The Tattle Phone

I’m a big fan of Ira Glass and This American Life. It is one of the best radio shows/podcasts available these days. If you haven’t listened, I encourage you to do so.

A few weeks ago, the show focused on fairness. I’ll spare you the details of the entire program. What I want to focus on was David Kestenbaum’s prologue where he shares the story of the “tattle phone” with Ira. Kestenbaum is one of the show’s producers, but he also is the dad to preschool kids whose teacher installed a “tattle phone” where kids could register their complaints about each other. Kestenbaum had the idea to record some of these complaints to document the unfairnesses of preschool in general.

The spot is 12 minutes long, and it’s pretty funny.

After listening, I started to think about a “tattle phone” for public school kids. Specifically, what might a K-12 student call the “tattle phone” to complain about? I’m afraid my examples aren’t as cute and funny as David Kestenbaum’s, but let’s give it a try.

Tattle Phone Call #1 – “My teacher won’t let me use my cell phone in class.”

If you read tomorrow’s Friday News Roundup, one of the articles reviewed deals with this exact subject. I can’t believe we are still having this debate in public schools, whether to allow electronic devices in the classroom or not. Several years ago, while visiting the high school I served as their first principal, I saw a sign that read “The electronic devices policy in this classroom is NO CELL PHONES.” It seems like each teacher was allowed to develop their own unique “electronic device policy.”

Here’s the deal – we adults are going to lose on this “line in the sand” if we don’t start appreciating the learning potential embedded in each cell phone, tablet, and laptop available to our learners. Instead of spending time setting policy on use or non-use, let’s begin to develop our skills to use these electronic devices to benefit learning.

Tattle Phone Call #2 – “My teacher doesn’t help me when I struggle.”

During my 35 years in and around public schools, I learned there are basically four types of teachers in every school. The first was someone who believed that kids either have the brains to do the work or they don’t. The second was someone who believed it’s the student’s responsibility to learn and the teacher’s responsibility to teach. The third believed kids would learn as long as they were surrounded by a positive environment, and the fourth believed that any kid could learn anything if they received the correct amount of support. If you walked down my school’s hallway, you saw these types of teachers scattered about, with only about 25% falling into the “do whatever it takes” category.

Public schools, especially secondary, are not structured to help kids when they struggle. They are designed to “sort and select,” to separate the smart from the not smart, the skilled from the non-skilled, the motivated from the lazy.

Tattle Phone Call #3 – “My teacher grades me unfairly.”

Read my 6/21 column on grading.

Tattle Phone Call #4 – “My school doesn’t offer what I want to spend time learning.”

This was a big complaint when I led schools, and it came from every type of student imaginable – mathematicians, athletes, singers, painters, journalists, poets, video game players, and the list goes on and on.

What kids learn should be a negotiation – you get to spend some time on your stuff, and you need to spend some time on our stuff (and the “our” doesn’t necessarily have to come from a state legislator or a school board member.) It is the act of negotiation that allows the learner to “buy in” to their learning plan. If the learner doesn’t have any input to what their learning plan looks like, then you create a system like we currently have where kids are spending time “learning” knowledge and skills that, at least at that moment in time, they have absolutely no interest in learning.

Tattle Phone Call #5 – “My school doesn’t care about me.”

I’m glad to report that the “tattle phone” This American Life ran didn’t have a complaint like this from the preschool kids. But, if there was one student complaint I heard, and sometimes just felt, from the older kids, it was this one. And it happened way too often and impacted way too many.

I’ve written about the importance of relationships when it comes to learning. Relationships are so important to learning that, if public schools can’t assure a kid feels like he is being cared for and about, then isn’t it our moral and ethical obligation to create a system whereby every young learner feels valued?

The “tattles” continue and haven’t changed much over the past many years. And there are more “tattles” out there – a lot more. Yet, it seems traditionalists either say “that’s the way it is, and you better get used to it, because that’s what life is about” or they continue to cross their fingers and toes hoping for improvement.

To me, both those responses are lacking. We should do better. We can do better.

Friday News Roundup tomorrow. SVB