by Vishaal Kuruvanka
March 2nd, 2022

I could trace back my entry into education to two experiences. For a majority of my childhood, my family was constantly moving so I became accustomed to constantly changing schools. It would not be wrong to say that after my graduation in high school, I was lost in understanding my greater role and purpose in the world. This was probably a function of not being a diligent student and therefore not knowing my innate skills and talents. After a period of contemplation, I narrowed down my deepest impulses which circled around taking action. Not knowing what to act on, I looked to the closest role models that I had who were in my vicinity, my parents. My father, a physician, and my mother, a yoga therapist, both worked in the broader health industry and worked to heal people. Consequently they gave back to their community in their own unique ways. 

Trying to quench this thirst to be useful, I began to look for ways to use whatever rudimentary skills that I possessed. It was at this point that I learned, through a local newspaper article, that schools in the greater Houston area performed poorly in the mathematics and reading portions of the statewide standardized test. Around the same time, I learned of a top student in North Carolina who grew up homeless but still found time to give back to his greater community through mentoring young students near his university. Questioning my own lackluster attitude and privilege, I began formulating plans to emulate the sort of service the aforementioned student gave to his community, even while he was suffering. Bolstered by my friend's confidence in our plans to mentor young students, I still did not understand the scope of the journey I was about to embark on. Through the next six years, I tutored in a multitude of classrooms across Houston, built a larger network to get likeminded university students to give back to their communities and eventually found a passion that I hope to continue for my life. It also became apparent that the students within these classrooms were exceptionally bright and possessed many different skills and positive attributes. Their boundless energy and playfulness deeply played a role in how I view the possibilities for our education system and buttressed my belief that our system needs to be redesigned for the twenty-first century and beyond. The amount of resources and technology that we possess is more than enough to make sure that we can kindle each student’s inherent gifts and push them to become leaders within their respective interests and fields. Education, in all accounts, is the ultimate source of enlightenment and we can tailor it to each student’s strengths and weaknesses. It is my goal with this series to convince you that while I may not possess the best answer, we must begin to think deeply on this issue and bring forward pragmatic solutions or prepare for our country’s eventual demise.

 

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Teaching:

As I left my house to drive to school for the first day of teaching, it was frigid cold and still dark outside. I was fully shivering both with excitement and fear. What would my students think of me? Would they like me? Could I manage 25 students in each class? Am I prepared for this? How will my students fare? As a million different questions swirled around my head, I arrived at the school and began my trek to my room. It was at the front of the back most trailer (yes the high school was just trailers) and I had spent the week before setting up my classroom. My room was empty but I planned to fill it with inspirational posters from my room at home and student work as the year went on. Before I opened the door, I reminded myself of why I had come into this profession: to make a positive impact on the community with all of the skills afforded to me. I knew from my previous experiences in the classroom that this work was going to be strenuous but I could not have been more excited to take it on.

The bell eventually rang and they filed in. I introduced myself to each of them at the door and shook their hand. I had prepared an introduction powerpoint and was ready to meet and learn about my new students. While I am naturally a reserved person, I knew that my best bet lay in connecting with the students and for them to know that I was their friend in the long journey ahead. I started the presentation and zoomed through the slides, trying to give them a good picture of who I was, where I had lived and of what use I could be to them. In addition to this, I wanted to get them to understand that math was a useful tool and while they may not be able to see the immediate uses of logs or integrals in their life, it was definitely there in subtle ways directly impacting the way they live. The first day raced by and by the time it was over, I was drained. It was 4:15 and I had been continuously on for over 10 hours. We hadn’t really started material yet but it was exciting to interact with my students and learn about where they had come from. As the days began to roll by I started to realize that my students had holes in their mathematical understanding but were hard working, curious, kind and optimistic about the future. I also learned of the unending energy and perseverance needed for teachers to succeed and immediately reviewed my perspective on my previous teachers. I tried to map out the mathematical journey that I wanted to take my class on, but I really had no understanding of the life journey that lay ahead both for my students and myself.  As I changed their understanding of mathematics, they too changed me and how I view the world. They gave me the hope that while things may seem hard at first, if we persist hard enough anything is possible. 

