It’s my hope that my grandchildren’s teachers, and lots of other teachers as well, will say something like this on the first day of school: “Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to school. I hope every one of us will have the best year yet. And I want this classroom to be a warm and welcoming space for everyone.
“During the year, I will occasionally ask you, ‘How are you feeling today?’ And while I do care about your answers, let me tell you now, on Day One, that I’m going to ask only one vitally important question about each of you.
“But before I ask my question, let’s think about how schools operate. Basically, today’s schools want to know one thing about every one of their students. About every one of you! Directly and indirectly, they look at you and ask, ‘How smart are you?’ Then they make you take all sorts of tests. When the machine sends back the results, the system relies heavily on those test scores for their answer. They rank you. In short, you’re a number.
“But never forget that a test score is just a number, and you are much more than a number. That number reveals how you did on that test on that particular day, but not much more. That number doesn’t make allowances for headaches or hunger pains, or for difficulties at home, or for the argument you might have had that morning with a best friend, or a girl- or boyfriend.
“The question that I am going to ask you changes the order of the words, just slightly but in a way that makes a world of difference. My question is not, ‘How smart are you?’ but, ‘How are you smart?” Not whether you are smart, because you are. I want to know — and it’s even more important that you know — the different ways that you are smart.
“Because each and every one of you is smart in different ways. ‘How are you smart?’ can be phrased differently:
“What are you curious about? What do you wish you were better at? What do you think about becoming? What’s the fire inside you that is waiting to be ignited?
“Perhaps you’re interested in fashion, marine biology, or farming. Maybe you’d like to know more about how houses are designed and built. Or how your own body works. Or what different religions have in common, or the history of your family and community. Or all of those things!
“I’d like you to spend some time thinking about what you dream about knowing, or becoming. What you would like to explore. There’s no right or wrong answer here, just pathways to wander down. You might want to keep a journal about your own explorations, something you can look back on as the year progresses and as you change.
“And, of course, you are free to change your mind. In fact, I hope you will.
“My job, and the challenge for all of your teachers, is to make sure that you become competent writers, that you can work with numbers and with other people, and that your curiosity increases as we fan the flames of your desire to know. You’re still going to read good books and study algebra and geography and all the other stuff, but, as much as possible, through the lens of the ideas and subjects that turn you on.
“If you’re interested in airplanes or auto mechanics or veterinary medicine, let’s figure out why mathematics matters. And why writing and speaking clearly matter. Because they do …
“This isn’t that dreaded ‘extra homework.’ It’s my way of reminding you that you are unique, not a number in somebody’s ranking.
“What you are actually doing in school, although we never say this, is building a self, and the self that you build will be your constant companion — for the rest of your life. And whatever you learn, whatever you put into your head, that’s who you are. No one can take that away from you.
“Any questions?”
John Merrow is a former education correspondent with PBS NewsHour.
In addition to this message you’d tell students if you want to be a nurse, doctor, electrician, plumber, truck driver, bus driver or a whole bunch of other occupations you need to study hard and pass a test. That’s life. Suck it up buttercup!
Who gets to decide what is on the test?
What is passing?
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