping. Compliance. Those students who succeed at that behavior are called smart and rewarded. A whole spectrum of human potential decides they aren’t good at school.
To build more human systems in schools, we must dismantle systems of compliance. They are everywhere, and I would argue that it doesn’t matter where you start, just that you start. Here are some suggestions:
Do a compliance audit and identify systems of compliance that could be shifted to systems of learning. (Assessment, Faculty Evaluation, Attendance, Awards, Discipline are just a few to get you started. These could keep you busy for 5-10 years.)
Consider training your faculty, staff, parents and students in new language.Shared language can be a powerful tool in a school community, and you might be shocked at all of the unconscious language that reinforces compliance. For example, “Can I go to the bathroom?” can become “I need to use the restroom, and I just wanted to let you know that I will be right back.” Instead of holding people accountable in this system, we can hold them capable.
When you talk about problems, frame them as a problem with the system, and not the behavior(s) the system produces. People in the system that are acting in ways that you don’t appreciate are symptoms of this problem, not the problem itself. “Our teachers are stuck and don’t want to change” can become “Our system rewards those that conserve what has worked in the past at the expense of what might be possible.”
Last, build a student and adult task force to do this work. Look at the systems with students at the table. Talk about hoop jumping. Ask one key question: What is the cost of creating a culture of compliance and hoop jumping on the people in the system? The best metric is what students choose to do without being forced. The thought that children would not do things if they were not required is a result of working in a system of compliance for too long. This thought doesn’t exist outside of these types of systems.
Compliance, when built seamlessly into a well-intentioned school culture is almost invisible. We sometimes dress it up and call it care when we shepherd people towards outcomes they don’t choose in their best interest. We sometimes dress it up as concern, like we know better. We sometimes hide it in policy, so that when people step out of line, we can say, “I get it, but this is the policy, so we should ________.”
At L+D, we have a saying, “Be a learner, not a knower,” and if we can take that disposition, I think we can collaborate to build more human systems where the outcomes are not curated, but discovered, and the goal is learning itself.
