I wish somebody would explain to me why kids aren’t better educated these days. I don’t have any kids so I normally don’t think about their education - But after reading economist Alan Greenspan’s 500 paged book, “The Age Of Turbulence,” the pages which scarred my brain tissue the most were the ones describing the failure of the American education system and the difficulty American graduates have in competing for jobs against better educated immigrants. It’s certainly not the kids’ fault. According to Greenspan, “A study conducted by the Lynch School of Education at Boston College revealed that although our fourth-grade students were above average on an international comparison scale in both math and science, by the time they reached their last year of high school, they had fallen well below the international average. The leading nations included Singapore, Hong Kong, Sweden and The Netherlands. According to Greenspan, immigrants from India and many other countries have superior engineering and computer science back grounds and are in demand by American corporations (while millions of Americans are unemployed).
So what the fuck is happening to American kids between 4th grade and high school graduation? Since we spend many more tax dollars per student than almost any other country without getting good results, maybe we should have a tax protest about that.
The Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind program was supposed to make sure all kids received the education necessary to become productive citizens. In the book, “Many Children Left Behind,” author and educator Deborah Meier writes, “The biggest problem with No Child Left Behind is that it mistakes measuring schools for fixing them. The focus on high stakes testing and test preparation dumbs down classrooms.”
“The foundation of every state is the education of its youth.” -Diogenes Laertius
If high school graduates (not to mention drop outs) can’t find jobs, many of their alternatives aren’t too good for society. They are much more likely to become drug dealers, burglars, muggers and kidnappers for ransom. Many will just stay home indefinitely and live like expensive house pets unable to fly out of the nest.
America has the most powerful military in the world. We have the best rock stars and we make the best movies. Why can’t we be number one in education?
You can see more photographs by Mountain Dude at: www.dportrdvd.com
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Oh, I feel the pain. It seems like part of the problem is the unhealthy lifestyle that is such a part of the American childhood. My cousin has a kid who weighed 70 lbs at the age of 5. People act as if the mind is a separate entity from the rest of the body, but poor health takes a toll on achievement. Recess and exercise are being eradicated so a nation of automatons can learn to take standardized tests rather than learn to learn. The NFL has a program that is meant to encourage American children to play for 60 minutes a day in active play. How lazy of a country are we that our children need an incentive to play?
Right - Poor health must be a big part of the problem. The NFL has a good idea. I recently read in my local newspaper that the schools in my area might eliminate recess because school administrators want to save money by laying off playground supervisors. Bad idea. Why can’t the administrators get off their asses and supervise the playgrounds if necessary? They need to see how fat the kids are getting. I don’t know what they are teaching the kids in the classrooms these days but it doesn’t seem to be nutrition.
Apparently, the kids parents weren’t taught about nutrition when they were in school either.
The teacher makes all the difference. I know that from experience as well as listening to my childrens’ experiences. If a teacher has a gift and enthusiasm for teaching, that gets across, the student is engaged, and they learn.
I don’t know what goes on in the educational system of this country to make it so shoddy and inconsistent. I don’t understand how we can spend so much money and have such a huge discrepancy in the the quality of schools from state to state or town to town. All that is a mystery to me but I think it gets down to the same old same old. Who gets the money in their hand, and how they spend it. And how many local people (parents) get involved in the process. I’m guessing that has a lot to do with it.
I have a lot of complaints about the school system but in general I have huge respect for the teachers that put their heart and soul into teaching (and more often than not, don’t get paid nearly as much as they should for babysitting/teaching/parenting our kids for 6+ hours of the day 5 days a week.)
There are a couple teachers I will probably write a personal note of thanks to for having such a huge, positive impact on my kids this year…
I think you are right about teachers. The good ones deserve a lot of credit. They must have a lot of courage and patience to work with wild, free spirits all day. I’m afraid of kids so I like to keep a safe distance. I don’t know if it’s fear of the unknown or fear of commitment - or both.
I read a really scary article yesterday about how a few monster kids kept terrorizing a teacher and disrupting his classroom so badly that the good kids were too distracted to learn. It’s a real life horror story. The article, “How I Joined Teach for America - and Got Sued for $20 Million,” by Joshua Kaplowitz, can be read in full at http://www.city-journal.org. In a nutshell - Kaplowitz, a recent, Yale graduate explains how he tried to teach a classroom of inner city kids in Washington, D.C., and was almost driven insane with frustration. Kaplowitz was very dedicated but he had trouble controlling and disciplining a few unruly demons. The parents of the bad kids defended their kids behavior instead of working with the teacher to figure out how to solve the problems. The school principal was no help at all. Instead of addressing the discipline problems, the principal wrote bad reports about Kaplowitz. One day, Kaplowitz was escorting an unruly kid out of his class and Kaplowitz nudged the kid into the hall by pushing his hand into the small of the kid’s back. When the kid told his mother that he was “violently shoved” out of class, the mother dialed 911 and summoned the cops and fire department to the school. Kaplowitz was charged with assault and the kids mother sued him and the school for $20 million.
And this teacher’s nightmares happened in 5th grade and 2nd grade classes. I can only imagine how bad things can get with bigger demons in high school.