We were watching tv the other day and saw an ad for Sylvan Learning Centers. A little confession...I worked at Sylvan for 2 years. I worked there before I discovered unschooling, when I was introduced to unschooling, and finally as I became an unschooler. I always look back on those 2 years as I emerged on the unschooling path as part of my epiphany.
When I started st Sylvan, I drank the kool-aid and bought into the idea that I was HELPING these poor kids. As I read more and more about unscholing, and decided we would unschool our own family, my time at Sylvan became torturous. It was so hard for me to go there and force these kids to do more absolutely meaningless work. The irony of the situation was that these kids who were going to Sylvan were going because they weren't succeeding in school. So here I was, doing MORE of what they weren't getting to begin with!!!I mostly tutored in Math, and quickly realized that memorizing facts and answering the odd questions #1-25 on page 50 from the math textbook was probably the worst way to understand mathematical concepts and the relationship of numbers and patterns in our world. And if you have to be told, at the end of the section, that you are now doing "critical thinking", it stands to reason you are quite possibly not thinking critically.
One child in particular helped me realize I could not participate in this lie any more. He was an eighth grader for the second time, and it was looking like he was not going to pass the third time around. He came to me for study skills. He was failing, it seems, because he refused to do any homework. He also slept in class. My job was to make him understand how this attitude would not serve him now or in the future. This kid was the epitome of what middle schoolers pick on. He was overweight, had some breathing issues, and was incredibly intelligent. Perfect fodder for the popular crowd at any middle school across the country. As I got to know him, I developed a deep respect for him and all that he was enduring. He slept in class because he did not need the instruction from the teachers to "get" the material and also to escape, for a while, the torment of his peers. He didn't do his homework because he made all A's, B's and C's on his tests which meant he "got" the material and could answer the questions posed. He did not see any reason why he should spend more of his time, aside from having to be in school all day anyway, when he knew the information! He was one of my last students before I quit, and I spent a good deal of time with him discussing the books he loved to read. I'd go through the motions with him, so he could get out of the stupid Sylvan program and get to spend some of the little time he had to himself doing what he wanted. After crossing the t's and dotting the i's, we'd talk. He was such a cool kid, really full of passion about the extremely complicated science fiction he read. One night, as we were closing up shop, this kid was waiting to be picked up. One of the other Sylvan teachers was closing up with me. She was a regular classroom teacher, and had been one for 15 years. She didn't know my student was in the waiting room, and she started talking about him. She said, "How can you stand to work with him. He smells bad and looks like a slob. No wonder he's failing. I would die if I had to work with him." Oh my god. I can't tell you how hurt I was by her comments. I can't tell you how badly I felt for my student who was sitting right there and heard her comments. I looked at her and said, "He's in the waiting room. He can hear you. And he is one of the smartest kids I've ever known. I love talking to him and enjoy his company." She was embarrassed, but not by what she said. She was only embarrassed that he had heard her. Pitiful. Knowing that her opinion was one of the dominant ones of "the system" made me cringe at the thought of this poor kid and what was in store for him the next 4-5 years of his life.
Okay, back to the present. This commercial we saw actually said, "Your child can lose up to 3 months of what they learned in school over the Summer. Bring them to Sylvan". What??!@!! You mean kids don't retain what they're forced to memorize in school???? Shock! Horror! Say it ain't so!!!!
This commercial brought back all of my memories. Bittersweet in that my experience at Sylvan was part of the catalyst that helped me understand how fundamentally wrong it all was. So this was a good thing. But my experience there also showed me the sadness of many kids' lives. I sure hope my student found his way out and to a life less ordinary.
