But in the leafy suburbs, where children come to
Kindergarten with all manner of advantages, schools could
teach yoga all day and their students would
still probably ace the state tests.
The dysfunctional nature of how urban schools
teach students to relate to authority begins in
kindergarten and continues through the primary grades.With young children, authoritarian, directive
teaching that relies on simplistic external rewards
still works to control students.But as children mature and grow in size they become more aware that the school's coercive measures are not really hurtful (as compared to what they deal with outside of school) and the directive, behavior modification methods practiced in primary grades lose their power to control.Indeed, school authority becomes counterproductive.From upper elementary grades upward students know very well that it is beyond the power of school authorities to inflict any real hurt.External controls do not
teach students to want to learn; they
teach the reverse.The net effect of this situation is that urban schools
teach poverty students that relating to authority is a kind of game.And the deepest, most pervasive learnings that result from this game are that school authority is toothless and out of touch with their lives.What school authority represents to urban youth is «what they think they need to do to keep their school running.»