Dr. Harry Harlow at the University of Wisconsin performed a series of studies in the 1950s involving monkeys and physical contact. He removed baby rhesus monkeys from their mothers and set up a chickenwire "mother" with a milk dispenser and a plush cloth "mother" with a milk dispenser, and then several variations thereof. He observed the psychological states of these little monkeys, in an attempt to gain scientific insight into the nature of love and development.Perhaps you have heard about Joyce Kilmer Middle School in Fairfax County, Virginia. They don't permit touching there. Any sort of physical contact between students is against the rules. No high fives. No piggy-back rides. No hugs. The principal at Kilmer Middle defends her policy by noting that her school is overcrowded to the tune of 250 kids, and that when mixed with the youngsters' immaturity, that can lead to a terrifying maelstrom of aggressive and/or sexual contact. The kids play violent games, get in fights, hug people who don't want to be hugged, and generally test the boundaries of social acceptability at the behest of their newly discovered hormonal id. The school's argument is that absolute prohibition of physical interaction is the only way to enforce enough order to educate.
Even when the wire mother was the one giving milk and the plush mother was dry, Harlow's monkeys would go get their food and then scurry back to the plush mother to cuddle. They would play and explore under the benevolent gaze of the smiling face painted on the felt. Those with only a wire mother in their enclosures would curl up and shriek when confronted with anything unfamiliar. They would wrap themselves tightly in their own arms in a desperate attempt to simulate the contact and comfort they innately knew they needed, but it was inadequate. They grew to resemble sanitarium inmates or severely autistic children. If Harlow's monkeys had no mother for the first 90 days, they were irreparable. The window had closed. No amount of love and attention could undo the ravages of the wire mother. The lonely little monkeys went crazy and could never function in a normal environment. When presented with a potential mate, they would often start furiously humping the wrong parts, sometimes grabbing ahold of the other monkey's head instead of hips, sometimes not reacting at all. Those females that managed to reproduce were either indifferent or abusive to their offspring, neglecting them or biting and scratching them to death.
Kids don't live their whole lives in school. They hang out together afterwards, they have families, they have friends, they play sports. Kilmer Middle isn't necessarily breeding wire monkeys by keeping these kids physically isolated for at least 40 hours a week. But they aren't fulfilling their mission as a school, either. They are creating an artificial and unrealistic environment for their own convenience, and eventually those kids are going to leave Kilmer and go to high school or into the workforce and they are going to find themselves in crowds that are not of their choosing. They will be surrounded by strangers in environments of varying structure and protocol. Not having had a structured environment in which to explore those protocols, they will be unprepared, courtesy of their middle school's desire for more rigid order.
Schoolchildren are not receptacles into which knowledge can be poured, provided that they can be held still for long enough. Their development at that young age cannot be segregated into academic and social and physical and psychological categories and dealt with separately, each one in turn. It's everything all the time with the little hellions, and yes, that's a very difficult job to do. Middle-school kids are learning how to calculate the effect of their actions and recognize appropriate behavior even as they learn to calculate the volume of a cylinder or recognize literary foreshadowing. Any educator who would deny that in the name of making his or her job a little easier would do well to go find an easier job and leave teaching to those who have the uncommon fortitude to handle thirty-odd tweens for eight to ten hours a day and still care about their well-being after they leave.
5 comments:
I want to give you a big hug right now for writing that.
Also:
When presented with a potential mate, they would often start furiously humping the wrong parts, sometimes grabbing ahold of the other monkey's head instead of hips...
Hey now, who said the head was the wrong part? Oh right, for procreation. Silly me.
The middle school education system of Fairfax County may need a revamping of sorts. We took my cousin out of one two years ago where she nearly had to repeat the year because she wasn't learning and was failing most of her classes. Now she's at a private military academy and is in the top 3 of her class with all A's. The entire school only has 200 or 300 kids which is a drastic reduction to the public school she was in.
When I was in public school in Stafford I was in the top of my class always getting A's in elementary and middle school. But I wasn't learning anything except math and I couldn't write. Then I went to St. Stephen's and St. Agnes and started getting mostly C's but I was actually getting an education and I learned how to write. Grades may be lower, but the education was way better.
