The Students are Watching

August 2, 1999
Teachers play a vital role in shaping the morality of young people, contends Ted Sizer (Horace's School, etc.), founder of the Coalition of Essential Schools, and co-principal with his wife, Nancy Sizer (Making Decisions), of the Francis W. Parker Charter School in Ayer, Mass. In their first endeavor as co-writers, the Sizers maintain that teachers model ways to approach knotty problems and, because they have emotional distance from students, can help them keep their thinking balanced in difficult situations. Acknowledging that some people are concerned by the notion that educators have the right to shape students' minds, they assert that high schools have long had three core tasks: to prepare young people for the world of work, to prepare them to think deeply and in an informed way and to help them become decent human beings. Yet, though schools exist for the benefit of children and adolescents, the Sizers point out that the students are often seen as the school's "clients," as its powerless people--though the authors believe that is a costly, patronizing pretense. Instead, the Sizers call for adults to put stock in the suggestions of children, since they watch and listen to adults all the time and have learned more than we realize. Clearly sympathetic to educators, the Sizers recognize that "serious teaching does not carry an eight-to-four expectation whatever any contract says." For educators and parents concerned about raising thoughtful citizens, this slim book offers the surprisingly weighty insight that if we wish to shape our children's values--how as a matter of habit they treat others and how self-aware they are--we must first look into the mirror.