The Culture Club...

In class my group ended up discussing the other part of education.  We all agree, I think, that education is greatly concerned with the three R's.  It is concerned with a few other letters that are harder to group into clever phrases.  However, it is also about learning to be a member of society.  By society, I don't just mean how to use cash or how to salute the flag, I also mean how to deal with people.
  Perhaps it is better to say 'culture'.  For many children school is the first time they leave the culture of the family and step into a different culture.  The new culture, that of the school, is no longer defined by the rules and beliefs of the few ( Ma, Pa, and Granny), it is defined by far more people ( superintendent, senator, teachers, other people's parents, the mean girls  who don't really eat anything but still go to the cafeteria). Like Lisa Bonet said, it is a different world.
    I don't want to talk about the culture of the United States or the culture of status quo.  I grew up a poor, brown kid with a high voice, a big ass, and a swishy way of walking.  I know the downside to 'learning culture'.  I want to talk about interpersonal communication and dealing with different people.  Simply put, what is acceptable in your house is not always acceptable outside of your house.  Oh, and though your parents are supercool and great at pinochle, they don't know everything.
   I recall working with two youngsters who had never been to school.  They were not related and did not know each other before working with me, but their parents had decided (for different reasons) that their children should not be educated outside of the home. One of the youths was timid, afraid to talk, and you would sometime forget he was in the room.  The other was loud, rude, and talked about inappropriate things at the worst possible times ever since ever was invented.  They were both from opposite sides of the spectrum, but it occurred to me (after plenty of investigation) that neither of them had really been exposed to any culture outside of their own family culture.
   Despite their differences, they had a few things in common.  Neither of them could carry on a conversation very well,  neither of them responded to non-verbal cues very well, and neither of them got my jokes.  I think all of those things are peculiar.  I think one of those things is just plain wrong.  I am funny.  My funny is like a ham sandwich, it has layers.  These two were not catching any of the layers of funny sandwich I was flinging their way.
  I worked with them for several years.  In that time, they loosened up.  They learned to make conversation, and they learned to joke around.  They had learned the culture of that specific workplace. They still work there.
  I feel that the two of them had only received part of an education.  I could ask them the capitols of states, and they would be able to tell me.  They knew math very well.  They knew the facts of education, which was great, but they didn't know how to deal with people.

I am not saying that all of the culture education a student gets in school is good.  Many of the 'between the lines' education can be downright bad.  I will skip the obvious bad behavior that students learn from each other, and step right into something that bothers me.

Before teaching high school, I taught as an adjunct instructor at UNM and CNM.  Much of what I teach in college is creative stuff.  What that means is, sometimes a question can have a kabillion answers, and all of the answers can be correct.  I have found that students going through the current education system (most from New Mexico, but not all), are used to the idea that there is only one answer to every question.  Therefore, there is no need for deductive reasoning.  There is no reason for creative thought.  There is no room for opinion.  Well, there is room for one opinion...mine, and I think it's stanky.

I have been told that there is a reason for this kind of behavior, and it has to do with a specific style of teaching that must always connect to an answer on a test.  I am not sure.  All I can say is that there is something in the 'culture'  of the education system that is causing students to lose these ways of thinking.  That too is not directly being taught, but is is being learned.