(As I was preparing to post this article, the CBC published Jessica Wong’s article Teacher shortages persisted this school year. What’s being done to fill the gap for the next? The CBC article is broad ranging, as it should be, but clearly indicates that student angst plays a major role in teacher shortages.)
As the principal of a large preschool through Grade 8 independent school, I did not often have students brought to my office for disciplinary reasons. Our school worked diligently to meet the individual needs of our students at each stage of their development. With careful observation, freedom for teachers to choose appropriate responses, and joint problem solving, there were few disciplinary problems. But one boy, Paul, new to our school, was acting out in his preschool class of 3- to 6-year-olds. He was 4 ½ years of age but big for his age and easily mistaken for a 6-year-old. He was being aggressive towards the adults and just couldn’t settle to any activity. He was challenging and rough on the playground as well. His teacher, the other adults, his parents and I had talked about him and tried a number of different approaches and agreed that if he was having a particularly difficult time, he could be brought to my office and ‘hang out’ with me. He could work/play at a table in my office or come with me as I did my daily ‘walk-about’ the school and then return to his classroom when he was ready. This worked on several occasions but it so happened that one day, when his teacher brought him to my office, he stood just outside my door but wouldn’t come in. After some discussion with him, I finally said, “Just step in for a moment.” Well, that’s exactly what he did. He stepped over the threshold, paused and immediately stepped back outside. I had to laugh, and so did he. I stepped out and invited him to walk with me to see what we could see around the school. He came with me and eventually I dropped him back at his class.
This was a turning point – for me! When Paul, stepped into and then immediately back out of my office, a light bulb went on. Paul was in the wrong class! By age and academically he should be with the 3- to 6-year-olds, the preschool group, but when I thought about it, he had many characteristics of an early elementary child. He was physically large for his age and well-coordinated. Outside he loved to play organized sports, not be in small, less organized groups that younger children prefer. And, as he demonstrated at my office door, he had the mindset of an elementary child with the play on words. Now his academic skills were not high and there were many things, including being able to read, that he couldn’t do as well as an elementary student but we could manage that whichever class he was in. So, after explaining this to his parents and then to Paul, ‘We think you’ll be happier in an elementary class. Would you like to give a try?” we moved him to a lower elementary class of 6- to 9-year-olds, Grades 1, 2 and 3.
And that was almost the end of Paul’s visits to me. His elementary teacher had conferred with his previous teacher and brought materials that he might need into her class and put them on the shelves for anyone to use, including Paul. Elementary children being pack animals who love to play and work together in groups, welcomed Paul into their midst. With bigger kids to work and play with all day long, Paul was in his glory and deeply content. His new friends helped him when he needed their assistance. He worked hard to try to catch up and keep up. Now he only visited me in my office to show me a project he and his new friends wanted to share.
What happened? Paul had reached the developmental stage of an elementary child early and he needed learning and play environments that matched his advanced development even though he wasn’t academically ready. His developmental needs trumped his academic abilities and once his needs were met, his misbehaviour disappeared and he used his energies to become one of the gang in every sense, including academically.
Perhaps the most striking example of this disconnect in education today is seen with adolescents. The apathy, anger, disrespect and violence evident in high school is the tip of the iceberg. The underlying truth is that high schools do not meet young people’s needs and now more than ever that matters. Without the discipline and expected respect of previous generations, high school students are acting out, as they have done in earlier times, but with greater frequency and at a more disturbing level.
All humans are born with drives to strive, explore, move, order, learn patterns, socialize and communicate. We use these extensively as we are growing up to become an adult adapted to the times we live in. These drives are with us throughout our lives but at different periods in our development these and other drives are more prominent.
The preschool child must move. Sitting still for any length of time is difficult if not impossible. These children are refining their motor skills. They use their senses and movement to absorb what is around them. They learn through their activity. They love to repeat things over and over. Their sense of order is very strong and they are attentive to detail, to small things. All these tendencies support their absorption of the culture surrounding them, language being an obvious example. At this stage they have literal understanding – everything they experience is real. While they enjoy the company of other children the focus is on themselves and their own increasing capabilities. This is the age of “I can do it myself.”
Around age six, about the same time as physical changes occur like losing their baby teeth, there are changes in what interests and motivates children. The elementary-aged child no longer likes to repeat – “I’ve already done that.” Details are much less important to them, but they love large things and the want to understand how everything is organized. They are able to imagine entire worlds. This is the age of dinosaurs and space, past civilizations and impressive human accomplishments. They still need to move and create. Their interest in organization also shows up in socialization – not just the groups they now always want to be with and in, but what’s fair and what isn’t and what you do about this. Elementary-aged children generally are busy refining themselves and figuring out where and how to fit in rather than changing exponentially.
Adolescence, however, is a time of great transition and uncertainty. We all remember, none of us escaped. Our bodies changing, our emotions on edge. Where do we belong? Where are we going? Who are we supposed to be – and will anyone like us when we get there?
Much of the adolescent angst we see in high schools is a result of, or at least magnified by, the conditions high school places on youth. Ask an adolescent about their experience in school on any particular day and the most likely response will be about some extracurricular activity – a sport , a band or a drama, art or debate club. You have to press to find out what they are doing academically because academics have little to do with what they are biologically programmed for – who they are becoming and where they fit.
Adolescents need authentic experiences that introduce them to and prepare them for the real world. They crave authentic challenges, not sitting in a classroom walled off from the world they are driven to be part of. They crave making their own decisions, testing themselves. Generally, the closest they can come in school to an authentic challenge is the extracurricular activities where they have some agency.
Adolescents also need a mentor, someone, other than a parent, who is there for them. If a high school student belongs to a team or a club, that mentor is often the coach or teacher in charge. Sometimes the mentor is a subject teacher. But every adolescent should have someone who walks beside them through high school. Not a different person every year or for each subject but a true mentor for the entirety of the high school years. Ideally, small (<15), consistent mentor groups would meet regularly, at least weekly, so that an adolescent with a concern, or who the school is concerned about, has someone who they know and trust, and someone who knows them, to turn to with the challenges that inevitably accompany adolescence.
What if high school was organized around adolescents’ natural drive for maturity and agency in the adult world? It would be an entirely different high school. What if school at each developmental level used the characteristics of that age to advantage? What might we discover about the power of youth if we used their schooling to work with and for them rather than against their very natures? Here’s a peek.
