Portland Press Herald | Maine Sunday TelegramMAINE VOICES How to make our schools safeHyde Schools offer three initiatives for students to be responsible
for the best in each other.Joseph W. Gauld July 6, 2007
Our deeply sad, but ultimately impotent, response to the Virginia Tech massacre reveals our American conscience is still asleep.
Like the Columbine tragedy, we routinely mourned the dead, discussed the whys and what ifs, made minor reforms, and then -- returned to business as usual.
What's next? Will some embittered student soon figure out a way to blow up his school while it is in session?
This is a time to act on conscience and finally address the bitterness, hostility and community detachment that created these tragedies. We must acknowledge the hatred was instigated and nurtured by our schools. But hatred is a learned behavior, and whatever is learned can be unlearned.
Our schools place us all in competition with each other. Given the rapid growth we are experiencing, this greatly exacerbates our incomplete sense of identity and worth.
This, in turn, motivates our "pecking order" instincts to put others down in order to feel better about ourselves. Thus our schools today are riddled with bullying, cliques.
This tyranny of conformity undermines our confidence in the uniqueness of our potentials and deeper selves. Examine our school cultures today: Under the No Child Left Behind Act, most of our schools are rated unsatisfactory, with the majority of students rated either "basic" or "below basic." Negativity abounds. Examine the present mission of our schools: 100 percent of American students rated "proficient" by year 2014. Never mind their uniqueness, values, character and humanness. What we seek is a bunch of robots who can perform proficiently.
We created a land whose laws revere individuality. But we unwittingly created a competitive educational system that does not. So, during this most critical human growth period, our system not only discourages students from helping and learning from each other, it allows their doubts about themselves and their worst instincts to bully others.
The depth of resentments and hatred generated inevitably spawn school tragedies like Columbine and Virginia Tech.
As a teacher, I experienced a crisis of conscience in 1962 when I realized I was part of this educational system that fails to help American kids discover their deeper selves and succeed in life beyond proficiency tests.
Since then, I have founded a network of both private and public Hyde Schools devoted to developing the character and unique potential of its students.
Our K-12 Hyde Leadership Public Charter School in Washington, D.C., has no metal detectors. The students like this safe environment and know that keeping it requires their "Brother's Keeper" commitment to the best in each other.
There is no bullying or "we-they" attitudes. No one experiences community isolation like that of the Virginia Tech shooter because students daily intrude on each other's lives with concern.
Our brand new Hyde Leadership Charter School in New York City recently disciplined a group of sixth graders that attempted to create a gang. But once they learn to appreciate Brother's Keeper, they will grow beyond these pecking-order attitudes.
After 41 years of work, this would be Hyde's contribution to American education:
1. Primarily evaluate student growth in terms of one's own best, not in comparison with others. The uniqueness of human development first requires encouragement -- certainly before competition.
2. Primarily focus on developing the character and unique potential of each student. This respects, values and motivates each one in a positive direction.
3. Require all students, particularly teenagers, to be each other's Brother's Keeper, to become responsible for the best in each other.
They can be powerful teachers, and their concern is the antidote for bitterness, anger, detachment and hostility.
These three initiatives will not only replace student alienation with life-long friendships; they will produce a generation to lead America into becoming the nation it was meant to be.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joseph W. Gauld of Bath is the founder of Hyde Schools.
• Special to the Press HeraldCopyright © 2007 Blethen Maine Newspapers
