By David A. Sargent,Special to the Sun Journal

AUBURN – Today’s schools are failing their students because too many people, including parents and politicians, cling to myths about learning.

David Eretzian, principal of Franklin Alternative High School in Auburn, delivered that message to members of the Androscoggin County Chamber of Commerce on Thursday morning at Martindale Country Club. His hard-hitting remarks brought a rare standing ovation from more than 100 L-A businesspeople.

Eretzian, who has been called a pioneer with his successful methods of inspiring teens who fail in traditional school settings, cited current research that busts many myths about learning.

“These myths have been harming our children,” Eretzian said, emphasizing that it’s not primarily teachers and administrators who resist embracing new information.

He told his audience there’s much new information about how the brain works, but, unlike the medical world where implementation of new findings comes quickly, information about learning is slow to gain acceptance.

“Fact or myth? There’s a significant correlation between a student’s grades in high school and intelligence or success in life?” Eretzian asked. It’s a myth, he said.

“Am I saying high school grades are not important? You’re not hearing me say that, but when we translate consciously or unconsciously to kids that the grades you’re getting are going to prove how much success you’re going to be capable of, out of an attempt to motivate kids, you’re motivating some and destroying others,” he said.

Noting that people tend to categorize kids as “smart,” “medium” and “slow,” Eretzian said, “they correlate themselves instantaneously – smart, medium and slow with good, medium and bad.

He emphasized there is “social collateral in our culture in feeling intelligent – in feeling smart, medium or slow.”

School is such a harmful place for some kids that the destruction to their self-esteem will forever hurt their motivation, their confidence, their aspiration and their resilience, he said.

It’s a fact that 40 percent of all dropouts are gifted, Eretzian said. He also said it has been learned that for 75 percent of America’s elementary students in 1985, “the first adult they laid their eyes on from the time they opened them in the morning was a teacher.”

“Is that a vastly different childhood life than you had?” he asked. “Do you think that makes a difference in how ready a child is to learn?”

Noting that he might be hinting at the no-child-left-behind policy, Eretzian asked, “Is raising the bar an effective kind of school reform?”

That, too, “is an absolute myth,” Eretzian said. He suggested that raising-the-bar-reform is most attractive for politicians because “it’s compelling, it’s moralistic, they can do it with the stroke of a pen within a day’s time and they can walk away with no responsibility for making it happen.”

He said, “In spite of its popularity with politicians, it is absolutely ineffective.”

Eretzian cited research confirming that raising the bar will raise performance, but he said politicians fail to recognize further research that shows that as you raise pressure, there comes a point where performance drops off.

“That point is variable to each of us, it lives within each of us and it depends upon our confidence, our resilience and what’s going on in our life,” Eretzian said.

The Franklin Alternative High School principal pointed out that any crisis – a death of a parent, for instance – can plunge any kid into the at-risk category.

Students need to feel safe socially, emotionally, physically and academically, “or, translated, appreciated, valued and capable of success,” he said.

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