As I continue to read Visual Thinking in preparation for our January Professional Development Forum Book Club, I was struck by the author’s case against traditional schools. Grandin cited a paper titled “The Mismatch Between School and Children’s Minds.” A professor of developmental psychology explores why kindergartners and first graders are excited to learn, but those same students become bored and unresponsive high schoolers. Some readers might think puberty has a lot to do with that, but that can’t be the entire reason.
When my now twenty-year-old son was in first and second grade, his optimism and enthusiasm were ebbing away. I could see it on his little face as he got off the bus. This is why I ultimately pulled him out of public school at the end of second grade, even though homeschooling was never part of my parenting plan.
Grandin also mentions Angeline Lillard at the University of Virginia, who has studied play in preschool children. She says, “Kids like to do real things because they want a role in the real world.”
Traditional school is the opposite of the real world.
The idea that there are multiple types of intelligence is not new. Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences was published in 1983. Developmental psychologist Howard Gardner observed that no two people have the same intelligence—not even twins. And yet, we test people the same way with IQ and standardized tests. For our dyslexic students, standardized tests aren’t an area of strength.
All of our students have been beaten down by school to varying degrees. We know the issue is with the system, not with them—but that’s not the message they hear. Many are capable of doing far more if they were allowed to use their strengths instead of being forced to repeat tasks that expose their weaknesses. And many of them know it. They know when the work is meaningless.
I once worked with a student for whom school was hell. He was born in Honduras and lived with foster parents here for several years. In his native country, he did real work that contributed to his family. When he came to my office, I’d let him build with Legos for part of each session, and his designs were intricate and creative. His foster mother told me he often cried over homework. I couldn’t stop wondering: why are we torturing students like Kevin?
We tell them school is important, but the data tell another story. Leonard Baird, a professor at Ohio State, reviewed decades of research on the relationship between academic ability and high-level accomplishment. He concluded, “High academic ability is no guarantee of high-level attainment.”
If school is supposed to prepare students for life, then the failure isn’t in the children—it’s in what we’ve chosen to value. Our dyslexic students, and many others like them, are built for contribution, invention, and problem-solving. The system simply isn’t built for them.
