CHAPTER ONE
Giving Up the "Good Old Days" of Education

I want you to take a moment with me and picture the first school that you attended. You might not remember the layout of every classroom, each teacher's name, or who you played with at recess, but I?would be shocked if you don't remember the pride in seeing a drawing you worked tirelessly on taped up in the hallways, the sound of the intercom buzz for morning announcements, or the smell of the cafeteria emanating through the halls at lunchtime (to me, elementary schools always smell like canned green beans). For so many of us who have spent our lives in the field of education, we chose this path, not only due to our own success as students, but because of these memories and the comfort that we can so easily find in a school environment. Those walls that we remember fondly haven't changed much. In fact, if you haven't moved from your hometown, it is likely that the same school building where you attended is still in use today. Many school buildings have been used for over 100 years, but even for schools that have been built in recent years, the layout, intention, and design of the school has not changed significantly. There are a few notable trends that briefly threatened the larger trend (anyone remember open concept schools?), but even then, the mental constructs that continue to define the life of a school have, for the most part, remained unchanged since the one-room schoolhouses went away and the "factory model" of schools arose. If you were to suddenly wake up in a classroom one morning, you might not know much, but you would know that you were inside a school right away. While these mental and physical constructs of the space haven't changed beyond our recognition, the daily lives of the students who inhabit those hallowed halls is likely an entirely different story.

At the age of six, I?started attending what was the only elementary school in my small hometown, Livingston Elementary School. My family's communication structure fell apart one day when I?was about nine, which meant there was no one there to get me as I?stood outside squinting to try and pick out the family car. I?know that I?was probably less than a mile from my grandparents' house and a half mile away from my mom's job at the town's library, but none of that made me feel much better. As a child, it was scary. So scary I?can't even remember now how I?solved the problem. I?think someone at the school called one of my parents and obviously (thankfully) I?am not still there. Someone eventually came and picked me up, but I?will never forget the way I?felt. This was another time, there were no cell phones, I?had no money to use a pay phone (had there even been one), and I?certainly wasn't prepared to hoof it on the side of the road. I?already had significant general anxiety, which was thrown even further out of proportion due to this incident. So much so that when my own daughter started school, I?knew that I?needed to talk to her about what to do should this ever happen to her. With me at the helm, I?knew it was definitely a possibility. So I?asked her, "Sylvie, if no one picked you up from the bus stop or at school, what would you do?" She was calm, completely missing the implied anxiety behind my question,

"Um, just call you on my cell phone I?guess?"

Oh . oh, yeah, I?guess you would just do that, wouldn't you? SO MUCH has changed in the world between 1980 and 2005. The ubiquity of smartphones was a powerful part of that, but it certainly was not the only thing. As I?write this in 2023, it's been a shocking 43 years since I?was nine years old wondering what to do after school. But nevertheless, my school experiences somehow happened that long ago. I'm not trying to upset you. What I?am trying to do is to make you think about how long it's been since you were that age, what memories and experiences you might be bringing with you to your career as an educator, and how the changes that come with the passage of time can and do completely alter the life of a student now compared to then, even if "then" for you is more recent than for me. It's unfortunate that memories don't yellow like newspapers, giving a better hint of their age. My childhood must have been just a few weeks ago and has to be filled with relevant, accessible memories of school that I?can use. Except it wasn't, and it's not.

Even with all of these changes, schools have largely remained the same in substance and in form. Even some of the most damaging aspects of school have remained the same as when "we" were growing up, no matter how long ago that may have been. Policies forced down through systems, like No Child Left Behind (instituted in 2001), have been impacting public education systems with standardized testing requirements for practically as long as I?can remember. I?graduated from high school in 1990 in Texas, home of the standardized test-thank you (but no thank you), Ross Perot. I?believe my senior class was the first to have the requirement of passing a test in order to graduate, at least that's what we were told, and it seemed to play out.1 The test was of minimum skills and most everyone I?knew passed easily. There was no test prep in advance, and as I?think back, I?don't even think we knew the test was happening until the day it was given. (Contrast that to the deeply embedded high-stakes testing environment of today and you will long for the "good old days" with good reason.) I?only remember one classmate of mine not being able to pass a portion of the test. I?had attended school with her on and off since first grade. I'd been to her house, seen her at parties, and considered her a friend. It was stunning to think she wouldn't be able to attend graduation over a test we hadn't even heard about before it happened and that none of our teachers decided to give us. Never before had we encountered a test that had such an impact on our educational careers. I?didn't realize it at the time, but it was the end of an era in education, an era where schools decided who did, and did not, graduate; at that moment, then and to this day, the state, at least in my home state of Texas, had thoroughly and finally wrested that control from the school district.

What Do We Mean by "the Good Old Days" Anyway?

Through the lens of the introduction of standardized testing, I?do sometimes long for the good old days. There is another kind of "good old days" I?think we can often refer to in the mythical past. There was a time when children sat quietly in rows, everyone had enough to eat at home, and no one's parents said curse words on a daily basis. Each child was taught what the "bad" words were, everyone spoke English, and when the school called home, the student was the one in trouble, not the teacher. Teachers were expected to "cover material," and students either got it or didn't, at no apparent fault of the teacher. The understanding was that it was there if you wanted it, or if you didn't, that was a "you" (student) problem if you couldn't keep up. This is the version of "the good old days" I?was thinking of when I?began this chapter. The nostalgic past where we had nuclear bomb drills that required holding a hefty textbook cracked in half over your head. The world where a hefty textbook could either teach or protect you from doom, clear proof that words held power.

This world demanded a level of conformity and homogeneousness that appears not to exist now. (Did it ever? I?probably don't know because I?was a member of the "in" group.) We all had to agree on what the bad words were AND that they were, in fact, "bad." We had to see the systems as "in charge" and students and parents as supplicants to those systems. These are just a couple of minor examples of the agreements that had to remain in place for that old system to be sustained. When I?hear educators long for the good old days, I?always think about what they really mean. I?think part of it is the relaxation of living in a world where white middle-class privilege is so firmly in place that it cannot be called into question. The world we're picturing might have seemed better for everyone, when in fact, it was only better for some. Not to be too heavy-handed about this point, but I?think that this quote brings it home:

"Better never means better for everyone. . It always means worse, for some."

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

Journaling Activity

Close your eyes and picture your quintessential school experience using all of your senses. What does it smell like? What do you hear? How does that metal seating that we somehow all had feel?

Grab your favorite notebook, a scratch piece of paper, or whatever is closest to you that can be used to write on (the margins of this book also work just fine, I?promise I?won't be upset!). Writing it out, take this moment to name and reflect on what each of your senses immediately recognizes when thinking about your school experience. Then, think about how these...