“We don’t want kids to compete individually, put themselves in vulnerable positions as individuals,” explains a leading administrator. “They can compete within teams,” explains another. “So the focus is on community building rather than on personal value.”
Right because when you apply for a job, you do it with other team members.
The wussification of America continues.
When students are rewarded for participation rather than achievement, Dr. Levine suggests, they don’t have a strong sense of what they are good at and what they’re not.
I think the breakdown is simple: Collectivist vs Individualist.
These folks are pushing team effort rather than personal effort. These folks are pushing Collectivism. The Bolsheviks and the Nazis and the Democrats are smiling.
Yup, yup, yup and yup.
Ping
Right now, even as I type, my senior English students are engaged in a notetaking exercise so they can better write research papers. Here’s my two cents for the two minutes I have.
Education’s overall theme for the past 70 years has been “our schools are worse than ever.” The panic brought on by the thought that schools are a complete failure and hurting our children leads to the quick fix, also known as the “fad of the day.” I’ve seen a couple of them, and I’ve only been teaching for nine years.
Seen in that light, this editorial is just one of a long string of articles about the failures of American schools and youth. If my memory serves me correctly, schools and youth were once being destroyed by comic books, rock’n’roll, and lack of science education in our fight against the Communists. Then there was the moment when schools and youth were being destroyed by a lack of self-esteem and illegal drugs. Then there was the time when our kids needed to “work in groups.” On and on it goes.
Fortunately, there are several factors working against all this. First, we have human nature, which operates on its own outside of fads, ideology, intervention, and academic ideals. Human nature always asserts itself, no matter what the fad of the day might be. Second, we have families, and I can tell right now I’m teaching my son at home some things that are very much at odds with the prevailing wisdom in our school curriculum. Tough. I want the best for my son, and most parents feel that way, too. Third, there are many teachers who basically ignore the fad of the day and actually teach students using time-honored methods which focus on academic excellence. This is the only time you’ll hear me express appreciation for tenure; as long as my kids are scoring well on the standardized tests, no one really bothers me. Otherwise, I think tenure is an abomination.
Sometimes I look at the educational establishment as the American version of a Soviet enterprise, with top-down management, a clumsy command-and-control intereaction with students and teachers, and, of course, shifting ideologies which demand strict allegience or else you’ll face ostracism. Of course, just like the old Soviet enterprises, most of us operate little backyard gardens that feed the masses, give lip service to the bureaucrats, and ignore the ideology.
Man, it would be nice for someone somewhere to finally implement Milton Friedman’s school vouchers concept.