This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Nov. 23, 2011 - With an iPad2, a yellow legal pad, and a bunch of black felt-tip pens, I am trotting around Missouri interviewing people who are in fourth grade. I am doing this to hear what kids think and feel about their experience of school right now. In the book that will result from this research, I will describe the large themes and patterns of what I have heard, as well the experiences and impressions that do not seem to fit into any larger theme. My role model in doing this project is the late great Studs Terkel of Chicago, whom I myself read for the first time in high school back in the 1970s.
Of course, one important feature of my project that distinguishes it from other oral histories is that my participants will be anonymous. They are children, after all. Their identities, their schools, and their teachers are all confidential. As I tell the stories of fourth graders of Missouri, I will rely on big demographic categories: region (urban, rural, suburban), type of school (independent, parochial, public, charter) and social, cultural, economic descriptors.
The idea is simply to quiet down the very loud adult voices (including my own) to hear what kids think and feel, and to interpret what they think and feel about school across our state. All learning begins with the assumptions and prior knowledge of the learners. What exactly are Missouri fourth graders assuming about school and education these days?
For a writer who is also a teacher, this is very satisfying work. Like teaching, it is work that must be built upon trust. After interviewing nearly three dozen kids in the past couple of months, I am beginning to see a few big themes starting to emerge. I hope to explore some of them in columns to come.
Meanwhile, I am putting out a call, here in The Beacon, for research participants. If this sounds intriguing, and you know a fourth grader in Missouri who might be interested in sharing her or his perspective (generally, these are children born between July 2001 and July 2002), please contact me directly for more information. Of course a parent or adult guardian needs to read and sign a consent form. At that point we can arrange a suitable time and place for the conversation. As long as another responsible adult is present, I can travel anywhere that is convenient for you. (NOTE: This project resulted in the 2014 book, "Speaking of Fourth Grade.")
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Now, about this situation with St. Louis' Imagine charter schools and their students' low levels of achievement on standardized tests. Conflicts abound between Missouri Baptist University, Imagine's local sponsor, and Missouri education commissioner Chris Nicastro -- conflicts with respect to accountability, the timeline for improvement and the likelihood of shutting down these schools.
Imagine schools in 12 states are run as for-profit entities. So one line in Dale Singer's Beacon story about the new local Imagine leader, Alan Olkes, especially caught my eye:
"We have lost money every year we have been in business, large amounts of money," he [Olkes] said. "Fortunately, Dennis Bakke has covered those losses."
Who is Dennis Bakke?
Dennis Bakke of Arlington, Va., is founder and CEO of Imagine Schools. Dennis Bakke was raised a Baptist and has said that "God made us all a certain way." Way back in 1981, in the wake of deregulation in the energy business, Bakke founded Applied Energy Systems. After opening its first power plant in Texas in 1985, AES found its footing by making use of what is called "off-balance-sheet financing." After two decades of phenomenal growth and profit-earning, there were a rocky few months at the end of 2001 as a result of energy-related crises in California, the Enron collapse and the attack of 9/11. But the company came through and now employs 29,000 people around the world generating and distributing power.
Shifting from energy to education, Bakke founded Imagine in 2004, in what we might call an age of hyper-regulation and aggressive standardization in the school business. But Bakke can't stand centralized forms of leadership. And he is not driven by profit-making. Imagine advertises a dedication to integrity, justice and fun. Bakke himself is driven (and you can look this up) by a passion to "create the most fun workplace in human history."
Now, I have nothing against integrity, justice and fun in the workplace. But honestly, I sure would like to see Mr. Bakke start to generate and distribute power to the 3,800 students and families in St. Louis who are left in the lurch now that Imagine seems to be failing them.
Inda Schaenen is a writer and teacher in St. Louis..