Marin Independent Journal

Tuesday, April 24, 2001

The Truth About Fish,
Water, and Our Schools
By Joel Kirsch

It's been said that if you speak the truth it will set you free.

The American Sports Institute, a nonprofit educational organization based in Mill Valley, has been implementing educational reform programs since 1989, in Marin and throughout the Bay Area, California, and in several other states.

We've also been creating ways for people to speak the truth about our local schools and about schools all across America in an effort to help free students from the malaise and apathy so many of them are experiencing in our schools today. One way we've done this is by asking thousands of educators, parents, students, and ordinary citizens to respond truthfully and from the heart to a simple, two-question survey about our schools:

Question 1: "On a scale of 10 to 1, with 10 being totally excited and 1 being totally apathetic, how excited are middle and high school students about going to school for their academic courses only. This does not include the social or extracurricular aspects of school?"

Question 2: "Are kids natural learners or unnatural learners?"

The range of responses for the first question has been between 2 and 5, with the greatest number of responses being 3. However, everyone said that kids are natural learners.

If kids are natural learners but the response
given most often is a 3 and the range is 2 to 5, the conclusion is obvious and inescapable: There is something fundamentally wrong at the core of our nation's educational system.

When you talk with parents and their middle and high school students, a common theme that comes across loud and clear is the lack of relevance and engagement in their classes. Despite the landmark 1983 Nation At Risk report that sparked the educational reform movement, not much has changed in 18 years. Our schools are basically operating the same today as the did before the report.

Kids know they go to school not for the joy of learning, but to get grades so they can get out of school, moving from one level to the next in their quest to eventually get a good paying job and enjoy the fruits of their financial quest. Our schools today are not about finding meaning and fulfillment in life, they are about the material benefits that await the students.

The American writer Elbert Hubbard once wrote, "A school should not be preparation for life. A school should be life." And it was John Dewey, the father of modern day education who, in the same vein, warned, "Education is a process of living, not a preparation for the future."

No matter what educators tell you, they are scared. They are sincerely trying everything they can to have the response most often given to the above survey be at least a 7. But it isn't. So, while well-intentioned, the answer to this dilemma from those in Sacramento, the State Department of Education, and our school district offices has been intensified course work, increased graduation requirements, overwhelming homework (even on weekends and holidays! How many pounds do those backpacks weigh?), cuts in electives, and standardized testing. In others words, more of the same things that got us in trouble in the first place.

The Canadian social theorist and educator Marshall McLuhan is best known for his statement, "The medium is the message." There is another statement attributed to McLuhan, one that strikes at the heart of our efforts to make our schools meaningful and fulfilling: "I don't know who discovered water, but I know it wasn't the fish."

It's time to get out of the water.


Joel Kirsch, Ph.D., is president of the American Sports Institute, and has been an educator since 1971.