The End of Education

From the time I was young, I wondered what the heck was going on in school. Bullies seemed to either be ignored or to get off scott free. This issue raises it's head from time to time, but I guarantee it is still a part of every school day for a certain segment of each school's population. I know from experience that when simply going to a specific place that represents for you a clear and present danger, it causes enough stress that learning cannot occur.
As teachers have been required to "do" more and more in the classroom, their ability to do anything well has been diminished. One of my best teachers ever, happened to teach American History. He started training us on the very first day. He said, "I'm only going to say this once, each of you will be expected to be here on time and in your seats. I don't have a seating chart, but if you become disruptive, you will be moved. You need to come to class with a plain yellow spiral bound notebook and two sharpened pencils. If you break your pencil a lot, bring more, because I will not allow you to get out of your seats once the door closes and class begins. If you come to class and the door is closed, you will not be given a note or hall pass, nor will I honor any note from another teacher. If you are late, you must report to the Principal. Anything you miss is your responsibility, not mine. If you have any questions, I will answer them as best I can, but no one will be allowed to slow down the group. You will only be responsible for two dates this year, they are..."
He continued to treat us as sponges, whose sole task was to soak up the knowledge that he had to impart. The two dates that he had us write down that day were March, 22, 1765, When the British passed the Stamp Act. As he explained, this was the beginning of the course content and the other date was December 15, 1791, the addition to the U.S. Constitution of the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments, would be the effective end of our coursework. The Alpha and Omega as it were of the period that we covered. One might ask, "How could you teach a mere twenty-five years for an entire year?" Well, it was interesting, colorful and detailed to the point of ridiculousness. We learned the truth behind most of the legends that were passed down over the years and found out that our country has a long history of guile and misrepresentation. We are, and have always been a country where a small minority of loud and poorly behaved people can make enough waves to get their way. The majority of Americans didn't want to fight the Revolutionary War, but were left no choice in the end. The majority wanted nothing to do with a Federal Government, but found that State Sovereignty was unworkable, and were eventually shamed into taking their place under one flag.
Similarly today, a small group of individuals who are on the Texas Board of Education dictate effectively the books used in most schools in our fine country. They have the power to question the validity of the scientific method, rewrite history regarding unionism and the New Deal, and call into question the very nature of our democracy. The need for women in the workplace virtually assures that little change will come to required attendance. The few who benefit from our current system have a vested interest in getting future employees who can follow instructions without asking too many questions. Ironically, that teacher I spoke of was from Denver. When I lived there they had but two truant officers for the entire city. If you didn't want to go, you were encouraged to stay home. This allowed schools to function far more effectively and for those who thought that they had a better plan for the day to pursue it.
As we prepare to "send" our children off to school for another year, it seems that the economists are trying to factor in the effect this has on corporate earnings, as if notepads and erasers float the boat of our flagging economy. Rest assured that a small clique will have formed by the end of the first day, whose fashion sense will allow them to feel entitled to all the perks. If your child is lucky, they will accept him or her and things will go on swimmingly. If not, they will be in for a difficult year. Perhaps they can take refuge in the theater or band geek community like I often did. Regardless of whether they "fit in" or not, we need to be aware that they will learn less and less about the most important things and more and more about things that don't matter one whit. Homeschooling may be considered difficult by some who have not tried it, but imagine a school without the dramas of who is "going with" who, the weekly sporting news, whether you are wearing the right names on your clothes, or what teacher has the easiest classes. By the time everyone gets on the same page now-a-days, the first class period is 1/3 gone. If a teacher is lucky and good at their job, they get about one third of the class period to teach. The other third is most likely devoted to working with the special cases and distracted folks in the group. More likely than not, some were coming to class unprepared, so they never really got on the same page as everyone else in the first place. factor in a few bathroom breaks, interruptions and outbursts and you have yourself a recipe for disaster. Is it any wonder that each evening when I ask my son and daughter what they learned in school each day, they look at me as if I'm from another planet? They know that they are being warehoused, why can't we see it?
Troubled by this, I asked my wife, Why? Why don't they teach our children? With the hundreds of thousands of educational research projects that we have done, with the profusion of Doctorates of Education being collected by educators across the country, why can't they seem to teach? I didn't like her answer. It was perhaps, a bit more truth than I wanted to hear right then.
"An uneducated public allows politicians to craft knee-jerk reactions amongst them that can get candidates elected without having to deal with any real issues." Ouch! I always discount conspiracy theories, but this one seemed to gain a bit of traction, especially since the Primaries are under way and the content of most political commercials prove the point. Have we gotten so dumbed-down that all we can deal in is euphemisms? My least favorite ad so far is the one that says "A faith- filled family man", as if single people are not worthy of office, or that any religious belief is preferable to none. This flies in the face of the fact that the most happy people in the world, based on objective measures, are also self-reportedly the least religious. To assure that we are gullible, those who seek to rule by deception must first be sure that we have difficulty thinking for ourselves, that many of us associate comfort with others telling us what to think and the ability to overlook actual facts when we are told something else is happening. Most of these have been accomplished by the time we leave school. Sadly, those who are least likely to fall for this trickery tend to stay in the system longer, allowing the university system to convince them that their own discipline is based on valid claims while virtually all others are based on fiction. Interesting malaise that provides fertile ground for conspiracy theories, misinterpretations of data and the buying in to talking heads politics and bourgeois values, social norms and beliefs.
I saw a great bumper sticker today that referred to "Obama Care" in a negative way. It made me want to follow the guy home and explain to him that our current health care law was based on a Repuplican bill that is already in place and working in New England. This classic trick is often used in politics. You find something that looks a little like what you want, that has been supported by your opposition, then you co-opt it, make it your own and then break the back of your opposition by showing them that this was their idea in the first place. The recent proliferation of fictitious stories about our commander in chief just prove that many Americans don't understand either the Constitution or election law. All I hope for is for all those trash talking folks to turn their energy into productive work. That alone would do more to affect a recovery than all the billions that we have spent on political solutions to our pressing problems.
When I was young, there were t-shirts, bumper stickers, jewelery and posters that said,"It will be a great day when our schools are fully funded and the army has to hold a bake sale to buy it's next bomber."
In this one respect, nothing has changed.