Posted on 10/05/2009 9:05:59 PM PDT by jazusamo
Recent videos of American children in school singing songs of praise for Barack Obama were a little much, especially for those of us old enough to remember pictures of children singing the praises of dictators like Hitler, Stalin and Mao.
But you don't need a dictator to make you feel queasy about the manipulation of children. The mindset that sees children in school as an opportunity for teachers to impose their own notions, instead of developing the child's ability to think for himself or herself, is a dangerous distortion of education.
Parents send their children to school to acquire the knowledge that has come down to us as a legacy of our culture-- whether it is mathematics, science, or whatever-- so that those children can grow up and go out into the world equipped to face life's challenges.
Too many "educators" see teaching not as a responsibility to the students but as an opportunity for themselves-- whether to indoctrinate a captive audience with the teacher's ideology, manipulate them in social experiments or just do fun things that make teaching easier, whether or not it really educates the child.
You can, of course, call anything that happens in a classroom "education"-- but that does not make it education, except in the eyes of those who cannot think beyond words. Unfortunately, the dumbed-down education of previous generations means that many parents today see nothing wrong with their children being manipulated in school, instead of being educated.
Such parents may see nothing wrong with spending precious time in classrooms chit-chatting about how everyone "feels" about things on television or in their personal life.
But while our children are frittering away time on trivia, other children in other countries are acquiring the skills in math, science or other fields that will allow them to take the jobs our children will meed when they grow up. Foreigners can take those jobs either by coming to America and outperforming Americans or by having those jobs outsourced to them overseas.
In short, schools are supposed to prepare children for the future, not give teachers opportunities for self-indulgences in the present. One of these self-indulgences was exemplified by a letter I received recently from a fifth-grader in the Sayre Elementary School in Lyon, Michigan.
He said, "I have been assigned to ask a famous person a question about how he or she would solve a difficult problem." The problem was what to do about the economy.
Instead, I replied to his parents: With American students consistently scoring near or at the bottom in international tests, I am repeatedly appalled by teachers who waste their students' time by assigning them to write to strangers, chosen only because those strangers' names have appeared in the media.
It is of course much easier-- and more "exciting," to use a word too many educators use-- to do cute little stuff like this than to take on the sober responsibility to develop in students both the knowledge and the ability to think that will enable them to form their own views on matters in both public and private life. What earthly good would it do your son to know what economic policies I think should be followed, especially since what I think should be done will not have the slightest effect on what the government will in fact do? And why should a fifth-grader be expected to deal with such questions that people with Ph.D.'s in economics have trouble wrestling with?
The damage does not end with wasting students' time and misdirecting their energies, serious though these things are. Getting students used to looking to so-called "famous" people for answers is the antithesis of education as a preparation for making up one's own mind as citizens of a democracy, rather than as followers of "leaders."
Nearly two hundred years ago, the great economist David Ricardo said: "I wish that I may never think the smiles of the great and powerful a sufficient inducement to turn aside from the straight path of honesty and the convictions of my own mind."
The fad of assigning students to write to strangers is an irresponsible self-indulgence of teachers who should be teaching. But that practice will not end until enough parents complain to enough principals and enough elected officials to make it end.
Religious based schools can be pretty picky about teachers following the tenets of their respective faiths. On the other hand I’ve heard of Catholic schools headed by atheist priests. (Don’t ask me how the Roman Catholic church tolerates that. I don’t go to one.)
I agree with both of your posts. I hope Dr. Sowell didn’t discourage the kid who wrote to him. Any fifth-grader who knows who Dr. Sowell is and wants to write to him has a lot on the ball. Most of kid’s classmates probably wrote to people like Tom Brady or Britney Spears.
I’m sure it is, but my points is that I like kids like that. Docility and constant compliance bore me. I like a kid with some spirit.
points=point
I’m tired and need to get some sleep.
It goes back to Abe Lincoln.
