Today’s
complicated car engines often seem analogous to the workings of a students’
learning brains? And to continue the analogy, car mechanics and teachers do not
get the credit they
deserve for dealing with the increased complexity in their professions. For
example, compare yesterday’s cars and students with today’s cars and students
and you begin to see the increased intricacy of care required in both
professions.
Years ago,
teaching was far less complicated. Today’s teachers have to be far more trained
and professionally resilient to teach students who have been exposed to public
and/or private schools, charter schools, arts centered/home study programs, IB
high schools, technical schools etc. And let’s not forget the hour-long versus
block schedules to add to the mix. As a student, I had only one neighborhood
K-8th school to choose from. Further, for years, our public school
teachers taught the same curriculum to my brothers, sisters, etc. There was a
sense of stability, yet substance in the less complicated curriculum in the
earlier teaching approaches. Conversely, our cars were equally uncomplicated. I
could personally change the oil and do a tune-up on my 1971 Saab with little or
no problem. However, recently I brought my (new) car in for servicing. My
mechanic, a man with very impressive credentials that hung on his wall, hooked
up my car to a very pretentious looking machine. The entire experience was now
computerized and seemed far more complicated than the cars of yesterday. The
same can be said of the teaching profession. In other words, teachers not only
are required to have advanced degrees beyond a BA or BS, but must also be
trained and possess certificates defined with important sounding acronyms
called CLAD or SYDAE to name but a few of the certificates required to teach to
different student cultures. And car mechanics often must be trained to service
a variety of foreign cars representing different countries and cultures as
well.
In addition,
today’s teachers must deal with what I like to call the alphabet soup of
student labeling, which, only makes the teacher’s role more complicated.
Teachers must be able to spout off and understand additional acronyms such as
LH, SED, SDC APE, IEP and 504. For the
car mechanic, the language is as daunting: GPS, Hy-wire, ECU, ABS and so forth,
but I think you get my point.
And let’s not
forget cost. During my time, the cost to educate a student was far less. Today,
the cost is about $9,000 to educate one California HS student. As for cars, a
new VW sold for about $1,999. The cost to educate a child is expensive,
particularly if something goes wrong with the learner. It can cost over
$100,000 to incarcerate a juvenile offender!
I do not need to mention what I recently paid for a major engine
repair.
When you think
about how complicated it is to service cars and teach students
we must go back to my original
premise and give credit to where credit is due. When you look at the number of
recalled cars and low student test scores, much of the blame should not go to
the mechanic or teacher, but to the dilemma that teachers and mechanics must
now face with the proliferation of the electronics used by cars and students.
That is, when you are hooked up to cell phones, I-phones, computers etc. and
cars to the aforementioned GTS, ABS ECU systems, the simplicity of the
teacher/student relationship and mechanic/car has become a thing of the past.
Therefore, the next time you bring your car to be serviced, think about how
good your mechanic must be. The same should be said for your child’s teacher,
or what I like to call the mechanics of teaching, as both seem to be cut from
analogous molds?