Thirty years ago, "Back to the Future" was a top summer movie at the box office.
You will remember that in the movie Marty McFly, played by Michael J. Fox, went 30 years back in time, from 1985 to 1955. And at the end of the movie they took a trip that transported them instantly 30 years in to the future, to the year 2015.
For the rest of us it took the full 30 years to make that trip. But now that we are firmly in the world of 2015, most of us are very well aware that we have plenty to think about.
A dialogue early in the movie between Marty and his principal, Mr. Strickland, provides some insights. You may remember how it went.
Mr. Strickland: "You've got a real attitude problem McFly. You're a slacker. You remind me of your father when he went here. He was a slacker too."
Marty: "Can I go now Mr. Strickland?"
Mr. Strickland: "I noticed your band is on the roster for the dance auditions after school today. Why even bother McFly? You don't have a chance. You're too much like your old man. No McFly ever amounted to anything in the history of Hill Valley."
Marty: "Yeah, well, history is gonna change."
The principal in the movie perhaps knew something about how to run a high school but he didn't appear to know how to talk to teenagers and therein lies our first lesson: There is a right way to deal with students and it is not by insulting them or their family or telling them they won't amount to anything.
Students are just like all other human beings. A little bit of friendly encouragement can produce great results. Many educators understand this very well, and as a result, they encourage students every hour of every school day.
There are, however, still many instances in which a young person has been told something disheartening. It may have happened 25-30 years ago, or it may have happened as recently as this past week.
How do we know this? Because there are individuals in every community who remember negative comments that were directed their way during their formative years. It may have been something cruel, or insensitive, or inconsiderate. Or it may have been something that was simply misunderstood. But the person who was offended still remembers it, even if he or she is 30 or 40 or 50 years old today.
You might say, "Well life is hard and we all have to deal with it. And we aren't doing our young people any favors if we don't teach them to toughen up."
True. But since life can be challenging enough as it is, why would we want to add to the difficulty by using harsh words? Especially with a young person who needs help developing in to adulthood?
No, as I already said, there is an appropriate way to talk to people. Our students need to learn that lesson, and all adults should remember it.
Our second lesson comes from Marty's profound reply: "Yeah, well, history is gonna change."
You may remember from the movie that when Marty went back to 1955 and interacted with his parents he inadvertently caused a few things to turn out differently. In the movie, history literally did change.
The lesson for us today is that in the case of education, history does need to change.
The only catch is that we can't go back in time; we must start where we are.
Back to the Future reminded us that schools didn't change very much from the year 1955 to 1985.
And today we might make the case that schools haven't changed much from 1985 to 2015.
But they must.
Raymond McNulty, in his book "It's Not Us Against Them" wrote, "When students walk through the door of most schools, they enter a realm in which time fundamentally stopped long before they were born. Today's learners live in a world where technology and information are right at their fingertips every minute of the day - except when they are at school."
The trend of using technology in school is getting better, but the fact remains that schools seem to be one of the slowest institutions in American life to change, not just in technology, but in all other ways.
Our high schools shouldn't be set up to look like and to operate like the one Marty McFly attended in 1985. But in many ways they are.
Schools don't need to get back to the future, but they do need to embrace the future. And we're behind schedule. The future is already here.
David Wilson, EdD, is the associate principal at Jefferson City High School. You may e-mail him at [email protected].