They don't have civics classes in the fifth grade do they? It was centuries ago but the first class I had of that nature was ninth grade social studies.
Thank you for posting this...!
Very good article. Thanks for the ping.
There were rudiments of civics in the fifth or sixth grade that I remember. By that point we were discussing the United Nations and how it is supposed to operate.
Now that you mention it we would get a monthly “newletter” published by the UN. I forget the name it went by. Even then, mid ‘60s, I thought “what is this crapola?” lol
Thanks for the ping. I LOVE Sowell’s response, of writing back to the parents instead of the kids. My testimony on the woes of teachers indoctrinating kids — see my FReeper homepage!
Just think about the average. What use have they for you?
Forget about your silly whim. It doesn't fit the plan.
Hmmm. I would have written the child back. But, I wouldn’t have answered the question for him. I would have asked “What would you do to fix the economy? If you don’t know the answer, research and study until you do. When you have finished, write me back and explain your answer.”
It is the child that will have to live with the economy.
Another good one. Thanks for the ping jaz.
Yes we do. A 5th grader is first being taught that famous people have the answers. Second, any kind of real response to her question from Sowell would be beyond her independent ability to evaluate.
The letter doesn't appear long enough or complex enough to be a writing exercise for 5th graders, nor, would there be much value in summarizing a response that she didn't understand. Perhaps the students will "share with the class" what their response was, a response that the other kids wouldn't understand either.
Nope, can't find anything redeeming here.
This type of statement proves Mr. Sowell's point. Children should only be required to read Sowell only if they are also required to read Keynes as well.Correct...Sowell should be required reading in all middle schools and above.
No, Dr. Sowell's point is that children should not be assigned PhD thesis topics, and teachers should not presume to assign celebrities - even such a wise and well-meaning celebrity as Professor Sowell - composition topics by practicing on their sympathy for a child who has been given an assignment by his teacher.is a book written to teachers, and it panders some to the politics you envision when you think of teachers. But it makes excellent points about its subject matter. One point being that you have to walk before you can run. When children are first exposed to a topic they simply do not know enough about it to be able to have an original thought about it, and to give them assignments requiring creativity is just plain silly.
- Why Don't Students Like School:
- A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works
and What It Means for the Classroom
by Daniel T. WillinghamIn fact, I see in it a planted similarity to another practice which the author condemns - telling a student he is smart. He says that it actually reduces the intelligence of a student to do that, and makes an excellent case for that claim. What it actually does is to flatter the child, and make the child arrogant and less inclined to do the hard work of actually thinking - and it is thinking alone which contributes to the ability to think. So the child becomes less diligent if told that he is smart, and becomes less smart as he becomes less diligent. Telling the child to do creative research when he barely knows what the subject is differs little from simply telling the child he is smart. It is flattery in either case.
Tho he mentions a particular letter from a particular child, Sowell mentions that it was not the only such letter he has received, and the response he gave reads like it could be a form letter for such occasions. He responds to the parents of the children who write as a way of communicating with the teachers who make such presumptuous assignments.
" I am a teacher and it is my job to teach you to LEARN!
He encouraged us to read the daily newspaper, a magazine, (Time Newsweek or whatever) and BOOKS!
I grew up in North Jersey and Mr Foster took us on several class trips to New York City. We went to the Zoo, the Museum and to Broadway to see "The Most Happy Fellow". These trips taught us what culture meant and we should seek out and enjoy all these aspects of our life.
We need more Foster's and Prof Sowell is right in step with him.
To sum it up, Tom, some teachers aren’t doing their job.
What if a fireman didn’t do his job, or a soldier his? What if the air traffic controller didn’t do his job, or the pilot (like the two who were fired for fighting in the aisle instead of flying the plane) recently?
I commend, on the other hand, the teachers who are TEACHING conscientiously and accurately .hose who are there to teach so that tomorrow’s adults will be armed in the battles to come.
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