New York Writer is Shocked by High School Teaching and Culture

The Atlantic ^ | 11/28/2001 | Interview of Elinor Burkett by Sage Stossel

[cruiserman]

We just aren't spending enough money on our schools. Especially the inner-city schools.

You really think money is the problem?

[jude24]

That was my experience in HS too...

HS was what you made of it. I still pursue difficult classes (organic chemistry-- SHUDDER!!)

[exit82]

It is nice to see a person of your age that is reading a wide assortment of literature. Especially the un-P.C. stuff like Gen'l Forrest, which would be a hoot to so many liberal teachers today. Good for you!

I learned from your homepage about your screen namesake, and now I want to read about the battle of Franklin, because as much as I enjoy Civil War history and visiting its battlefields, I was not familiar with Gen. Cleburne until I read your homepage.

The future seems brighter to me when I see young people of your caliber embracing conservative values.

[ImaGraftedBranch]

Reason #1,890,203,221 to home school.

[dasboot]

I finished reading the interview after my initial post; and it seems that, while she observes the problem, she proposes a bad solution, to wit: changing the locus of funding and control from local to regional, state, or national boards.

My view is that the mess stems from violations of right- principle, like truth, honor, honesty, etc. I think the only solution is to allow the immoral to suffer the consequences of their actions: failure, ostracism, angst. As long as the schools seek to ameliorate these consequences, there will be no incentive for the erring student to amend himself. Few administrators have the spine to obdurately stand for principle against the whithering fire of pissed-off parents who support the error of their offspring ; but there is no alternative that will bring the desired result-- excellence.

There is an alternative to the individual, however: choice; homeschooling.

[Goetz_von_Berlichingen]

Not from the military academy, but a standard Eight Grade test circa 1895, was the topic of a thread here.

By all reckoning, the kids coming out of Laura Ingalls Wilder's one-room schoolhouse were probably better educated than the crop processed through current Ivy League universities.

[okie01]

Ping. Of interest.

Ms. Burkett's experience parallels my own, which I'm sure I've mentioned to you. As an adjunct professor teaching upper division classes at a major Texas university, I encountered rooms full of bright, eager and intelligent students. Who knew almost nothing.

Reading was difficult. Writing coherent paragraphs was very nearly impossible, never mind the grammar and spelling. Long division was an utter mystery.

Most of these kids came from an educational background not unlike Prior Lake. And, between the failure of the system and their parents to demand they actually learn something, they had been cheated of a good education.

If they had only been asked...

[Old Professer]

arrangement, born (in this case - unless you meant: borne out by; even then it is awkward)), eccentricities.

[roachie]

5 years ago when I was finishing Economics in HS, we had a Conservative speaker in class a couple days in a row. He had expressed his Conservative side. The last day after class I went to him and told him I were Conservative too. He was impressed. The rest of the class were lackeys or die-hard Libs (young, naive and stupid). He had told me that as folks age they generally get more Conservative. I told him "How in Hell can I get any MORE Conservative?" It got a good belly laugh out of him. :) Made me proud to have found someone like me in that latrine of a school. I was ultraconservative back when I was 17. :)

[Sci Fi Guy]

Great Article

Of Course, School Choice would solve a lot of these problems.

[MarkL]

Hey, the government educational system is just rosy... I just heard on the radio that the Kansas City, MO, School District just passed 4 criterea in order to achieve provisional MO state acreditation. Of course, that only leaves another 7 to go!

That's right... The KCMO school district currently does not have state acreditation!

Mark

[AD from SpringBay]

Just in time to blame GW in 2002!

[jocon307]

I wonder how Ms. Burkett will enjoy being publically lambasted as a right-wing John Birch KKK kook, now?

Yes, you've put it better than I could. I was going to urge everyone to go read the full interview, where the author says some wonderfully sensible things, and thinking to myself, maybe this will open the dialoge now that this "mainstream" author is saying such.

(In fact, I thought the most subtle point she made was the code of "enforced" happiness. Keep trying that with adolescents, see what you get. And yet if you leave them alone, even the most miserable are suddenly giggling their heads off. It's the hormones, baby)

But dasboot, you are right, she's about to be made a Dis-honorable member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy!

Another good deed gets punished!

Jessica

[RBroadfoot]

The whole "socialization" argument against homeschooling is utterly specious. The only socialization skills that my children are missing, at ages 9 and 11, are daily experiences like:

- saying "no" to dope dealers

- tolerating the vulgar behavior of children "raised" by Jerry Springer parents

- tolerating the vulgar behavior of children "raised" by upper-middle-class parents who see nothing wrong with their children watching graphic television and R-rated movies, and spending all their remaining spare time playing "Mortal Kombat"

- learning to avoid bullies, both students and teachers

- fitting in the clique-culture that develops among children when they rigidly segregated by age (Note that this socialization skill has little value among adults, since we must eventually learn to deal with adults of all ages.)

- learning to regurgitate a secular, agnostic world-view on all aspects of life and culture even they know it is is inaccurate

- learning to suspend their capability for critical thinking among authority figures.

- etc.

Certainly, my kids have similar experiences in their lives, but they don't have to confront them daily.

They do however have ample opportunity for quality socialization -- playing organized sports, musical performances, weekly homeschool coop, church, daily play with other kids in the neighborhood, quality time (both work and play) with parents and extended family, etc.

In my opinion, anybody who thinks a kid need to go to a public school for socialization needs to get a life -- 'cause they certainly have had one up till now!

[RobbyS]

Her year at high school convinced her that what passes for national dialogue these days about education and the state of our high schools bears little relation to how high schools actually work. Theories she had previously bought into about the unfairness of distinguishing among students based on academic ability, for example, were countered by her observation that in classes where students of all abilities are thrown together, the less able students simply rely on the smarter students to do all the work, and the more precocious students become bored and alienated. It also struck Burkett that today's rhetoric about using new curriculum requirements and testing programs to raise standards are beside the point when adults, both inside and outside of schools, prioritize the protection of teenagers' self-esteem over challenging them to achieve. Though Prior Lake was by all accounts considered to be a good school, she was dismayed by how little the students there read, how poorly they wrote, and how little they actually knew.

I taught many years in high school and I concluded the same. I woould add that students uniformly saw school not as opportunity but as an imposition.

[GuillermoX]

I have seen that one as well. The one I am speaking about I actually saw in a display case at the academy (it is now a conference center/hotel).

My grandfather graduated from there in the 1920's.

[Hank Rearden]

What the hell is a "goth"? Some kind of Viking kid?

[Don Myers]

"Just take a walk on a high school campus some day. You will see teenage girls dressing like street hookers "

They do more than dress the part.

[Don Myers]

"It was with Drew Barrymore...yeah, that's it, it was called "Never Been Kissed." Not worth watching."

The only thing she had not done?

[Free Vulcan]

I mean, some of the kids that I would have been really good friends with in high school and would have admired I now saw as surly, whiny, and full of themselves. Maybe that's who I was, too. I don't know.

I'm willing to bet on it. Do you all realize how huge an admission this is? Her and people like her went on to form the core of the elitist radical leftist movement of the 60's, and later moved up into the academia, govt, and journalism. Essentially she is saying that they were nothing but egotistical, whiny, self-serving punks. She has utterly discredited everything that that era symbolizes. I doubt she even realizes the magnitude of her statement.