I agree with your request to abolish the standardized tests; however, I humbly suggest a step further: change the standardization of education itself.

Clearly, your class worked. But how many didn’t for him? It seems that this student was “pushed” heavily – instead of not caring and filling out the failure form at course end, the constant consequences show at least an effort to address, make the calls, get the student back on track.

Your class had something to offer. Perhaps he was a rare case in your room, allowing you to pay attention. Maybe in this particular class the general attitude was “we should be here”. The crowd mentality, something very few mention. I’m willing to bet this wasn’t a class of 25 skippers. Coupled with a taste for the material, a friendly teacher, and I’m betting the other book would not have changed the fact that the education system had nothing else to offer. The other classes failed even before they began.

From my experience, it’s clear that for students not focused on an extended academic young adulthood spent earning degrees, school as we know it doesn’t reflect a means to an end. With no alternatives, crime seems to work. After all, teens aren’t lazy – full of energy, they have to do something.

That all our studies and technologies can’t by now figure out how to match the teen to the aptitude is beyond me. But imagine if we could! Students might actually be naturally engaged. Instead of failure, they would excell at thier passion and be recruited not by their paper qualification but their practiced specific skills.

Perhaps if English and a few other carefully chosen skills were all this student had to focus on, we’d have a crack writer or boardroom presenter instead of another prisoner.

What do you think?