stop filling, start kindling already

My kids attend one of the “best” schools in Doha.  It’s so competitive to get into international schools at all here that we felt very lucky that our kids were accepted at this one last fall.  At back-to-school assemblies this year the general message was “We have such a great school!  We help our students succeed! Success! Greatness! Success! Greatness!” It is easy to imagine for a moment that we should at all costs remain in Doha until our youngest is ready for college (she just turned five), and there are plenty of families that extend contracts for the sole reason of letting their children continue their studies there.  Over the past week or so, as my son struggles to get the hang of the system and meet expectations in the middle school, I have begun to realize why we may not be ideally suited after all.  I’m starting to suspect that their goals are not about helping the kids discover their own greatness as much as having greatness poured into and over them until they cannot help but succeed, on the school’s terms.  Over and over again I come back to this quote:

I’m not an expert in educational theory but my life has revolved around education since I was 5, with very few breaks: I spent 13 years in public primary and secondary schools, and I have bachelors and masters degrees. I taught English as a second language in Taiwan for 18 months, to all ages, in a range of settings from private individual lessons to classes of 40+ middle schoolers. I’ve worked on adapting Korean preschool curricula for an international student body.  My three kids have cumulatively attended 12 different schools, public in Georgia and California, and private in Vermont, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Qatar, altogether three preschools, six elementary schools, a 4/5 academy, an accredited homeschool program, and a middle school.

I agree that my son has plenty of work to do to improve his study skills and sense of accountability for his actions, I just don’t agree with it was framed by the school’s learning specialist.  At our meeting, she only referenced teachers who observed problems, but there was no evidence that she had talked to the teachers who had seen his best work.  She presented the issue as a problem that needed external input in order to fix, but the key person necessary to fixing it was sitting right in front of her, in tears, while she told him it was inappropriate for 7th graders to cry.  From my experience working with kids and the example of skilled colleagues, I know we need to acknowledge their active role in their own change and empathize with the challenge of it as well.

The learning specialist’s justification for the work my son needs to do fell flat. He needs to learn study skills to he can succeed on exams in high school and college? He needs to learn accountability so that he doesn’t get fired from his job and thus lose his car and income he was planning to use on non-work-related happiness? I agree that he needs to work on time management and focus but not in order to study for exams in high school or college. He needs them so he can use those study skills to prepare for any challenge that comes his way, and I doubt he’s motivated by threats regarding his life post-college.   

I want all of my kids, and all kids, really, to learn not because it’s a good practice to memorize things that don’t have any meaning to their lives just so they can regurgitate them in an exam, or to aspire to a job that is only to make money to improve their time-off experiences, but because it has relevance to their lives and is engaging and inspiring. Yes, even math and ancient history.   I love it when a subject sparks such interest that they continue to look into it and discuss it outside of school. 

I’m not sure where I’m going with this. I don’t have a tidy ending because I’m still in the midst of dealing with it.  All I can finish with for now are questions and ideas that it’s raised for me, on which I am continuing to work:

Our international transient lifestyle has been due to my husband’s job, working on making education accessible and practical to everyone in an area, not just the boys or the rich or the ethnic majority. Often this means supporting schools to which we would probably never consider sending our kids, but which have been a lifeline for some of the kids that have had the opportunity to attend them, many of whom have grown into successful adults who continue to contribute to their country and the world’s wellbeing.  I wonder if it’s worth it to start a ruckus just because one kid is having a hard time and I believe that the school isn’t approaching the problem the way I’d like them to.  The school fees (thankfully borne by my husband’s employer, though the irony of that, considering that he is in the field of education in development, is not lost on me) that are $42,783.63 this year, nearly half of which is middle school tuition. For the record, I do like the school a lot.  I am very impressed by the elementary school program in particular, the depth to which my daughter is studying her subjects, and quality of the presentations by her and her classmates.

Why would I have different expectations for the schools supported by my husband's work than for my son’s school- just because we paid more it? just because he is both male and relatively rich, and if not the ethnic majority in Doha, certainly a dominant ethnic group?

I keep coming back to wondering how we should define success and who should take part in deciding that, and feeling more and more strongly that supporting students, especially international students somehow, doesn’t mean bringing them up to a standard by teaching them “new things” as much as helping them understand where they’re at and how to practice looking within themselves for motivation and engagement.