The calculator/computer generation.
” Our present ambition to make every American youth college material — in a way our forefathers would have thought ludicrous — ensures that we will both fail in that utopian goal and lack enough literate Americans with critical vocational skills. “
Bingo.....
Yea, but they do know the important things...like how to put on a condom, give a BJs and where to get an abortion.
Naturally the only touches on the biggest problem in the rest of his diatribe....
Parents...
They’re the ones with the influence to make children believe in education....
They’re the ones who can ensure the kids do homework...
They’re the ones who feel entitled to world class education in a system that pays its teachers abysmal salaries.....
They’re the ones who scream bloody murder if their “baby” gets a B.....
This is the soft underbelly of the American economy and geopolitical power: the governmental school system. Students are simply not learning basic skills, let alone anything approaching “advanced education.” And it is not a matter of computers, and calculators and other hardware. It is a matter of a literal motivation crisis.
Go to ANY university in this country and simply look at students in classrooms: 60% don’t want to be there, and an even larger number are barely cognizant, let alone attentive. And this is college. Go to ANY high school, and you’ll see worse. There, however, you’ll also see blatant incompetence by the teaching staff: people teaching math who don’t know the subject, others teaching English or writing who are syntatically challenged themselves, etc.
Bush at least tried to do something here. But the Dems will hardly attempt anything, given their knee-jerk deference to the teachers’ unions. Unless and until these unions are eradicated - from top to bottom - and ALL “education departments” removed from college campuses, so that graduates with real majors can apply for teaching positions, nothing will correct our downward trajectory. Why parents put up with the status quo is beyond me, but they do vote Dem, don’t they?
“Of course, most critics agree that the root causes for our undereducated youth are not all the schools’ fault. Our present ambition to make every American youth college material — in a way our forefathers would have thought ludicrous — ensures that we will both fail in that utopian goal and lack enough literate Americans with critical vocational skills.”
The money quote if there ever was one.
Great article. I graduated in ‘58 from a Los Angeles school. Great education for a high school. Get rid of the teacher unions and go to a pay for performance system. Also get rid of tenure. Who else in industry has tenure?
“Reform Math” is preventing an entire generation from excelling in science, engineering, architecture, etc.
ping
Before the homeschool crowd starts up: according to the HSLDA, public school kids outscore the homeschool bunch in math.
Now, I am a public school teacher, I have a Master’s degree in Latin. I teach Latin and English. I am tenured, but I do not want my job tied to the fact that no matter how many ways I present material, modify, scaffold, assist, allow, communicate, beg, and do everything I can to help a student succeed, they still do not make it.
I am, as a teacher, capable of so much before the student must take some responsibility for their learning. It is here that the line falls sharply and the author of the piece gets it.
Another winner from Hanson.
Currently reading his “An Autumn of War - What America Learned From September 11 and The War on Terrorism” - good stuff.
I wonder how many of our high school “graduates” could actually read it?
Ping
There is ignorance that is the result of lack of opportunity, and ignorance that is the result of laziness and the luxury to do without knowledge. They're not the same. The former can be cured by providing more opportunity, but the latter can't.
“As another school year is set to get under way, it’s worth pondering where this epidemic of ignorance came from.”
It came from the reality that educated, thinking individuals are not likely to vote to give up their freedoms in favor of higher taxes and a nanny state Government. Something HAD to be done.
We’ve got some McGuffey Readers and a mid-1900’s copy of the American Citizen’s Handbook (by the N.E.A.). That America exists no longer in our public schools, N.E.A. or government. The hard decline began in the later 1950’s. Discipline exerted by Godly American men is, IMO, the only hope.
Nice try, Victor; no cigar. You’ve fallen into the classic trap of believing that the guiding purpose of Public Education really is to educate.
That’s completely wrong.
Public Education was NOT created to educate minds, it was created to conform minds to a predetermined mold so as to produce successive generations of people fit to fill the job vacancies in factories, and office buildings owned and managed by others.
Public Education does not teach people to think, it teaches people to reguritate the pre-packaged, pre-thought thoughts of those producing the various curriculae.
Certainly, some things — like counting correct change — represent failure to even achieve that rudimentary level of information transfer, but consider this: when children find themselves compressed out of their own thoughts into those that others have decided that they should think, and this environment persists for 12 years, it is inconsistent with logic to contend that some will not inwardly rebel, and put the whole system on “IGNORE”, and eitehr graduate by the skin of their teeth or drop out early.
These kids aren’t incapable of being educated; they’re insulted by a system that doggedly insists that they and their peers ought all think just like the guy who wrote the textbook. And, their response???
Entirely predicatble:
“F@#% the textbook, AND the guy who wrote it, AND the horse he rode in on!!!”
MUCH of the educational malaise besetting this country arises from the inner rebellion of great minds battling the imposed thought-conformity of the PubEd system. Those who persist with this inner rebellion frequently perform poorly, get labeled “ADD” or “learning disabled”, barely graduate, or drop out. Those who give up the fight find their surrender rewarded with better grades, but — in the end — they emerge with a propensity to compliance, following directions, completing mindless tasks repetitively, focusing on the present, and leaving the creative ideas to management.
But, don’t just take my word for it, undertake your own investigation.
I strongly recommend that you begin with a little history lesson:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/historytour/history1.htm
Following that, I suggest a more in-depth study of the roots of our institutions of public instruction, here:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/index.htm
I warn you, though, if you give a rip about children, you ARE GOING TO BE ANGERED by what you read.
It’s no surprise that the dumbing down of America occurred as the Democrat Liberal party solidified its hold on the education system.
BUMP