Now What Podcast

The Painful Separation of Education and Common Sense


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Somehow, we decided that children could learn without motivation, meaningful connections, a sense of purpose, the teacher-student relationship, joy, support, proper teacher training, or any link between effort and achievement. We divorced teaching from learning, and our schools are living with the consequences.

“Without that teacher bond, you're not really gonna be a great student... it’s just giving out work and doing work.” Teachers, though trying individually, were overwhelmed and disconnected. They were “just talking to a screen,” while students fell behind.

The lack of interaction, the absence of friends, and just staring at a screen all day left students feeling like they were attending a never-ending business meeting. “It’s like having a substitute every day.” There was no motivation, no joy, just a relentless barrage of assignments without the necessary tools or support to succeed.

This wasn’t just about a lack of effort from teachers; it was about a system that was ill-prepared and unwilling to admit that its methods were failing. We had no training in trauma-informed teaching or supporting depressed students, yet we moved forward as if we did, ignoring the reality that what we were doing contradicted everything we know about how kids learn.

What we put these kids through was not just flawed; it was insane, inhumane, and counter to all educational principles. They were expected to function in isolation, self-motivate without connection, and meet the same standards without the same resources. “It’s not that the kids were depressed and that’s why they weren’t doing well,” Isaiah argues. “They got more depressed because they couldn’t do what was being asked of them.”

Students like J lost all motivation and dramatically changed their future plans. “This year has been so bad for me that I’ve entirely changed my plan to community college or just trade school after high school.” It’s not that these paths aren’t valuable; it’s that the shift wasn’t born of choice but of resignation.

This was not a failure of our children; it was a failure of the adults that were unwilling to adapt, to listen, and to meet the real needs of the children it was supposed to serve. My priority throughout was clear: how do we keep these kids on track? Yet, this focus on what students truly needed somehow turned me into, in the words of my assistant principal, “a pariah.”

The most significant step we can take now is to admit that this approach didn’t work. It caused profound changes not just in our students, but in their families and the schools themselves. It’s time to rebuild with an honest acknowledgment of these failures and a commitment to truly supporting our students.



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Now What PodcastBy @jennibgaither