Operation Extra Credit
I'm posting a brief, informal, report that was commissioned by my mostest favouritest professor, Elliot Bartky, who I found out today is also revered by the staff at the Barnes & Noble at the mall.
Anyway. Here are my thoughts on the proceedings, and the ideas--and lack thereof--bandied about.
On Wednesday I had my first experience with a town hall meeting. The primary topic of this meeting, as my reader knows, was education; more specifically, it was about a bill that is being introduced in the Indiana House of Representatives that is aimed at the promotion of charter schools and alternatives to the public schools. Brian Bosma, the Speaker of the Indiana house, had the daunting task of the apology of said bill before a passel of agitated school teachers. His opening remarks were an attempt to lend some perspective to the debate. We are in the midst of a fiscal crisis and there will be no increases in spending. The challenge is to improve education without spending more money. The speaker appeared to believe that the means for this improvement was the competition and improvisation that would—in theory—be generated by a charter school option, and by the increased efficiency that would be found in the ability to remove teachers whose classes show no signs of improvement. Mr. Bosma also spoke of the necessity for specialization and innovation in education.
The overwhelming response of the teachers may be found in the words of one rather amusing—and equally incomprehensible—gentleman. He said one thing that the whole room understood, and that was that one could lead a camel to water, but could not make him drink. In essence, that most teachers are doing all they can, but the task of learning falls to the student. The teachers who spoke also voiced frustration over the fact that they receive no help from the parents, who take no interest in the education of their children. One teacher noted that a huge difference between her exchange students and their American counterparts was that the foreign students took responsibility for their failure.
I had the pleasure of writing my first major research paper on the issues with the American education system and delved into the structures that yield such success in Western Europe, and I am thereby armed with the necessary knowledge to note that she is describing a symptom of excellence, not an underlying cause as she believed. She fails to realize that men are by nature wicked, and that they do no good thing unless forced. In the systems that her exchange students, be they European or Asian, come from there are set and serious consequences for failure in school performance. In the German education system, a student who fails to measure up in the eighth grade is not going to university. Americans believe in opportunity and second chances, and so institutions like IPFW seek to extend opportunity to those who have neglected their mind in a way that is ridiculous to Germans.
In the absence of dire consequences for failure, one would hope that the young people would have been instilled with a proper value for education and personal achievement in the realms of academia. This is not the case. The messages our society and our schools send to the young are many, but among these are the messages that all lifestyles and choices are equal and you need to do what is right for you. No lifestyle is objectively better than another; good is subjective, and most take more pleasure from indulging their appetites than in the discipline of their minds. Therefore, since a good life is subjective, the standard by which many judge it is in physical pleasure experienced. We have removed the safeguards of the ancients and of the realists and cynics. Not only have we denied an objective good, but we have furthered the damage by softening the consequences for those who fail to take advantage of their educational opportunities.
Coming from an extraordinarily unorthodox educational background, I am entirely sympathetic to the argument that there needs to be competition, innovation, and more opportunity in the realm of American schooling, and will seriously consider supporting the bill Mr. Bosma championed if I find it—on closer acquaintance—to be as promising as it was made to sound. That said, it is a small step and fails to address the fundamental issue that American educators face. The teachers were right. Student attitude is the greatest problem. But the attitude merely reflects the attitude and values of the society and family in which they grow. What the teachers fail to recognize is that it falls upon them to change the way their students view education, and the only way for them to do so is to alter their students’ values. Teachers spend more time with many children and teens than do the parents, but they do not take responsibility for teaching values. Furthermore, public school teachers cannot go about teaching that some lives are more full and valid, because they then run the risk of invalidating one of their students.
As things are presently ordered, public school teachers cannot repair the real damage in the American school system. Charter schools, since all participants get to make that choice, would be able to teach values, as a private school can. They would not necessarily do so, but there is at least the outlet or opening of such an option for those who were not previously able to send their children to a pricey private school. Although, I humbly submit that the best way to get the parents genuinely involved in the education of their child—indeed, to improve the education of the whole nation—would be to take ten percent of that $5500 a year that goes to the child’s education and make a rule that the parents receive it if the kid makes the honors roll.
These are but my humble musings on the proceedings and I can only hope that they at least resemble the kind of report you were hoping to receive..
Anyway. Here are my thoughts on the proceedings, and the ideas--and lack thereof--bandied about.
On Wednesday I had my first experience with a town hall meeting. The primary topic of this meeting, as my reader knows, was education; more specifically, it was about a bill that is being introduced in the Indiana House of Representatives that is aimed at the promotion of charter schools and alternatives to the public schools. Brian Bosma, the Speaker of the Indiana house, had the daunting task of the apology of said bill before a passel of agitated school teachers. His opening remarks were an attempt to lend some perspective to the debate. We are in the midst of a fiscal crisis and there will be no increases in spending. The challenge is to improve education without spending more money. The speaker appeared to believe that the means for this improvement was the competition and improvisation that would—in theory—be generated by a charter school option, and by the increased efficiency that would be found in the ability to remove teachers whose classes show no signs of improvement. Mr. Bosma also spoke of the necessity for specialization and innovation in education.
The overwhelming response of the teachers may be found in the words of one rather amusing—and equally incomprehensible—gentleman. He said one thing that the whole room understood, and that was that one could lead a camel to water, but could not make him drink. In essence, that most teachers are doing all they can, but the task of learning falls to the student. The teachers who spoke also voiced frustration over the fact that they receive no help from the parents, who take no interest in the education of their children. One teacher noted that a huge difference between her exchange students and their American counterparts was that the foreign students took responsibility for their failure.
