June 14, 2009This is a ‘just gotta get it off my chest’ post. Nothing to see here, move along, move along.
And what is a good citizen? Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual. Schools are maintained in order to bring this uniformity up to the highest possible point. A school is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; therein they are pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber-stamps. – H.L. Mencken
In an ideal world, perhaps, the function of schools would be to teach children not only a limited set of facts, but how to expand on those facts; to cause algebra and poetry to merge into history and from there to take a leap forward into the future and beautify it.
In an ideal world.
What happened to American education? The growth of that great nation was fueled as much by her engines of education as by her steam-powered vessels and deep fund of natural resources. And now look … mired in wars that cannot be won against ideologies that cannot be killed by anything humans can throw against them, draining the blood of her sturdy citizens to feather the beds of those who have never known any other sort.
Today it would appear that she takes the lead only in her weaponry and its cunning use. She aborts 3,000 of her citizens each day and siphons off her future leadership into private schools, while abandoning the rest to a teetering public education system. The scions of the well-heeled will remain the well-heeled and the rest of her citizens can continue to believe in ‘the American Dream’, but they will seldom, if ever, taste it for themselves.
When government policy continues to impose rigid personnel rules, bureaucracy, regulations, and a mandate to use education to engineer social or political outcomes, a school cannot successfully impart the needed skills, knowledge, and perspective to its students—whether these students choose to be there or not. – John Hood
Aha! So the problem is that American schools aren’t actually focused on the goals her citizens thought they were. The reason little Johnny can’t find Cuba on the map is because it’s been under embargo for decades and, since he can’t go there anyways, there’s been no need for him to learn about it. I’d buy that except that little Johnny also can’t find Idaho or name a major tuber it exports to the rest of the United States.
Idaho is not under embargo, either; you can drive there if you want to.
The home-schooling movement has quietly grown to a size where one and half million young people are being educated entirely by their own parents; last month the education press reported the amazing news that children schooled at home seem to be five or even ten years ahead of their formally trained peers in their ability to think. — John Taylor Gatto
Ignoring for a moment the fact that a range of 5-10 years implies that a certain amount of guessing is going on and also ignoring the thought that “the education press” isn’t really a helpful citation … we won’t be able to track the source down any time soon … it’s useful to understand that home-schooling seems to be working where compulsory public schooling is not.
Allow me to postulate three guesses why this should be true:
1) In home-schooling, kids are motivated. Their parents control pretty much all of their lives and KNOW whether the dog ate their assignment or not. So there is motivation on the kids parts to produce results. Moreover, the attention they receive is highly personalized … that is, the person grading their work truly has their best interests at heart … and that bolsters the desire of the child to excel.
2) In home-schooling, parents are motivated. They value education and they value their children. Usually they at least completed high school and many have some level of higher education beyond that. These are people who know the worth of a good education and look with a certain amount of trepidation at the muck that passes for education in the public schools. These parents set aside time, often large amounts of it, to make certain that their children are prepared for success in a fluid and challenging world.
3) The homes of the home-schooled will generally contain a computer and it will be connected to the internet. This is their research library. They don’t go to the library once a week to take out a book … they enter search terms such as “voting results Iran” and get news of the rioting before the tear gas has dissipated.
The point of this post? I really have none. I am just terribly frustrated at the overwhelming amount of mediocrity and ignorance I have to wade through each day and I’m looking for some sort of answer, some sense of ‘the way out’ that doesn’t require Armageddon to set in motion.
* With all due apologies to Pink Floyd ‘The Wall’
Instead of being frustrated, grab a good book and read it to a child :–)
www.historyforchildren.blogspot.com
Bill Canaday Reply:
June 20th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Can’t I do both?
I already tutor a young man in composition and knowing what he is being fed in school is one of the sources of the frustration.
We are continuing the tutoring through the summer in an attempt to give him a head-start on his 10th grade classes.
You write such a long post and you don’t have a point on the post. Maybe you should have read a good book or done some sports instead
Tim´s last blog ..Der Weg zum günstigen Girokonto
Bill in Detroit Reply:
August 4th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
You are right … I don’t have a point — because I don’t see an answer.
Last night a young man came over to my house to use my laptop and internet connection to take an online course. He had already been through “admissions testing” for a trade school (masquerading as a ‘college’) and is in possession of a recent High School diploma.
