Are schools preparing kids for business?

While watching The Tale of Despereaux on Tripp family move night, there was an entertaining scene that really got me thinking. In the scene, Despereaux’s parents have been called in for a very uncomfortable parent teacher conference because of his uncompliant behavior. Check it out:

It got me thinking… clearly the mouse curriculum was setup to teach certain skills very well. Unfortunately, they were teaching the wrong skills.

It seems similar in human schools. Other than a few buzz words like common core and a few toys like tablets instead of a Commodore 64, my children seem to be having the same factory floor experience that I had. The weird thing is, that is nothing like the life we are living. Our schools are training for a game that almost nobody will play. Football players practice (learn) and work on football fields. Soldiers simulate war environments (learn), then go fight real bad guys. Yet, schools organize in rows and assign homework.

Maybe that is part of why I did so poorly in school until I went to college (see my post We All Learn Differently).

It even extends to school administration. Last year school was canceled because of the mere threat of snow.  The end results is that  my southern Maryland school district had as many snow days as Boston, even though we received 8 inches of snow compared to Boston’s 108 inches of snow. Then if there is school, they won’t let children go outside if it is under 32 degrees. In contrast, the real world goes to work, because that’s what you do in life. The administration should teach that by example.

I’ve even heard of over-active kids being punished by withholding recess. Ironically, their personality recharges by getting up, while caging them in a desk looking longingly outside will only make things worse. In the real world, if they want to stand up to stretch their legs, they can do that, or they will choose professions that let them do that all day long.

Schools need to model the real world, which is adaptable and pushes forward to get the job done.