Summary: Schools are dysfunctional. They don't do what they have been chartered to do, what they do in theory, or what they say they do. They are busy places ;they do much. However, as powerful players [read 'major cause'] in individual realization of cultural competence or of unique individual potential, they are much less than promised, than thought, or than hoped. This I will believe until I see the proof otherwise.[Complacency is not fuel for growth. A relatively neutral skepticism will allow clearer sight, and clear vision is more even-handed in choosing between reward of genuine worth and correction of incompetence.]

Long, long ago, when I was just starting out as a special education teacher, I discovered that children who had made little or no progress in several years of schooling could make huge strides when they worked with me.It was briefly tempting to believe that I had some large dose of an 'extra' which allowed me to do that. Others within and outside of my subspecialty encouraged that conceit. However, rather than believe in my own magical powers as a first explanation I thought it reasonable to look for explanations in the structure and process of schools. One such explanation was that [with apologies to my tentatively boosted self-esteem] it was not so much me and my 'growth mojo' it was the fact of getting one-on-one attention from an adult. This too is a comfortable, common-sense, explanation in education circles These two explanations were what popped up into the heads of school folk when seeing how much progress was made in so little time. But, knowing that I had had failures as well -- and having struggled to analyze the differences between my failures and successes-- I thought the differences might be related to variables that were present in both my one-on-one environment and in a classroom in which the teacher was working with a much larger group, say, 25 students.

As examples:I routinely tried to determine what starting point would be useful for the student. Also, once a good starting point was located [It's more sophisticated than you might guess!] I carefully watched to see if progress was being made and if it was 'compelling'. If it wasn't the student and I worked to alter 'course' until growth seemed to be 'sincere' and convincing. While administrators and teachers of my acquaintance would credit these ideas as 'worthy' they would in the same breath note their 'impracticality' in a group-instruction environment. In short, neither of these ideas were (nor are they now) implemented in the general education environment.

In my early years I didn't know how much of a successful teaching/learning situation could be attributed to such things, but I did then sense [now know] that it was, at least in theory, possible to do these things even in a large group.

Now a very important point: The average teacher does not do these things for all subjects for which s/he is responsible or for all individuals who s/he is supposed to teach. Nor is there any consequence, at least not for the teacher, for not so organizing one's classroom so that these (and 20-30 other things which make large doses of individual learning much more likely) practices are in effect.Nor is their any system support for learning to do such things and altering one's classroom so it can be done.

[Why that is so --my explanation of why parents aren't in revolt--will be saved until my next entry. This one's about the problem of teaching itself--the absence of potent teaching approaches.]

[There are several points that deserve explanation and which would, if explained, make the seriousness of my criticism more obvious. But am gonna skip them for now.]

The sum and substance is this: Our children are capable of learning much more in the schools. Why? Because our teachers, if taught and expected to carry out the practices that I briefly explained, could, teach large groups far better than they do presently. This is not a short-term problem. This is a problem that has lasted for generations.

Our schools most powerful potential resource, the teacher, is being wasted in many ways. And, thus, if we waste the teacher, we waste the child. Many students go through school learning little and far more go through school learning much less than they could.

This, the claim that schools don't (but could) work, is what I call the "Dysfunctionality Thesis".

1. We know that these practices could be done because they are done by some teachers. 2. Yet they are not in general practice. 3. The negative consequences of nonpractice are many and large.

How could it be that this is so and yet no one does anything about it?