Although he was in possession of a school-issued log in, he didn’t know what a URL was. After a couple of hours flailing around on the school’s website, he gave up. Likely the bulk of his funding will be forfeit.
He ‘got took’.
He ‘got took’ when he was led to believe that his HS diploma was worth having and he ‘got took’ again when he was ‘okayed’ to take an online class with minimal English and computer skills. Detroit schools are, for all but the magnet schools, simply warehouses for kids who have no higher hope than to get employed by the (vanishing) auto industry.
I taught adults how to use computers for three years and it was evident in the first few minutes after he sat down at the keyboard that he was in over his head.
You can warn your children about strangers and activities they should stay away from. Warning them about their teacher, however, is not even a topic that comes up. These two teachers have not just crossed the line, but went flying right past it. After all of these teachers sex abuse against their student cases, can you really trust the teachers like you did before?
Great post, i myself am a pretty huge fan of Pink Floyed so using that as a reference got my attention pretty fast but the actual post was deep and a good read thanks for sharing.
What a gem! Thanks for bringing a new perspective to this story. The fallacies of stereotypical assumptions about the South and mountain people have tripped up many.
Hay Tim the post did start with ‘just gotta get this off my chest’! go easy.
Molly´s last blog ..5 Things You Need to Know about Speed Dating
i think every thing has some benefits and drawbacks.Although home school is a good option but then the children will be limited to themselves they will not be able to interact with others in the world and then when the time comes to go in practical life.No doubt nowadays schools have problem but they also provide lot of opportunities.I think we need to take some steps in order to improve our education system
Bill Canaday Reply:
August 17th, 2009 at 1:00 am
Hola Guide!
I think your observation about home-schooled kids ‘interacting’ with the world merits a reply: especially as it raises a couple of very interesting questions.
Firstly, given the amount of violence in public schools, just what valuable lessons are learned from exposure to the other kids attending them? Just as prisons tend to be schools for violence, so also can public schools be. I don’t want to demonize them … but the potential to both learn violence and immorality and to practice it is there in ample measure.
Secondly, homeschooled kids normally will spend at least part of their academic careers in mass-schooling environments. One parent I personally know pulled her kids from public school because they were too small to defend themselves … and kept them home because they have shown themselves to be rapid learners in the home learning environment. ISTR reading that home-schooled kids, on average, score beyond their years on standardized tests. I know her two sons reasonably well and I can assure you that their English levels are noticeably high … as good as many adults already … even though the oldest is not yet 10 years old. The two little guys have neighbor children to play with and also others from their large extended family and the children of adult friends. They do not lack for -good- association — only for the bad sort.
Another friend in Sacramento, California took her son out of regular school for most, but not all, of his classes. In regular school he took physical ed. and computer programming … so he actually got that exposure — in small doses.
Both sets of parents are God-fearing people who have chosen to raise their children away from the gross and blatant immorality in the public schools.
Given the abyssmal graduation rates of big-city public schools, the low level of achievement that it takes to obtain that diploma and the dramatically increased chance for harm, I really can’t see a justification for sending children there if there is any sane alternative.
msmichigan Reply:
August 20th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
Homeschooling is not as many may think. In doing so, those children are given outside experiences, classes, field trips, etc. They are not in a ‘box’ so to speak and do learn how to interact with others.
You have to take into account the mentality of the youngsters that teachers, good teachers, teachers who love and and enjoy teaching— have to deal with. Its not like it was years back. Then, more importantly take into consideration the times we are presently living in and you will see that things are only going from bad to worse. A majority of kids are morally dead…they say and do whatever they please regardless of an authority figure present. Their profanity laden language is by far not muffled, and the fierseness some possess make fighting ever so easy to do. Fight over what? “He looked at my girlfriend,” “She likes the boy I like.” Mundane things. I saw an internet post where several girls posted a photo of a girl they had beat up and said she had more whippings coming (of course every other word was a curse word), and these girls were 11!! Many come to school just to socialize and don’t take getting an education seriously.
Would I homeschool? You betcha! And I won’t let those who say “oh he’s got to learn to stand up, blah, blah, blah” stop me. I will have a better child who will grow into a respectful adult for my efforts. And, I have personally worked in the school system.