We should Fockerize these children. :)
This was the topic of our candlelight tapas dinner last night. Nothing says romance like sociological discourse! There are few important things to note. First is that this is not FCPS policy but the rule at one school. It is ridiculous because it is artificial and not enforceable. Teachers are not everywhere in the school at all times and even when present are allowed to enforce the rule at their discretion. As a middle school teacher I will tell you that a high five between students ranks pretty low on the radar of issues. So enforcement is limited and incosistant at best which sends the message that this rule is not important and does not need to be followed. The inconsistancy makes it unfair because some kids will get in trouble and others will not. Middle school brains make concrete connections. If this rule is inconsistant, unfair, and does not need to be followed then perhaps there are other rules that can also be ignored.
Second Bjerke took this issue to discuss the quality of curriculum in public vs. private schools. As far as enforcement of this no touching rule goes he is arguing a seperate issue. However, the source of the rule is administration's frustration with overcrowding which effects everything including curriculum. I would argue private schools do not have this issue. They charge tuition which limits the number of students to families that can pay tuition are often middle to upper class so the children are receiving support like books and family trips at home. Class sizes can be limited ensuring that teachers only have to focus on a select number of students who are often from similar cultural backgrounds whether that be religion or economic class.
Public schools by contrast have to take everyone who cannot afford private school tuition. Students range from working to upper class not to mention cultures from around the globe. Many low income students get their first regular meals, exposure to books, and trips outside their neighborhood. So the deck is stacked against a lot of public school kids before they walk in the door. Add to that the fact that public schools cannot refuse students. So often a teacher is stuck with 25 or more children in a room. Believe me it is very difficult to be aware of who's touching who,where each student is academically, and what might be going on at home. At the secondary level it's even worse because you have 5 classes of 25+. So often teaching is directed to the slower and strugglig and the brighter students stagnate with little effort.
The public school system as established by our country's founders was seen as a weeding out process. Only the highest achieving students would be allowed to progress to the higher levels and others would make a living in labor. Today it is difficult to make ends meet without a college diploma. So we know that the weeding out format of our schools has to change. Unfortunately, we have looked to tests to solve the problem. A test is useful for showing you where the problems are. It monitors progress but is not a solution. Public schools do need large changes like bigger buildings or more buildings so that they aren't overcrowded. Teachers need training that is on-going and collaborative. Administrators need to work with parents, teachers, and students to create policy instead of haphazzardly throwing some rules out which work for no one. That's just a start. The problem in education is the same as in politics. People want to look like they are making a stand while doing the least amount of work. Real change takes a lot of work and doesn't garuntee you any glory. No touching is illogical because with all of these issues being faced in our schools everyday, even teachers need a hug!
To note the Rib’s comments: I would like to amend my previous comment and say that I was not pointing a finger at the problems or making a critique of either the school administration nor the teacher’s role as educator/disciplinarian. I merely made a personal observation of my own dealings with public and private school education and how in those instances, regardless of grade achievement, I found private schools to have quite an advantage. There are great and wonderful teachers and administrators in both private and public schools. There are also terrible teachers and administrators in both private and public schools. There are good laws and bad laws. What you are not seeing across the private school spectrum where a school is obligated to the paying parents is a break down of the education process. But you do find this breakdown in some areas of the public school system. If I don’t have the money to pay for a private school and I can tell my teachers and/or administrators are not doing a good job, what should my options be?
Can we call for an administrator to be removed from their position when they enact such an obscene rule such as “no touching?”
Furthermore, I would also argue the benefits of “making ends meet” on something less than a college education. Sure, it is harder for some, but not all. Cost of living is relative to the place you live. Living in DC or NYC or most anywhere in CA you will have a high cost of living and it will be difficult to have a quality of life similar to those around you without a college education. However, I don’t think that is as true in the more rural areas of the US. To add another piece of purely anecdotal evidence, we have more than several mutual friends who are making quite a good living without a college degree.
And for the record, I like the idea behind NCLB purely because it goes after the schools in a way that rivals parents paying private school. If the students don’t perform, they make that the school’s responsibility instead of allowing the student to keep moving forward without getting the education they need. Society will always gain from competition.
Hey now. Let's not pretend that parents always know what's good for their kids to learn in school. Kansas Board of Ed., QED. I'm a good reader because my parents brainwashed me into it as a youngster, but there are some delinquent parents out there who plop their kids down in front of the TV and tune out. Sure, the kid might watch the nerd stations and learn all kinds of stuff, but on the flip side, he might just watch Fox all day and grow up stupid and boorish. Parents who depend on schools to teach kids everything they know are failures. This is a fact.
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