School Sucks
And Why Money is Not the Answer
Commentary by Kefing Aperto-Berry art by Samuel Rodriguez

All I hear junior high kids on the East Side saying is, "school sucks." When I ask them to explain, I get, "The classes are hella bunk, all we do is read out of some stupid book and fill in the blanks." When I ask the students what class they do like, they'll say PE because they're not just sitting at a desk for 45 minutes.

Public education in our communities is in the worst state it has ever been in and furthering budget cuts are motivating people to fight back. The growing energy to save and equalize education is directed towards getting better facilities and material. But the efforts are misdirected, a movement that ultimately won't change a thing. Straight up, the real problem with our public education system has little to do with lack of money. Although materials and facilities are important, real changes are more about what is being taught in the classroom and how the students and teachers relate to one another. We need to reestablish creativity and imagination as the core values of education.

I've been working after school with "at risk" youth for the past two years. At first I saw kids who were either depressed or introverted, who had no motivation to do good in school or for themselves. After getting to know them, I learned how many of them just needed a creative outlet to express themselves and to learn. The same "disruptive" eighth grade students that wrote at a third grade level were the same kids that were creating complex comic book characters in their binders or scribbling descriptive real-life raps.

It's no secret that there's a big difference between East Side schools and schools in Palo Alto. But fighting to make low-income schools into high-income schools is not the answer, even if it's an easier fight than really trying to revolutionize education. There has never been a better time in the history of public education to emphasize the importance of art and creative expression. Creativity plays such a great role in the development of people, but almost always gets overlooked in the classroom.

Covering schools with the after school programs running the same cookie-cutter activities just to keep the kids off the street isnÕt the key either. Letting the kids speak upon their own experiences has proven to be the best outlet. One student came up to me last year and told me that although a lot of adults are trying to help him, no one really seemed to care about what he goes through off the campus. ThatÕs when it hit me; teaching needs to be an intimate process. Teaching and learning should transform lives.

Curriculum should be based on the student's experience. Teaching as it is now has created nothing but human machines. The conveyer belts go to college and , at best, the end result is folks who are forced to think and live within the boundaries of what is set before us. We are not taught to imagine what and who we can become. You can go through institutions from first grade to earning a Masters Degree, but if you've never been challenged to think outside the box or to reflect on your experiences, all you have really learned how to do is regurgitate information. Youth, even the ones who are thought to be low-level learners and trouble makers, are smarter than that.

Transformative learning requires faith in the individual's ability to express where he/she has been and what the person has seen. Young people are seeing a lot these days. I know that the blame is not to be placed upon the teachers or the students, but we need to rethink what education and "to be educated" really should mean.

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