Bill Canaday Reply:
August 27th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
I know msmichigan and her immediate family FTF and I know her kids, too. She’s ‘walking her talk’ and the results so far are impressive. “An ounce of practice”, they say, “outweighs a pound of theory.” Both of her sons show a level of maturity and poise to be admired. Both of them read well beyond what is normally accepted from youths of their age. This is not to say that they have somehow been forced beyond their natural ability — that would be impossible — but to say that the vast majority of kids lag far behind what they are capable of. The youngest, especially, still has a sense of the impish about him and I count them both among my friends — on equal terms with the adults I also call friends.
If you are wondering where your job went, look to the schools. If you are wondering why the crime rate is so outrageous, look to the schools. If you are wondering why so many people are living lives at the edge, just a layoff notice or a minor accident away from poverty, look to the schools.
Earlier it was suggested that I work with young people to turn this trend around. Within the past year I have come to know two recent HS graduates who will never read these words because, despite the diploma in their hands, they are computer illiterate. I am presently working with a 10th grade student whose single Mom cannot afford a home computer and internet access. Today I’m offering her a computer with a ton of (legal) business and educational software on it. I can’t pick up her month to month bills but, if she’s like many I know, she already has cable tv, (“stuff” in, “stuff” out) so getting internet access is just a few bucks more. I know from experience that the cable guy is going to freak when he sees a Linux box, so I’ll finalize the hook-up, too.
Msmichigan is home-schooling. I am tutoring, donating equipment and considerable amounts of my scarce time. Does anyone else have any suggestions for either fixing the system itself or circumventing it so that individual children can be spared? They don’t have to be practical, but I would prefer that they be non-violent.
Couldn’t agree more! I guess the days of hitting kids are frowned upon now..Probably because of all the abuse! Hopefully there’ll be a better alternative!
Bill Canaday Reply:
August 17th, 2009 at 1:29 am
When I was in HS, Coach Campbell had a paddle that was a good inch thick and well ventilated with quarter inch holes. He had inherited it from Coach Mittlestat who, it was rumored, had mugged Satan for it. The girls coach had a similar instrument at her command. They, and they only, administered the corporal discipline at our school. One swat – never more than two – and the recidivism rate approached zero. Almost nobody wanted to start another fight, smoke another cigarette on lunch break or cuss out their teacher again badly enough to risk a second trip “to see coach”. It was okay to see coach in the hallway. We all liked him well enough. But it was NOT okay to see him in his office. Not. Not. Not.
The schools were more than warehouses to keep kids from playing in traffic while parents worked then; they had our parents
permissionmandate to teach us. And, as long as they accomplished that goal, they were given a fairly free hand. More than that, we didn’t dare complain to our parents unless the discipline was CLEARLY unwarranted because most of them would just add to it if we were even partially in the wrong. And we nearly always were.The severity of the discipline was well understood … and not invoked lightly. That was the teachers end of the implied classroom behavior contract.
Every time that paddle made contact, we got airborne. EVERY TIME. You had to be MIGHTY heavy to maintain contact with the planet … which only meant that you had absorbed all the energy yourself. And, thanks to the flow-through ventilation, it was even possible to donate a small amount of blood. Most of us guys managed to get all the way to graduation with no more than one or, for the slowest of learners, two trips to coach’s office.
A large percentage of us then went on to college within the next year or two.
The rest of us, battle-toughened and seeking some solace in mis-placed revenge, volunteered for Vietnam.
Oh, by the way … gym class was mandatory. The swat(s) came at the end of gym class, when your paper-thin gym shorts were their sweatiest and before you took your shower (also mandatory). Which might be one explanation for the events at My Lai.
Bill you’re right, at the moment there are schooling system of other few countries which are way better than America’s Schooling System, it’s going down and the students are not getting competitive. No matter how the college education is, basic foundation of the kid’s character and mind is built in School and if the School provides competitive environment and educational system, it’ll benefit him for his life. I think there are a lot of social issues concerning America at the moment which should be resolved in a better way. And they need to revise their syllabus and stop being double-standard and hide what is truth!
Yes! I mean teachers really shouldn’t abuse the children but you do get spoiled children you sometimes cannot deal with! and in the good old days this could have been dealt with. But times change I guess…
Interesting article indeed.I recently went to Asia and the teacher student bond is very strong. But they also have the older means of learning such as punishments and all that. which is somewhat grueling to see.
Bill Canaday Reply:
February 5th, 2010 at 2:57 pm