*This post is a glimpse of a theory I hope to expand on later in life when I have done more research on the topic. For now, it is a preliminary collection of my thoughts and observations on the issue.*
“Adam lives in theory
Trying to turn stone into bread
Masquerading like he’s got it figured out
Cut off from the sunshine, only smart in his own head
Leaving his descendants to hope and doubt”
-Lauryn Hill
One of the many benefits of being a teacher is the opportunity to study human behavior. As a teacher I am both an actor and an observer. It never ceases to astound me how much you can learn about people just from simply watching them. Like many teachers in low income urban settings, behavior and classroom management were at the forefront of my priorities in my first two years. In my first year, I spent hours trying to think of ingenious was to motivate, inspire, and engage students. While I was occasionally successful, I lived in perpetual frustration as a result of many of my students behaviors. I tried to avoid the predominant dichotomy of teacher perspectives on the matter; one side has the mindset that all student actions and outcomes are a result of teacher behaviors/actions while the other holds a renounced perspective towards any significant effect that teachers can have on troubled students. I personally believe that the reality exists somewhere in between these two sides; teachers definitely shape the expectations, rapport, and behaviors in their classroom but there are also many things in our children’s lives that are beyond our control.
I spent months exasperated and brainstorming a scenario where all people, and in particular middle school kids, behaved. I expanded my thought process to all people because I had already seen a few cases where the parents behaved as bad, or in some cases worse, than some of their children. As I contemplated why or when people behave it dawned on me that there is one place where EVERYONE, adults, children, and seniors all behave; church (most of my kids belonged to some sort of Christian denomination but I believe that my theory extends across religions to all places of worship including, but not limited to , mosques and temples). It astounds me that at places of worship there is a strong sense of community that reinforces the norms and expectations there. Everyone is made aware of the conventions accepted in religious settings and if they are not then they are quickly socialized and adapted to them. If someone speaks out of turn or disrupts a service, the entire congregation typically exerts some sort of social pressure in order for that behavior to be corrected. Disruption is never tolerated and attentiveness is always expected. While I agree that lessons at school should be engaging and have elements of participation, I find it interesting that many religious ceremonies/practices are not and we somehow find that okay. In my experience, I have seen parents who blame the school or a teacher for their child’s behavior. Meanwhile, almost all parents are embarrassed when their child acts up in church regardless of the context that led up to their actions. They don’t blame the monotone or boring sermon when their child acts up. Instead, they usually offer some sort of firm correction and expect that their child will acquiesce.
In education, middle school is considered the dark age of child development. Children are hormonal and going through many complex changes physically, mentally, and emotionally. While this serves to explain many behaviors that we begin to see from them as they progress through middle school and adolescence, it’s interesting to me that these same children generally tend to continue to behave in church. It would appear that we either 1. Continue to be invested in the potential outcomes of religious adherence and become disinvested in education and its potential outcomes or 2. We no longer feel invested in either but feel pressured to continue to respect one and not the other. If the first of these is to blame, then we must look to our teachers to make their lessons more engaging and be sure to draw a connection between their content and their kids so that we are all invested in learning. If it is the latter, then we must raise awareness of the importance and prestige that education deserves. In reality, I believe that it is a mix of these two points.
In my consideration of how people behave in church, I began to wonder why it is that they comport themselves properly and the underlying reasons driving these behaviors. In my opinion, religion has two main draws to it that are in some cases coexistent and in others independent; the first is that we are promised some type of reward (material or spiritual in the present and/or future) for our adherence to it and the second is that we fear repercussions as a result of our noncompliance. Because of one of these or both, many of us are compelled to respect religion and its places of worship. We look to god and its various derivations as a way of being granted positive outcomes or blessings. Meanwhile, we frequently overlook or dismiss the avenues that would provide us the means of attaining many of the very things we pray for. When I asked my kids what they asked of god, many of them mentioned material goods or various aspects of a high quality of life. It perplexed me that many of these same students dismissed school and didn’t think of college or a professional career as a means of acquiring their dreams/wishes/prayers. It is our responsibility to show young learners that knowledge acquisition is just as important and useful in their day to day lives as spiritual growth.
If we as a society were as invested in education as we are in religion then we would ameliorate many of its flaws. This type of prioritization is exactly what our system needs if we hope to see it improved for the betterment of our children. We are willing to go to war for religion but uneasy to enact educational reform for fear that it might offend people or it may be too difficult for our children. I don’t want to undermine the value of religion but rather recognize that even at the global level we invest an incredible amount of time, respect, and resources into it that we rarely prioritize for education (which one could argue is more universal or intrinsically compatible in a globalized world; at least the United Nations thinks so as evidenced by its inclusion into the universal declaration of human rights…).