Forward to the Past ... Another School Year Begins

Here's just a little something for you to ponder as you put little Oliver Jr. or Olivia on the bus for his or her first day back at the books:


Schools, along with prisons, insane asylums and hospitals were an 18th century invention. The school, as it was originally established, was not in the least concerned with making sure an individual learner's needs were met. Like its sister institutions, the first schools were a place of rigid control and management. They were inflexible, impersonal and, according to their designers, infallible. They were a far cry from today's educational settings.


I recently heard a colleague suggest that we should get back to the original intent of schools; we need to focus more on individual learning instead of teaching to 'the middle,' or average student while ignoring the higher and lower ends of the classroom's human spectrum. I don't know exactly how the belief arose that schools were originally anything other than places of imposed, coerced discipline.


Essentially, schools were meant to get the urchins, hereafter referred to in the singular as 'Oliver,' off of the street and into a place where they could be hammered into shape as useful members of society. Back then, this meant that Oliver was to sit in his assigned seat at the assigned times and do his assigned work. If he didn't excel at his learning, he was to be a laborer or other menial worker. And, if he refused to learn or had other issues, he would make his way into the asylum or prison. In any event, poor little Oliver wouldn't be harassing people on the streets or cleaning out their apartments while they were away at work in another burgeoning institution: the factory.


Yes, the school was then a place to keep Oliver, a child of factory workers, out of trouble while at the same time teaching him whatever discipline and knowledge was needed to take his parents' places or the places of others more suitable to his educational successes—or, lack thereof. The school was another industrial-era institution that grew from the social reorganization of the state and the primary means of wealth production. Emerging nations needed to devise the infrastructural components to gather, contain and control segments of the population that didn't fit directly into the new scheme of things. The school was one such place.


What's my point? Well, the colleague I mentioned earlier made the comment in regards to improving student learning. Unfortunately, all of the would-be revolutions and innovations in contemporary education are rendered moot because of the very nature of the school itself. Until this basic unit of the system is fundamentally changed, there will be no widespread, lasting improvement in how we teach and how children learn. As long as we group students chronologically, arrange the timeline into semesters or years and artificially segment the school day, make all children learn the same things regardless of their interests and aptitudes and, finally, use standardized testing to measure their progress, the results will never change. Nor will the fate of poor little Oliver's great-great-great-great grandchildren—give or take a generation or two.

What's in a name?

                Have you ever noticed how some of the names in our pop culture seem to be repeatedly used as stereotypes? Take my name, for instance: Derek. In most TV and movie releases, Derek is a jerk. He's egotistic, opportunistic, clueless, or worse. I point to movies like Zoolander, Monsters vs. Aliens, Ski School and American History X as just a few examples. At least I can take some satisfaction from the fact that Derek usually either stands out as an individual in some way, or is the leader of a group. Other than that, he very seldom has any redeeming qualities.

                Now, take the name John. I can think of many offhand: John Connor, John McLane, John Rambo, John Quincy Archibald, and so on. John is often the hero, possessed of at least a few great character traits, although there can also be some tragic flaws as well. John can often be an anti-hero--John Rambo, John Q.--who struggles against the evils of the status-quo.

                Both names can have offshoots: Derek is often replaced by Dirk, and sometimes by Drake or Duke, while John has even more stand-ins: Jason, Jack, Jeff, and many others. It's very curious to me that Hollywood, in the heart of the free-market capital of the world, seems to turn the ideal of individualism on its head in its use of these names. The name John is often used in the generic sense, as when a body has yet to be identified, it's a John Doe. So, in effect, what Hollywood is doing is allowing the average Joe—another replacement for John—to put himself in the place of the hero: you, too, can stand up to injustice and seek revenge for wrongdoings! Thus, John is the quintessential 'everyman.'

                Now, so far the practice doesn't seem to un-American, but then look at Derek. As we've established, Derek is either the irritating, insufferable individual or the leader of the pack. That's a very admirable quality, from an individualistic point of view. But then, he's vilified, or at the very least, ridiculed for this role. He's nasty, self-absorbed or even destructively violent, in extreme cases.

                John and his many offshoots are a collective; Derek, as leader or lone wolf, is the individual. Considering the generally hostile American attitude toward things communal and its embrace of individual freedoms, the usage of these names is a curiosity to me. But, perhaps I'm just seeing schemes where there are none.

                Then again, the heroes in my novels have both been 'J' names: Jaren and Jaxan. Maybe there's something to this tendency, after all.