|
Every politician seems to feel obligated to come
up with a plan to fix public education. Usually this takes the shape of
some new program, either funded by tax dollars or as an unfunded mandate.
The politician is replaced in some later election, but the program lives
on, accreting itself to the school system with other programs like so
many barnacles on a ship.
Other barnacles attach themselves: interest groups. The school acquires mandates to
be "sensitive" to various issues, including but not limited to learning disabilities,
racial history, diversity, science vs. religion, and so on - all without offending anyone
or boring the students.
It's too much. Schools are trying to:
- Teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. You could make a good case
that schools should just do this and then get the hell out of the way.
- Teach history, which involves thorny questions of emphasis and disagreement
over fact hotly promoted or attacked by a hundred different advocates.
- Bless us all with tolerance and harmony handed down from Washington
(cynical laughter here)
- Teach science, whatever that is, without offending any parents' or
activists' beliefs.
- Teach sexual responsibility in a very sexualized society, to young
people with sexually developing bodies, without honestly discussing
sex in any way that would offend the most prudish constituents.
- Teach the importance of religion in American history without discussing
religion in any way that would offend anyone. Or NOT to do this (Insert
rancorous discussion of First Amendment issues and the nature of the
Founding Fathers' religious convictions, if any, here.)
- On occasion, act as parent to kids whose parents are absent or not
functioning.
- Teach "technology skills," by which most school districts
mean "computers" - a depressingly generic term that translates:
"another discipline problem."
- Teach nutrition, using misguided information from the USDA food pyramid
- Teach kids to respect others, while living under rules that don't
respect them
- Teach physical health using exercise forms (like football) that are
unlikely to promote lifelong exercise
- Teach tolerance for alternative lifestyle choices... or NOT teach
tolerance for "alternative lifestyle choices" depending on
which angry parent is in your office
- Teach an abiding love for literature without actually reading any
literature that might offend anyone. (Is there such a thing as interesting
inoffensive literature?)
- Teach us how to drive.
- Teach us how to live with censorship, and not to make waves
- Oh, heck, forget all about numbers 1 through 14: we'll lose our funding
if the kids don't pass the NCLB test mandate. Just teach them how to
neatly fill in little ovals with pencil and all those TEST STRATEGIES!
I hear you cry. This mass of conflicting interests has school administrators
and teachers leaping from one tightrope to another while balancing parents and
governments on their backs. And oh, yes, the kids too.
Anyone know how to break this logjam?
How can teachers function in this environment? A teacher really has one
job: to inculcate the love of learning. If it is not possible to succeed
at that job, none of the others will matter much. It's a delicate job,
requiring compassion, innovation, and the freedom to experiment and learn.
It can't be done with so many other cooks jostling the teacher's elbow.
"School choice" isn't going to work: many
parents are too harried to shop schools, and to the extent that the most motivated
parents remove the most motivated kids from underperforming schools, the remaining
kids in those schools get left behind. Same problem with "magnet schools."
It will take a charismatic leader who can inspire people to cut the purse strings
to the state and federal governments, demand a return of tax revenues to the local
control of communities, and be willing to experiment. In a free marketplace of ideas,
successful schools will begin to spread their methods.
|