Somebody's Got To Do It

by Terry J. Ward

Recently, I saw a commercial about music education in the schools. The commercial encouraged people to support funding for music education, telling them that it would help their children with math and make them into well rounded human beings. I got thinking about that concept, and, as is often the case, my brain made the leap from music to the general of concept of education. What is its purpose?

American education seems to be driven by whatever type of hysterical fear is the flavor of the month. Back in the 50s, when America was afraid of the Commie threat and Sputnik went into space successfully, educators went in the same direction. The thought of those blasted Russkies getting into space before us was unthinkable, why, it was almost un-Godly. We all knew that America was the smartest, best equipped, most deserving nation in the world - the natural leaders of civilization. IT WAS TIME TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT EDUCATION!

And then there was the 80s. Ah, the 80s. I've read a lot about what a wild time the 80s were - money, drugs, incredible playthings, capitalism at full bore. This was about the same time that I was staying home to raise four small children, so the glamour of the era was a little lost on me. The one thing, however, that trickled into our household was the impact of educational "Japanese hysteria." Once again, the specter of someone else being better at something was gripping the nation. Again, IT WAS TIME TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT EDUCATION! (Of course, all of those who wanted to "upgrade" American standards to those of the Japanese, didn't take into account all the kids over there who commit suicide each year over the pressure they're under, or the fact that Japanese culture is much better suited for the type of system that they have.) America, the land of the rugged individualist, the land where individual expression is celebrated, and, indeed, protected as a foundation of our society, was not a particularly good candidate for that type of education

I recently had the dubious honor of participating in another one of our "experiments." I taught Social Studies in the block scheduling format. Those of you who haven't heard of it, don't worry, I'm sure you will. The concept, like all those other wonderfully well thought out educational concepts, is simple in its pretext. Basically, one subject will be taught for double the length of time each day, but only for half the number of days. For example, from September to January, students will have two periods each day of Social Studies. The rationale is that the students will experience a more in-depth immersion in that subject area. Tell me, has anybody ever really taken a good look at ninth grade students? Certainly not whoever thought up this little gem. If I were to make a guess, I'd say that the person that came up with this concept was digging around for something to write their doctoral thesis on and this seemed original enough to get some academic juices flowing. Of course, let's forget that New York State has that little thing called the Regents. And let's also forget that the kids who are given a Social Studies block class in the fall of their freshman year, will be given a Regents exam on this material 1 years AFTER they finish the course. Needless to say, I wasn't enamored with what I felt was an incredible disservice to kids hitting the zenith of adolescent hormonal crisis and just trying to find their way through the mysteries of the high school hierarchy.

The whole point of my tirade is this, when is American education going to stop being fueled by fear and begin to consider what is really best for our kids? When are we going to start answering the real questions? What do I want for my kids, what is best for our society, what will work in our society? Instead of concentrating on what is successful for others, and what the newest, glossiest trend is, isn't it time to start defining what is really important to US? Is our goal to compete and "win" out over every other nation on earth, or is it to give our children a good foundation for the rest of their lives? Do we really want hubris to be the guiding factor of our academic systems?

Of course, since this is my dime, and my temper tantrum has expended itself, I'll throw in my educational two cents worth of theory - uniforms and boarding schools, that's the answer. Oh, and by the way, to bury your head in the sand and tell yourself that schools are not partially responsible for the moral education of their students is pure, unadulterated hogwash.

There, well, that felt good. And, I suppose I DO go off onto tangents quite easily. But, hey, somebody's got to do it! No reason that I can't be the next educational guru and make lots of bucks from it!