Whenever the answer to this question seems to be clear, I reflect and find my focus to be too much on a student's social-emotional well-being, so I shift my approach to more 'academics'. Other times, it's too much on the 'work' and not enough on the person.
It feels like there are multiple battles of prioritizing happening simultaneously. One continuous struggle is getting the student to perform for equity purposes. Another focus is keeping up with or making change as time moves on. Equity and advancement (of the individual, group, status, etc..) seem to become the most important (or gain the most emphasis) as long as capitalism rules the way it does today.
The internal conflict (for me) becomes having the desire to move education's value to "in and of itself" and not to just a means. The tricky balance has been how does one do this without compromising a student's ability to further access resources. (ex. Student interested in philosophy is often encouraged to take the class, but don't think about making it a career.) Immediately, this devalues what could have been a student's passion, purpose, etc.
I think you can put this question to the kids themselves, and their grappling with it is the answer, or just as important as the answer anyway. Regardless of the decisions they make now (ex: not to pursue philosophy, because they need or want a more lucrative career), the grappling will have changed their perspective.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'm not sure there is such a thing as focusing too much on social-emotional well-being, and I don't think it's separate from "academics" either. What academic pursuit is *not* related to how we feel about ourselves? And if there is such a thing, why bother doing it? I think what we often do as educators is wake up those connections, rather than impart information or skills.
This topic is everywhere right now, especially with the upcoming release of "Waiting for Superman" in the next few weeks. As celebrities, politicians, and businessmen debate what is best for students, teachers are being forced to either teach to the test, while at the same time address the high drop out rates. While I realize testing can be a useful tool, should that be the focus of education?
ReplyDeleteTo me, these two issues are deeply related and the link between them is a huge part of the problem. Kids are dropping out because they don't feel acknowledged, listened to, safe, or cared for in schools, and teachers are so worried about being evaluated by test scores that their own passion for education is lost to teach to the test. Of course this is just the tip of the iceberg but if we want to answer this question as even a small community, let alone a country, then we need to figure out our priorities. Do we want successful citizens who are hungry to learn or high test scores for the few who remain in school?