In 1957, when 3 o’clock came around, Chuck Berry ‘laid his burden down’, that burden being school. 33 years later in 1990, Bart Simpson prayed for a “snow day” where all the children cheered at the announcement of school closure. 34 years later in 2024, my daughter came home from her school to point out that her Principal had made the mistake of announcing to the school that it would have to close for a day before explaining why. My daughter described the cheers, screams, hugging, and other joyful emotions drowning out the Principal’s explanation. Many students left the school “not knowing or caring why they wouldn’t be in lessons tomorrow.”
Like a 5-year-old boy, I frequently return to my primary fascination about education. The seemingly endless question of why education accepts and refuses to address that people don’t want a day of school lessons. This century-old fact is the primary driver of teacher workload and stress, student absenteeism, and the majority of students only aiming for average attainment – “as long as I pass, it’s ok” .
It’s almost universal at high school but does start for many towards the end of elementary school (often as part of a push to prepare for high school). A common analogy is that the death of Blockbusters Video was not the death of film, just the death of that access format. In 2024, people of all ages still love learning things, they’re just more aware of and prefer the alternative formats on offer over a day in classrooms.
An important distinction is that many students will say they ‘don’t mind school’ but this is often in reference to friends, lunchtimes, and sports with a strong absence of lessons. My focus is always on the lessons as they are the bulk of the school experience. Ratings plummet when you ask only about lessons and school’s approach to learning?
I talked recently with a group of 15-year-olds about the purpose and experience of lessons. They came to an agreement that lessons were boring as a preparation for a boring day at work. They thought that lessons had always been designed to get people ready for boring work days as adults and so they guessed it was important for them to be boring.
There is truth in what the students discussed. Since neoliberalism kicked in during the 1980s, all governments now focus curriculum on national economic needs rather than making good citizens. Most teaching still consists of ensuring there is work for students to do, introducing the work and expecting it to be carried out, aligned with instructions. I have written before about the debate and eventual settlement that public high schooling was best focused on employment preparation and the normalising of work conditions. In this sense, school can be seen as a mild form of child labour. The priorities of the economy dominate over any individual or group needs.
I often question if I’m just naive to ponder on such obvious conundrums. I sometimes wonder if Ken Robinson was correct in asking ‘do schools kill creativity?’ If the answer is yes, then we live as a society of parents and teachers who have had the creativity and wonder knocked out of us and are reduced to only the known ‘boring’ lesson model. The fear continues that if we change the school day’s focus, we might get the ‘wrong’ answer and this would disadvantage our children when competing with peers from other schools. Again, one’s status in the economy drives our priorities.
Too many teachers, students, and parents lower their expectations to the preconceived idea that school is and will always be boring and mostly uninspiring. Yes, there are those ‘playing the game’ and scoring high on assessments but when I’ve asked high achievers, they often agree they are ‘playing the game’ and would just as much prefer to stay and study at home. I worry too that these top 10%’ers present as enough evidence that the current approach is ok to continue with.
We may have had our creativity killed by the prioritisation of standardisation and correct answers but I wonder how as a society we collectively regain our sense of wonder and critical thinking regarding what the institution of school could and should be. The planet and the people may rely on us doing so.