The Teacher's Attention: Why Our Kids Must and Can Get Smaller Schools and Classes

Introduction

Introduction Just one: great public schools with classes of twelve or smaller. —Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) when asked, “If you were to build or envision a country you could consider yourself a proud citizen of, what would be three of its basic attributes?” (Infinite Mind 2006, emphasis mine) I n Philip Jackson’s classic study, Life in Classrooms, he writes, “The crowds in the classroom may be troubling. But there they are. Part of becoming a student involves learning how to live with that fact” (1990, p. 19). Class size is easy to take as a given of schooling if you’ve always taught or seen classes of relatively equal size. That’s not my experience. I’ve taught for eight years at a public school with fluctuating enrollment, which makes for fluctuating class sizes. It’s been a laboratory of sorts, a laboratory particularly suited to the formation and testing of hypotheses about class size. The genesis for this book came when I began to observe myself reacting to some students differently in large classes. I began to notice that I tend to throw up my hands sooner in a large class and say to myself, “This student doesn’t belong here.” Meanwhile, I noticed a similar student in a smaller class doesn’t appear so beyond help. Instead, I feel up to the challenge of meeting his or her needs by offering a more basic option or a slower-paced plan—or something more tied to the student’s interests or background rather than simply the mandated curriculum— allowing both of us to feel a sense of success. The same tendency held true for the done-in-half-the-time disruptors—they seemed to me not to belong only in the context of larger classes. In a small class I was more able to successfully engage them in additional or more challenging work. After some self-study, I came to believe it’s not simply a function of the amount of extra time I have in a small class to do that sort of viii / Introduction accommodating or individualizing, much less of being a “bad” person or teacher. There is also a change in my attitude and outlook that is a product of having less time per student. In a large class I unthinkingly retreat from a sense of responsibility to each and every student. Because I perceive I can’t much help this student in this particular situation (a large class), I fear that the student will create a sense of failure for me or endanger the standard I am attempting to set, whether academic or behavioral. In anticipation of that, I retreat from my duty to the student so I can protect myself from that feeling. I rationalize it by the belief that the problem resides in the student, not in me. (It really resides in the situation.) So instead of thinking, “I can’t help this student,” which makes me feel powerless, I think, “This student can’t be helped.” And, especially in my first several years of teaching, I often vented my frustration on that student for being in my class and not “belonging” in it. In a small class, all of a sudden, every student is transformed, by the magic of the situation, into someone I can help and who deserves it. With very few exceptions, I end up enjoying the company of every student in my small classes. I tried to find a book on the issue, one that didn’t just skim the obvious surface of things. It turns out there wasn’t one. Relationship Load Reduction Bluntly put, our schools are neglecting our children, depriving them of the adult attention that is the cornerstone of their development into happy and responsible adults and parents. What’s more, we’re subjecting teachers to working conditions in which they are more likely to hurt our kids with the little attention they can pay them. This raises hints of abuse. The question of style of control is central to the question of nurturance in school. When truly faced with it, I suspect most of us find it hard to stomach that coercion is still an enormous component of teaching. I argue that large relationship load— the number of relationships we ask students and educators to sustain—is a predominant factor. No, schools are not completely neglectful. Yes, our schools teach important information and skills. Yes, they are a chance for young people to...