Like most teachers I know I've been spending a portion of these summer days preparing for next fall. I read professional books, look back over some of my notes from this past year, and dream about changes for this next group coming in. I hope to be a better teacher. And well I should, given the state of education today. Just today I read...
If you read the newspaper, you know the American education system has gone past the point where it is simply failing to educate our young, and is now actively reducing their intelligence. Hardly a day goes by when you don't see an article like this:
WASHINGTON -- The National Association of People Who Worry About These Things (NAPWWATT) today reported that this year's graduating high-school seniors are even dumber than last year's, many of whom are still stumbling around the back of the auditorium trying to get their commencement gowns off. NAPWWATT reported that 66 percent of this year's seniors failed a nationwide scholastic test consisting of the question, "What does a duck say?"
This is pretty pathetic. When I was in high school, we were expected to know what a duck says. Oh, sure, I've forgotten a lot of this stuff, but at least I used to know it, which gives me the right to express smug contempt thinly disguised as grave concern for the young people of today.
This is Dave Barry sarcastically poking fun at our education system. The fact that this piece, Why Johnny is Dum, is making light of the fact that the media feels as though American students are getting less and less intelligent each year isn't such a surprise. What gets me is that this was written twenty-six years ago. If our kids were on the downward slide in 1985 imagine how dim-witted they must be by now.
I, of course, would have to disagree - at least with regards to the kids I've known over the past ten or fifteen years. Each spring I see what my students are capable of doing and know full-well that they are much more complex thinkers than I ever was in grade school. Though that's not really saying much. I was in grade school back in 1985.
But like all of us, teachers included, Dave Barry truly wants to see our kids become better learners and achieve more. Although, his motives for this may be a bit misplaced:
Like any responsible parent, I want my son to get the best possible education, because I am sick to death of having to read his Masters of the Universe comic books to him. All the male characters wear loincloths, all the females have breasts like grain silos, and all the dialogue sounds like this (from The Stench of Evil):
SKELETOR: Stinkor, with your powerful SMELL, I would like you to spread your FOUL ODOR where the air is clean, and bring MISERY to a place that is full of happiness!
STINKOR: YES! YES! I revel in all that is FOUL!
Our goal as a nation must be to develop, by next fall, an educational system that will teach my son how to read this drivel for himself, ideally on his first day.
A lofty goal, to be sure. Maybe I oughta get back to work.
This looks like an ice investigation photo. Nice choice. I tend to wonder about the groups of people who are so concerned with the state of education today. Actually, I think there is a lot we could do to better support learners. I think the institution does often get in the way of learning in schools that over emphasize test scores and pointlessness. However, I think kids are just as smart as always and probably even smarter than ever. Mostly, I think that the media looks to the adults to find out how the kids are doing instead of actually asking the kids. Maybe the adults are getting dumber?
ReplyDeleteI find it most interesting that Dave Barry would not want to read these comic books. I would think they'd be great fodder for DB commentary (they clearly are in this case...), but then again, maybe I need to include them on my summer reading list to know why he wouldn't like them.
That boy is Celia Rivenbark funny, I tell ya.
ReplyDeleteI am reasonably certain that people have been complaining about the state of education ever since we formalized it. Can't you just hear Plato's momma, Gods-rest-her, wondering what nonsense "That Socrates" was up to with his Method? Just sayin.
I was definitely not in elementary school in 1985, but I will say this: I was not invited to think like my people are. There was not conversation, unless it was structured around the correct answers. And while "it worked for me," I find myself wondering how much different I might be if my school experiences had been more like the ones my little friends are having.
There are some constants, I guess, that affected us and that affect our students - stuff like bullying and insecurity, peer hierarchy and PE, parents who care and those who know everything... Maybe if we;d stop all the measuring and do more looking, we might see that we aren't failing at all.
Well, actually, maybe we are. We fail the kids when we make them do ridiculous things to justify and earn our funding. We fail them when we compare them to each other and to the kids who live in completely different worlds, even if those worlds are only a few miles away. We fail them when we make assumptions about them based on their numbers, their demographics, their families, their histories. Basically, we fail them when we listen to everyone out there BUT them.
So I think I might stop listening so hard to the spin docs and the people who aren't sitting in our circle when someone decides we need to have a turtle funeral RIGHT THEN, or when someone shares a personal anecdote that brings us all to tears, or when we finish a read aloud and no one says anything at all. If the They can't see how brilliant those moments and those kids are and that we are doing all we can to raise better people, then I don't have any respect for them at all.
HA! When I first started reading, this article sounded like something out of The Onion, or National Lampoon. Of course, so did the Republican debate last night, which is way scarier. 'That Michelle Bachman is sure a breath of frrrrresh air..." But I digress.
ReplyDeleteAll of the pressure to develop the American Education System has created (in most states, districts, schools, classrooms) a bunch of ninnies who are bent on covering standards, thinking creatively be damned. As a culture, if we think the amount of stuff we cram in our heads and simply compare that to the amount of stuff other cultures can cram into their heads - then we are really screwed. Because then all problem solving, collaboration, arts, problem posing - go out the window.
I know I've said this before, but hew great is it that we get to work where we can think up together instead of always trying to find ways to cover standards? How about we get together Friday? We could meet half way (like at Barnes and Noble's in Harbison) if you wanna hang out and talk curriculum, or my place or yours if you want to jam as well. I have a couple new beer recipes coming in if you want to brew sometime.