Learning the Hard Way

By Elena DeVos Binder

Recently I visited one of the better inner-city Chicago public elementary schools and got my heart broken. Even the armor of being a former urban teacher didn't protect me from the clouts of reality. In this district of Chicago, only 10 percent of the kids get their high school diplomas.

Almost 100 percent of the school's 1,200 students eat government-provided breakfasts and lunches there. For many, these are their only meals all day. Almost 100 percent of their parents are at the official poverty level. Four armed school police roam the halls with walkie-talkies. The children have no recess or physical education outside. Their gym class is held in the school auditorium, and it meets only once or twice a week. The kids eat lunch in their classrooms or the cafeteria. It is too dangerous for them to ever be on the playground because the school is in the middle of a gangland, one in open warfare. I was told that the children feel safest at school and actually don't miss being outside because they aren't allowed to play outdoors at home, either.

Imagine 1,200 students, grades K-8, cooped up inside a building all day. You don't need to be a professional educator to know that kids need to run off their energy. Given that, it amazed me that the children in the 2nd-grade class I observed were so well behaved. They all eagerly participated in a lesson where they figured out different ways to...