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Sunday, October 08, 2006
Education Rant I apologize for the length of this rant in advance. I'd also like to offer the caveat that I occasionally speak in generalizations. Understand that, when I speak about "the way schools/teachers/students are" that I understand that there are exceptions to these rules, but I believe that what I describe is still the rule. I attended my ten year class reunion at my alma mater this weekend. It was fun, and I got to see some people that I haven't seen since I graduated. So many of us have kids now. I'm an educator. Inevitably, the conversation in the group of us turned to the subject. I am of the opinion that our educational system is horribly, horribly broken. It ceased to educate our children many years ago and began "schooling" them. For those that haven't read Ivan Illich's incredibly prophetic and eye-opening book Deschooling Society, I highly recommend it. There are major issues when you institutionalize something as value-oriented as education. Process becomes confused with product ("I have been through twelve years of schooling, therefore, I am educated. You have not, so you aren't."). By creating a "cookie cutter" approach to education, systematizing it, streamlining it, etc., you end up treating kids like cows with a "one-size-fits-all" mentality toward learning (then gripe because your kid's teacher doesn't accomodate the fifty different learning styles in their classroom during their fifty-minute period). Most damaging of all is the process of gradually making education completely irrelevant to real life. Ask any 50 kids of high school age why they are in school. Without even having to do the science, I guarantee you that somewhere between 60 and 80 percent will tell you the only reason why high school is necessary is to get into college. Other than that, it's a waste. Eventually the conversation turned to "No Child Left Behind." I find it a terrible idea, mainly because it does nothing to reform the truly damaging aspects of our educational system. Rather, it makes them even more dangerous. This plan, which will systematize a "base standard" for all students and schools, will do nothing for a system that is already despairingly focused on grades as the end or goal of education. Here are my problems with this. 1) Our kids already get the message loud and clear that it really isn't important what they learn in a class... it's what grade they get. Most high school kids will be candid enough to admit that they've made A's in classes from which they gained absolutely nothing else but that letter on a piece of paper. Likewise, this is also why I have students who, one day, tell me that history is their favorite class and that they've never been challenged to think this way before, then the next be in tears because they made a B on a review. Grades were meant to be an assessment of how close to a goal a student was, not the goal in itself. Making them the end has put the cart before the horse in our educational system and done tremendous damage to our children's concept of what it means to be a learner. 2) What happens when you make grades the end of education? Kids will do whatever they can to make that grade, including cheat. This shouldn't be surprising. What is surprising is the rationalizing of the action that occurs, even with "good" kids. I taught a philosophy class at the Christian high school that currently employs me. During our unit on ethics, I asked the class how many of them cheat on their tests. I would imagine that about 60% of them raised their hands. I then asked how many thought that what they were doing was wrong. Of those that had raised their hands, probably less than 10% put their hands up again (mind you, this was a "Christian" school). The explanation I got from the others? High school doesn't matter, so it's okay to cheat. The goal of high school is to get good grades to get you into college. Since you aren't really doing anything else of value anyhow, go ahead and cheat to get the grade (though some were willing to qualify that by saying that you should only do it if you HAVE to... and, boy, was I relieved to hear that). Now, once you get to college, it's WRONG to cheat there, because you're learning things that you will eventually use for your career. THAT'S what really matters. Now, apply that to school in general. Tell teachers that their pay level and, indeed, their very jobs depend on how well the kids they teach perform on this test. I'll give you three guesses what ends up happening, and your first two guesses don't count. It should come as no surprise that it's already happening. Now tell the entire school that their funding, and even their very existence, depends on a certain number of their students getting a certain score on these tests. We should not be surprised when all other academic pursuits go flying out the window in favor of making sure that every child capable of passing that test does so. Set your goals at the lowest common denominator, and teachers will teach to the lowest common denominator. We'll get to true understanding and wisdom if there is time left over (and your teacher is motivated enough to even care about such things themselves). 3) I'm against any plan that continues to prop up a system that is so obviously broken. Could there be a less natural way of teaching human beings than taking life, dividing it into several separate subjects, completely disassociating them from each other, containting instruction in each into a once-a-day 50-minute block, then telling them that the only way that they will have contact with the world they are supposedly learning about within the walls of these institutions is from books and videos? We wonder why kids see education as consisting of material that is largely irrelevant to their lives. History, which is key to understanding almost every other subject (for how can you truly know a subject if it's been removed from the context in which it was originally derived, theorized, discovered, etc.?) has been reduced to trivia in our schools. If school systems aren't out-and-out cutting their social studies programs in favor of shoving more money into science and athletics, they show it an equal level of disrespect by asking athletics staff to "supplement their income" by teaching history (you KNOW I'm right about this one. I AM NOT SAYING that everyone who coaches athletics is a terrible teacher, but there is a reason the stereotype exists! Want proof? Ask any adult what they thought of their history class. If they say they hated it, ask them if it was taught by a football coach. Of the perhaps 30 people I've engaged in this exercise with, I've had only TWO tell me that it wasn't. For one, it was the baseball coach). The message received: Any idiot can teach a history class. Second example: The way I was taught math was that it almost existed in a vacuum. Since this time, I've come to realize a valuable, albeit obvious, truth: math is used to solve REAL LIVE problems! I have met one math teacher that acknowledges this. He once told me, "It's pointless to learn math for math's sake. If you're not learning about the problems it was meant to solve (we're back to history again), you may as well not be learning it, because it's been disconnected from its purpose for existing." Is this really as profound as our system makes it seem? So what's the end result? Students are taught to chase a meaningless symbol (be it "A", "B", or "C"), while, at the same time, implicitly encouraged to take the path of least resistance getting there, because that is what you do when you find yourself spending a lot of time doing something that you see as being of no ultimate consequence. This started with a conversation. My friend said something that really clarified some things to me. He said that he always thought that the rampant cheating and apathy was a moral failing, not necessarily something that was encouraged by the system. Then it clicked with me. That's the reason why the system never seemed so bad until about 30 years ago. It was girded by the expectations of a society that, at least, had the perfume of a belief that education, true education, and not schooling, is what was important. That day is gone, and with it, any hope of avoiding the eminent bursting of the dam that is holding back the flood of nihilism from our schools. If we think that kids today live like (even if they don't say that) education is worthless, imagine what will happen to their kids if nothing is done. For a long time, I poo-pooed the relativism boogey-man. And while I still believe that people like Josh McDowell and James Dobson exploit it in order to push their narrow view of absolutes as cosmic truth, I have come to realize that the narcissism brought on by a media dominated society and a consumer culture, as well as the relativism that results from a knee-jerk response to the desire for peace in a pluralistic society are poison to the spirits of our children. Left without a reason for acting (or even existing), and without the incentive to question who they are and why they do what they do (much less measure it to some standard that exists outside of themselves), they do one of two things: They fill that gap with whatever they can get their hands on that they consider to be "real", or they float along, doing what they think they are supposed to be doing, and usually fall prey to the deceitfulness of riches and the cares of this world. I don't think that reforming a dilapidated educational system is the single answer to these problems. But I do believe that, if there is truly "message in your media," our current system is promoting a downward slide into hopelessness. I fear for our children because of this.
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Jimmy Doyle is a dad, husband,
teacher, friend, and other things. Currently he's just trying to figure out what it means to follow Christ and be in community with others. He enjoys having conversations with fellow pilgrims on the journey.
Stephen Zedler has a wife and three kids who he loves very much. He has been called by God to study and teach history, particularly U.S.
history. He also believes that God has called him to reform the way children are educated in America.