Academic Rigor Every Day

This afternoon I was in the grocery store, and I saw a mom there with a couple small kids, wearing what was clearly a school T-shirt.  The back of it said "ACADEMIC RIGOR EVERYDAY."

Here's what I think about academic rigor every day:  it does not sound good to me at all.

Now, before I go any further, I want to be very clear.  I know that parents usually choose their child's school very carefully, and they have a lot invested there.  If the school on this T-shirt is your school, I'm not trying to say your choice is wrong.  I don't know anything about this school.  I don't even know what school it is.  I'm sure it has great teachers, involved parents, and bright, talented students, and I have no desire to criticize it.  I'm not even going to mention that the official school shirt proclaiming academic excellence incorrectly uses "everyday" as a single word--that's another post entirely.  (Actually, I should probably stop what I'm doing right now and write that post instead, as it would probably be funnier to read and less likely to offend.)  Anyway, let me say one more time, I'm not criticizing your school.

However, having given that disclaimer, let me just ask you one question.  What does the word "rigor" remind you of?  If, like me, it immediately makes you think of death, I want to suggest there might be a reason for that.  Let me explain what I mean.

Education--true education, the kind that has actual value for living--is about more than just the acquisition of information.  Kids who can be regarded as well-educated possess more than a head full of facts.  They possess an intrinsic love of learning, an insatiable intellectual curiosity.  They are eager to find out how what they're learning can be applied in real life, and excited about exploring new possibilities that haven't been tried before.  They are unafraid to take the risks involved in innovating.  They actively seek for ways to integrate all kinds of seemingly unrelated information into the scheme of what they already know.  And unfortunately, none of these qualities can be acquired by means of what usually passes for "academic rigor."

I was raised in a family that highly valued education, and I learned all these qualities from my parents.  In my entire life I've yet to encounter anyone as excited about learning, anyone who approaches even the most seemingly trivial pieces of information with as much wonder and appreciation, as my mom and dad.  They are voracious learners.  (I once had the following actual conversation with my mother.  Mom:  "Do you know anything about Normandy?"  Me:  "No, not really."  Mom:  "I have to find out something about it."  Me:  "Why?"  Mom, indignantly:  "Well you shouldn't just be ignorant!")  This attitude was contagious--they passed it on to us.  But they didn't do it by forcing us to spend 45 minutes each day after school doing language and math exercises.  They did it by communicating--by believing--that learning is fun and exciting, that it's relevant to life, that ideas are valuable and that information is the vehicle for those ideas.

I'm not suggesting that school or learning should always be entertaining and fun, like video games except with multiplication facts.  In fact, I've written quite clearly in an earlier post about the idea that some things we need to learn are boring, tedious, difficult, or not inherently meaningful.  And I'm not against expecting kids to meet high standards in terms of both knowledge and skills.  My quarrel is with methodology.  Attempting to implement rigorous academic standards too often means simply the transmission of factual information, presented in the absence of context, reinforced by repetition and testing.  But learning, in order to lead to true academic excellence, cannot be based on rote memory and repetition--the style of teaching we used to affectionately refer to as "drill and kill."  Instead, it needs to be based on wonder, discovery, passion; it must be demonstrated to be meaningful in a larger context; the skills required to accomplish it need to be valued and celebrated.  All of which, unfortunately, the drill often does, in fact, kill.  And that lends a whole new meaning to "academic rigor" that I can frankly do without.