School is Not a Job or The Airplane Analogy

"School is like a job for kids"

Teachers say this.  Administrators say this.  I used to believe this.  Kids come to school, they have a job (to learn), they get paid (grades).  Wait, not grades.  That's horrible.  They get paid with the education they get! Um, no.  I still don't like it.

This is why: 70% of Americas hate their jobs...  Click here or Click here if you want to read more.

So kids see their parents come home hating jobs (not you of course), and then we tell kids school is their job. 

What is their job?  To learn?  What if they don't? Is that on them? What if their jobs were to be kids?  To experience?  Are our students experiencing at school?  Hmmmmmmmm.  

School is a job for teachers, though, right? Well... I do not consider it a job.  I would call it a career, a passion, a commitment.  Calling it a job puts it at risk for the 70%.  It puts it at risk for something you do from a start time to a finish time for which you get paid.  

If a teacher told you teaching was "just a job", what would you imagine that teacher's class is like?

My first year of teaching I took a group of freshman from an urban school on a field trip to see an updated Romeo and Juliet play.  They were horribly behaved and even threw things on the stage at the actors.  I was horrified.  I was embarrassed and disappointed.  All of the students weren't mine, but the field trip was.  By the time we got back to school I was sobbing.  An assistant principal called me in her office in an attempt to calm me down.  I explained how disappointed I was and laid before her all of my failed expectations.  "It's just a job," she said.  "There is no reason to get upset."

Just a job? I didn't talk to her again after that.  These were my children! I mean, is parenting just a job?  I counted on these kids like they counted on me.  Or I hoped they did.  I have learned a lot since then and have taken successful field trips with similar students.  But I will tell you one thing.  It has never been nor will it ever be "just a job."

"Stuck in a simulator"

Let us, for the sake of argument, pretend school is a job for students.  A job maybe like... an airplane pilot. We teach them theory and vocabulary and we even simulate flying experiences.  But are we stopping there?   Are we keeping our pilots in the simulator?  What are we scared of? Wasting time? Students crashing?  We learn from failure, but I believe we also learn from success.  At some point they have to fly a plane to be a pilot. Would you want to be on the plane who's pilot has never flown a plane? "Oh, but I have flown the simulator a hundred times!"

It's not the same... is it?

It's time we take risks.  At some point we have to pull the plug and let the students take the plane out for a drive.  Let them create.  Let them explore.  Let them do their own research.  Let them make their own rubrics.  Let them, *gasp*, make their own rules (she finished in a whisper).

There are a ton of apps and web tools students can use to create.  Here are some Pinterest boards to prove it:

• Web 2.0 Tools for Educators by Eric Sheninger
• Web 2.0 for Teachers by Nichole Carter
• Technology Tools for High School Students by Brandy Gerber
• Web 2.0 & Cool Tools by three different people (that's right, you can collaborate on Pinterest boards)

What are we waiting for? Why aren't our kids creating? You do not have to teach them how to work these apps and tools.  Trust me.  I have done lessons where I don't teach a thing.  Give them 3 minutes.  Student experts will emerge.  Use them.  Or lose them.

If you are ready to take risks, model that and ask your students to take risks.  Take the simulator away.  Have them fly.  If school is a job, you have to let them out on their own.  If it's not, let them out on their own anyway.

"Most of my airplanes fly"

If teachers built airplanes, would it be OK if some of the planes flew?  If only a few crashed?  People who design and build airplanes take precious lives into their hands.  As teachers, so do we.  I know we can't save all the starfish, but image if every student lost was felt by every teacher as a loss.  Imagine if every failure was taken as personally and with as much responsibility as crashed planes?

I hope it's more than a job, whatever you do.  I am one of those people that go head first into everything. I am not scared of breaking things or of failure.  Not because it doesn't happen.  I break things all the time and fail daily.  But I learn so much. Imagine what our students could learn and create if they were given the opportunity to fly.  Imagine what teachers could do.