I had the pleasure of writing my first major research paper on the issues with the American education system and delved into the structures that yield such success in Western Europe, and I am thereby armed with the necessary knowledge to note that she is describing a symptom of excellence, not an underlying cause as she believed. She fails to realize that men are by nature wicked, and that they do no good thing unless forced. In the systems that her exchange students, be they European or Asian, come from there are set and serious consequences for failure in school performance. In the German education system, a student who fails to measure up in the eighth grade is not going to university. Americans believe in opportunity and second chances, and so institutions like IPFW seek to extend opportunity to those who have neglected their mind in a way that is ridiculous to Germans.
In the absence of dire consequences for failure, one would hope that the young people would have been instilled with a proper value for education and personal achievement in the realms of academia. This is not the case. The messages our society and our schools send to the young are many, but among these are the messages that all lifestyles and choices are equal and you need to do what is right for you. No lifestyle is objectively better than another; good is subjective, and most take more pleasure from indulging their appetites than in the discipline of their minds. Therefore, since a good life is subjective, the standard by which many judge it is in physical pleasure experienced. We have removed the safeguards of the ancients and of the realists and cynics. Not only have we denied an objective good, but we have furthered the damage by softening the consequences for those who fail to take advantage of their educational opportunities.
Coming from an extraordinarily unorthodox educational background, I am entirely sympathetic to the argument that there needs to be competition, innovation, and more opportunity in the realm of American schooling, and will seriously consider supporting the bill Mr. Bosma championed if I find it—on closer acquaintance—to be as promising as it was made to sound. That said, it is a small step and fails to address the fundamental issue that American educators face. The teachers were right. Student attitude is the greatest problem. But the attitude merely reflects the attitude and values of the society and family in which they grow. What the teachers fail to recognize is that it falls upon them to change the way their students view education, and the only way for them to do so is to alter their students’ values. Teachers spend more time with many children and teens than do the parents, but they do not take responsibility for teaching values. Furthermore, public school teachers cannot go about teaching that some lives are more full and valid, because they then run the risk of invalidating one of their students.
As things are presently ordered, public school teachers cannot repair the real damage in the American school system. Charter schools, since all participants get to make that choice, would be able to teach values, as a private school can. They would not necessarily do so, but there is at least the outlet or opening of such an option for those who were not previously able to send their children to a pricey private school. Although, I humbly submit that the best way to get the parents genuinely involved in the education of their child—indeed, to improve the education of the whole nation—would be to take ten percent of that $5500 a year that goes to the child’s education and make a rule that the parents receive it if the kid makes the honors roll.
These are but my humble musings on the proceedings and I can only hope that they at least resemble the kind of report you were hoping to receive..
Come on, Patch. You're missing the point of having a blog. This isn't where you post what you're going to show your professors. This is where you get to ridicule the people at the meeting. Ignore the actual content. Hair, clothes, speech patterns...it's all fair game.
ReplyDelete1) I second Bethany.
ReplyDelete2) The format of the educational system itself is at best a marginal contributor to students' educational success. Students supported by a family and culture that values education, expects results, and holds them accountable for those results will succeed in any environment from radical unschooling to the most rigid Victorian-style schoolhouse and everything in between. Witness the success rates of Asian immigrant children even in genuinely awful inner-city schools, despite being persecuted for their success by their peers. Culture is everything, and until we acknowledge and address that, tweaking this or that aspect of how our schools are organized is just a waste of everyone's time and energy.
I don't think you're wrong in your hopes that charter schools might have a better opportunity to address values, but I suspect that most of the improvements that are likely be seen in charter schools will have more to do with self-selection effects than any real change in the students themselves.
As for your bribe proposal, I don't doubt that it would work, but I don't think it really addresses the problem. One of the issues that affects education from K through grad school is our culture's treatment of "education" as nothing but a credentialing racket. If we need to check boxes a, b, and c to get such and such credential, and our politicians are all anxious that not enough of our citizens are checking the right boxes and getting the right credentials, it's in everyone's interest to make checking those boxes as easy as possible. Nobody cares whether anyone actually knows anything at the end of the process. Bribing parents just encourages them to be more diligent in monitoring their children's box-checking, but it doesn't do anything to encourage them to value the actual education.
My dear, my very dear reptilian friend,
ReplyDeleteAs for thingy the first; it will be written up soon. I just did not have time last night.
Now I address thingy the second. I take as a given your premise that cultural change is required for a true change in education. I believe, however, that the ultimate agent for changing culture is education. I should have drawn a clear line between education and "education." By the latter I am referring to schooling and the process of trying to shape--or shove things into--the young skulls, which are so full of mush. I define Education the knowledge of the proper value of ideas, and an acquiring of the capability to analyze, synthesize, and digest those ideas.
And I take it from comments that I received from you (here) and Bethany (the other here) that my effect with the last comments did not go off as planned. I like subtle sarcasm, and so I went for a bad idea with a sprinkling of oleaginous dolt, of which component I obviously did not include enough. The last part was merely a needling jest aimed at the attitude of the parental units that the teachers are struggling with.
I did clear a lot of this (and other issues) up in the forty-five minutes I had before class. The abysmal punctuation is but one example.