 

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This was not my first time entering the classroom. I had felt the same feeling 3 years before, when I entered McGregor Elementary in the heart of the Third Ward. I had no idea what would happen in the classroom especially since these were elementary school kids. We were placed as the teacher’s assistants, helping her fill gaps in the students’ understanding. My team walked around the room, waiting for a student to ask for help. Their faces did not show any particular emotion, and it was hard to discern what they thought about our presence. They did not budge at first but after one student shyly raised their hand, the rest followed. It was only a matter of time before every student was raising their hand, asking us to check their work. As I recall this incident, it is quite funny how this one experience changed my path forward and led me to the school where I worked now. When I left the classroom that day, I left with a sense of calm. It was more of a clear then calm because I felt like I had positively produced an impact on some people in my community. I felt like I had helped someone, only as a 19 year old, in my own way. As I continued this exercise throughout my time in university, I began to formulate a theory that if we could transform schools in our community (by increasing learning outcomes), then the whole community would be uplifted.  As the inhabitants enjoyed a thorough, high quality education then they would enjoy a higher quality of life and productively give back to society in their own way. Although there was no way of really testing this logical progression of thoughts, I knew that if my theory was right, it would play out in a couple of years.

 

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As my first month as a full fledged teacher came to a close, I was exhausted. Trying to connect with students, managing behavior and teaching material was becoming crazy. While it was extremely rewarding, I was getting drained emotionally and physically. As the year progressed, I became worn out and was sure that I was completely failing at the job. 

My class was behind in curriculum, I had multiple behavioral problems in my classes and I had no idea how my students would perform on end of year exams. While teaching new topics, it was clear that they had holes in skills (taught in previous years) that were needed to do the new topic. I felt like I was working as hard as I could but still was continuously falling short. My coach was helpful in aiding my efforts in the classroom but I still felt like I had no footing. I always had a strong footing in mathematics and was well versed in the math that I was teaching in class. But teaching forced me to rethink the ways that I thought about certain problems. I had to learn how to communicate the process for the mathematics that I knew. And then I had to design it so that it was easy for my students to understand from their background and perspective. I had to really think deeply about what is a derivative? How does the instantaneous rate of change play a role in our everyday lives? 

Through the course of that first year, it dawned on me that teaching is an art, and is only sharped through time. I also began to question why some of my high performing peers in high school and college didn’t even think about teaching as a job, even though they would have definitely enjoyed it. Why were teachers in the US not given the same level of respect (and pay) given in other countries? What is our ten year plan for education? How do we test what students are learning in the classroom? Are graduation rates an effective measure of competency? Why is there such a disconnect between the national government and state and local government on educational matters?

As I pondered these questions and learned much about teaching and the general education system in our city, state and country, it was clear that our system was greatly broken. There are and still are quick fixes that can be made to alleviate some of the problems that I saw in my classroom but to really uplift millions of children across the country, we need to push our elected leaders to set a national policy and plan for education. While our national leaders continuously throw money at schools, thinking that it will solve the issue, it is increasingly clear that money is not the only solution. Engineering our country’s education system should be at the top of our elected leaders' agendas, yet almost none of them are producing legislation or even ideas to look towards. There are far-reaching economic and geopolitical consequences that are ahead for our country if this problem is not quickly dealt with. There is not much media coverage on this subject as it has gradually happened over decades and has been virtually accepted that our schools are broken. Given the importance of this enormous problem, I believe we need to recruit our best and brightest to come into classrooms to understand the scope of the problem we face. There are many benefits to thinking on how we could improve our education system, which are the following but not limited to a larger economic growth, a better functioning democracy and an overall higher standard of living. We need to understand that much of the underlying problems within our society lie at the root of this outdated system and that if we can engineer this machine, the prosperity of our country will be unmatched.

Engineering a new system requires knowledge about teachers, other successful education systems across the globe and an understanding of our country’s history to back up any new system we come up with. These writings are akin to a call to arms, as we are in a state of war with the age-old enemies of any long reigning superpower of ineptitude, complacency and laziness. As the global atmosphere begins to shift in the information age, we must adopt measures to guarantee our evolution as a country. The next essay will take us through two thought experiments, one pertaining to running a business, the other putting us in the shoes of a young girl. Both of these scenarios underscore the need for a unified educational standard.