Preview of Article:
Bad Signs
Illustrator: Randall Enos
You can tell quite a lot about what goes on in a classroom or a school even if you visit after everyone has gone home. Just by looking at the walls—or, more precisely, what’s on the walls—it’s possible to get a feel for the educational priorities, the attitudes about children, even the assumptions about human nature of the people in charge.
A chart that I created more than a decade ago called “What to Look for in a Classroom” listed some Good Signs along with Possible Reasons to Worry (Kohn, 1999, appendix B). Among the latter: walls that are mostly bare, giving the building a stark, institutional feel; and posted displays that suggest either a focus on control (lists of rules or, even worse, punishments) or an emphasis on relative performance (charts that include grades or other evaluations of each student).
Because I’ve done so elsewhere, I won’t take time here to explain why such lists and charts make me shudder. Instead, I’d like to consider a few signs and posters that are generally regarded as innocuous or even inspiring.
