Timeout for Leadership-your one-minute leadership idea

The dark side-What might Yoda say? (#6)

People on the dark side do not learn from their mistakes. (part 1)

Always the same the dark side must be, never admitting mistakes.  Always right it must be.  To stay that way, lies must be told, blame assigned, anger stoked.  But always defeated in the same way it can be.  Learn from your errors, give credit to others, raise up those around you; that is the path to the light side.

The Game of School

I have spoken before spoke about the game of school and how it relates to the contract of mediocrity.  Both of these concepts go hand in hand.  And both of these concepts provide an overriding theme throughout all of my work.

Robert L. Fried wrote about the “game of school” in his book published in 2005, entitled, The Game of School -Why We All Play It, How It Hurts Kids, and What It Will Take to Change It.

I could not think of a better title for this book.  Fried is able to call it like he sees it.  What he describes is a never spoken about game that apparently all play including: teachers, students, parents and principals.  They confirm it by figuratively signing on to the contract of mediocrity.  The game of school and the contract of mediocrity are inextricably linked.  And sadly, both have been institutionalized for not just years but perhaps generations.  But the real issue is that….,

We just don’t learn.

That is right, we just don’t learn.  We keep doing the same things over and over again and somehow expect different results.  What is that called?  I think Albert Einstein called this insanity.  Schools will never change until we eradicate the game of school. 

In the game of school, few people really care about learning.  I started to list those that play this game and I stopped.  I stopped generating this list because my list became all inclusive.  Everyone plays this game.

Let’s start by talking about the students.  Let’s face it, few students really care about learning.  They care about getting good grades.  This is drummed into their heads at a very early age.  It starts in the home.  I am convinced that parents really do not care if or what their child learns.  They only care about their child getting good grades and when something gets in the way, that is when they become engaged and mobilized in their child’s education.

So, the children do not become good learners, they merely become good game players.  They learn in a very early age how to play the system.  They learn a host of teacher pleasing behaviors and can turn them on at a moment’s notice.

On the first day of class the student wants to know how he or she can get that A.  On the surface, that is not bad.  Everyone wants to know what they are to be held accountable for.  I am sure that on your job, you know precisely what is on your job description and you know exactly what performance incentives you have to reach to keep your job, get promoted or attain the best bonus possible.  But what is it that you need to learn?  What do you want to learn?  These two questions should drive you.  But they do not.  You just want to know, depending on who you are, how do I get that A or how do I just pass your class?

Overall, students are interested very little in learning. There is no intrinsic motivation at all.

And as we spoke a bit earlier, teachers and principals are interested very little in changing this.  They appear to be driven by an appeasement philosophy.  Their attitude becomes, leave me alone and I will give you anything that you want.  I have seen this defeated look in many teachers’ eyes.  Most have tried to fight the war and have just given up.

For many teachers, grades have become about showing up and behaving.  Nothing more and nothing less.  The message is clear, come to class, don’t bug me and you will pass and have a real good chance of getting that A.  Students are also passed for being nothing more than compliant.  A student mantra should be, show up and turn it in and everything will be all right.  Now, throw in some extra credit and your point accrual will soar.  I think we have all heard or seen stories where extra credit is given for perhaps bringing in something for the class, such as tissues or paper towels. I personally know teachers who gave out extra credit if a child’s parent came to the annual Parent Back to School Night.

School administrators do the same thing as they too learn how to manipulate points on state and national reports.  I am not suggesting that the administration does illegal or perhaps unethical things.  It is just that they too, know how to work the system.  They too, know how to accrue points with the county or state without ever improving schools.

According to Fried we do a wonderful job at killing off a child’s curiosity and desire to learn.  We waste of lot of that child’s time with nonsense. And we rarely ask that student if he or she learned something that made you want to learn more about that specific subject.  (Fried)

I will close this article with two short anecdotes.  I can recall going into a second or third grade classroom and seeing on a table approximately ten or twelve folders filled with worksheets on a table.  Throughout the day the students would file past this table and take a sheet from each given folder.  Once completed it would be checked and then stuffed into the child’s backpack to bring home.  I can just about see the backpack when opened by a parent or guardian at home explode open with worksheets pouring out.  The parent would be so happy believing that his or her son or daughter worked like hell on this day and learned quite a bit.  In all likelihood, they learned nothing.

These habits do not seem to change.  Just the other day I heard of a professional football star reveal to all how he beat the system fooling his coaches on off-season workouts.  In the COVID abbreviated season he had to send a photo or video of him working out to his coaches.  For example, he had to show in each workout how he completed ten wind sprints.  Instead of doing his work-outs on schedule he just brought five different tee shirts out with him to the field.  After every two sprints he changed his shirt and took another video to send to his coaches.  Therefore, he proved that he completed his weekly required workouts in one day.  He was a master at playing the game of school.  And sadly, his deception was ultimately reinforced because he won the big game. I wonder how his teammates feel now after learning about this deception?  They probably did not care because at that level winning is everything. I know that if I was a teammate and legitimately doing my work and this guy was cheating, I would not be too happy.  I would especially be unhappy if at the end of an important game and I had to count on this guy he came up short in his performance.

In schools, when we sacrifice learning, we are losing and losing big. Yet we continue to sacrifice this all of the time, over and over again.

You see the game of school works in most environments.  Once you learn the rules of this game so well in school, it travels with you.  Think about this. 

Do you play the game of school at work?  Does your colleague?  I am convinced that nothing will change until everyone stops playing this devious game and commits to learning or just doing the job right to the best of one’s ability.