Levels of Maturity
By: Keith
I wrote an article two days ago about sportsmanship in which I admonished a High School coach for allowing his team to run up the score on an opposing team. I had an opinion on the matter that bordered on my preference for the coach to be fired for his lack of sportsmanship. In the course of reading comments I saw one by William, of Poop and Boogies. He and I got into a bit of a discussion on the matter (which I encourage anybody to read). In the end I think we pretty much agreed on the larger points even if we took a circuitous route to that discovery. I spent today thinking about a point that he made. A senior in High School is hardly different than a freshman in College. Likewise an 8th grader is only two months from being a High School Freshman. I drew a distinction in my original piece between the maturity levels of high school, college and professional sports. Today I started thinking about how we, society as a whole, see these levels of maturity. Certainly not all college freshmen are mature enough for college. Also, some high school seniors are much more mature than their age. These delineations are no better than rough estimates of maturity. There is a great deal of overlap.
One Size does not fit all. The nature of grade levels, rites of passage and age requirements does a disservice to our uniqueness. Public institutions clump kids together as a matter of bureaucratic convenience. They don’t do it for the kids, they don’t do it for parents. It’s done simply because it’s impossible to treat people as individuals when the numbers are so many. And by doing so the system sacrifices quality for efficiency. I see this in my homeschooling of my boys, and I have just two; they are each quite different, and that makes my job more complicated. Let’s say a public school teacher is faced with seeing 200 kids per day. She’s looking at dozens of learning styles. In addition, she’s dealing with many levels of maturity. She’ll never educate anybody if she spends her time customizing her approach to every kid. She has no choice but to do the best she can to educate her kids in an assembly line fashion.
“Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.” – Henry Ford.
When we enter government systems, or any large system, we are nothing more than sheep being processed. That irregular contour on the skin is going to get sheered right over and it’ll probably bleed.
Method to the Madness
I’m not an anarchist. Government serves a purpose. So do public schools. It is primarily the responsibility of parents to recognize the uniqueness of their kids and fill in the educational gaps that the system will invariably miss. In our discussion about high school sports, William, Dad Logic, Big Little Wolf, Nini, my sister and myself all seem to have similar feelings that sportsmanship is a matter of maturity. Maturity is not a subject in school, it’s developed through nature, and it’s also nurtured at home. I speculate that some of these basketball players knew what they were doing was wrong, and some of them didn’t. Some of these kids must get good guidance from home while others do not. The result is a patchwork of maturity. Whatever the discussion is concerning the basketball game itself, there is no avoiding the fact that some of these kids will make it in life, not because the school processed them correctly, but because their parents recognize their individuality and cater to it.
Sometimes you ask a question, and you end up getting a slew of really intriguing responses. Two days ago was one of those times. These arbitrary cutoff points in life – these gates we pass through. Are they typically accurate? Do they help move us along in our own minds; are they the placebo that catalyzes our growth? Or, are they nothing more than cattle gates that slow our growth and herd us together? I didn’t feel any different when I reached 21, and was able to drink. Maybe some people do when they reach that gate. We’re all unique. How much to we contain ourselves with standardized checkpoints?
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Wonderfully stated. A complex subject, and no one right answer.
.-= BigLittleWolf´s last blog ..Thanks! WE Magazine 101 Women Bloggers to Watch! =-.
This is why I believe institutional schools would best be served by developing an individually paced curricula for basic subject areas. In the computerized era in which we live, there is no reason they can’t do this. In reality, they could do much more to cater to individual learning styles and maturity levels because they did do that when we were in school. Remember the SRA reading and math labs? Remember the “magnet” classrooms? Remember doing actual phonics? Remember when we had a “real” recess with no electronics on the playground? Of course I am older than you so your experience may have been a bit different.
One size definitely does not fit all, which is one of the primary reasons I have homeschooled for 15 years now. (since my youngest turned 4)
Thank you for this very thoughtful post.
.-= Joan´s last blog ..A Misbehaving Child is a Discouraged Child =-.
Joan, I think schools could do a little better than they currently are. however, I don’t think they have the capacity to cater to every learning style. It’s just too much to ask. In boulder they still have many of those specialized programs you mention, and they do have success with them. However, there are still too many kids who slip though the cracks. It’s a bureaucratic system. It is antithetical to their mission to cater to individuals. And, that’s exactly why you and I are homeschooling. Not like our kids couldn’t get good educations in a public school, it’s just that we like to have more control over their direction. I think that’s reasonable.
Hey Keith,
Nice post as usual.
I am leaving a comment for Joan more than anything.
Joan, in many ways you are right. Self paced education is GREAT but as an online educator I can tell you that it is not quite as simple as you might think.
Online education is GREAT but only if the kid is willing to put in the time and effort. In addition, parents have to be on top of what their kids are doing in order to make it work.
I fail far more kids in my online courses than my in seat classes. This is because most kids need guidance and babysitting. If they are not getting it at home or are incredibly self driven, you can forget about them being successful in an online course.
Thanks Keith. I think you make a good point about self paced education being only as good as the kids motivation level. I’ve seen that with my own kids. One of them needs me constantly over his shoulder while the other can be left almost totally alone and still get his work done.
I think we are coming to a critical breaking point in education, both in Canada & the United States.
We have thousands of kids sitting in our classrooms who see no point in being there. The “group think” on this is that if we could only meet individual needs you would get an inspired and motivated learner. In many cases this is true but in reality “we” as a society and parents have endorsed this apathy by creating a misguided belief that the lifestyle we provide for them, will go on forever.
I teach kids who are 16 & 17 years of age who have never been told that they will at some point, in the very near future, have to leave and fend for themselves. I have kids who genuinely feel that mom and dad will provide for them through adulthood. They feel that it is their right to feed off their parents for as long as they want.
I am sure when you were kids, you knew why you were going to school,… Because the gravy train would stop shortly after graduation. This in itself was motivation to get through but it seems that the age old “leaving the nest” requirement of growing up is missing from the set of societal expectations which use to drive kids to succeed and move on.
JMHO
.-= Keith ´s last blog ..Just Say No (Part 5) =-.
I laughed at those old Saved By the Bell pictures. That show was classic!
I’m curious…do you think you’ll homeschool your boys through middle school and high school…or are you just taking it one year at a time?
.-= Stephanie´s last blog ..8 Things I Love About Working From Home =-.
Yes Keith I agree with you. To send kids into school isn’t a factor or a huge factor of their character build up. I always believe that parents nurture is more important than in school.