A Nation of Teachers
September 1st, 2006 | by Ken Grandlund |(This is the second part of a four part series I wrote on education reform back in 2005 on my blog Common Sense. )
Every event in a young persons life is a teaching moment, whether we recognize it as such or not. Every first sound, every new sight, every new sensation is an opportunity to learn, especially in the first few years of our lives. As people grow they continue to learn new things and ideas and ways to behave. They don’t learn these things in a vacuum though. They learn from the people around them and the people they see in the world. Whether or not you have a child of your own, you are a teacher to someone; we all are.
In order for the state of our educational system to be repaired and once again become an institution of learning and advancement instead of a money sucking day care center, American society needs to face up to our shared responsibility as teachers of the young. A quick reminder of where we went astray may be in order. American financial might in the 20th century provided an era of leisure and consumption previously unknown. As incomes rose and technology advanced, people began to buy more things to do their work and increase their leisure time. In the process, we lost the lessons gained from physical labor. As leisure time increased, technology created entertainment that required less intellectual involvement and more introspective enjoyment, causing social skills and interaction to suffer. These qualities of physical work, intellectual development, and social mores combined to develop what was once known as character and often blossomed into traits like respect, appreciation, imagination, empathy, congeniality, and compassion. These traits, once learned, transcend all aspects of social and personal life and help continue our national prosperity. But if life got better, people got worse.
Don’t get me wrong here. Technological advancements are a wonderful thing. But they do not take the place of humanity and the ability to coalesce with a community. Technology offers humanity the opportunity to expand our knowledge about our world and each other by giving us more time to explore new lands and ideas. It does this by making the machinations of daily life more efficient, freeing up more time for people to enjoy. But rather than use this opportunity to our advantage, we have allowed ourselves to become slave to it. Instead of turning the increased productivity into an asset for a better quality of life, we have insisted that our own productivity increase to match that of our machines. The net result is no more, and in some cases much less, leisure time than we had before. Less time for our families. Less time in our communities. Less time to teach our children those things that create character.
But children have been watching and learning anyway. They have learned that work is more important than family. They have learned that imagination is just a click away. They have learned that money makes the world go ‘round. And they have learned that “me” is the most important person in the world. Parents, too tired from a long days work or home late after a long commute, would rather spend the few hours with their children filling them with fun and adoration, instead of teaching them about respect and responsibility. Or they would rather pamper themselves, ignoring the kids altogether as they run wild through the house. Kids have learned that it is easier to do what you want than what is expected, as the punishment is likely to be minor or non-existent, and rarely ever consistent. The result is a generation that expects to have what they want, when they want it, and the way the want to have it. We are now moving into the third consecutive generation that has been raised under these increasingly slack conditions and the result is a society that shows little respect and gets little respect from anyone outside a given age group. It’s a society that can barely communicate with each other, let alone the rest of the adult world. Such a societal shift isn’t always easy to see until it’s gone on for some time. All generations complain about “those darn kids today…” but the truth is that it’s becoming less of a generic grumble and more of a reality.
So what does any of this have to do with the school system anyhow? After all, isn’t this an essay about education? The answer is like connecting the dots in a child’s coloring book. In order for a child to be taught basic intellectual skills to function in the modern world, they first need to have character traits instilled in them that will allow them to function in a formal learning environment. In order for these traits to be instilled, parents have to take a more active roll in helping their child develop them. In order for parents to spend more time with their kids, we need to accept the fact that our priorities, as a society, need to shift.
Such a dynamic change of thought requires some proof of pay-off, so let’s take a look at the benefits of having an educated public. First, business needs skilled labor to operate. In fact, so many businesses are claiming a lack of educated Americans to fill their jobs, they are outsourcing their work offshore or encouraging illegal immigration. Quality education would negate that excuse. A more educated public would also likely have a higher rate of employment, which would ease tax burdens on social welfare programs and increase personal wealth across the board. An educated public is less likely to have rampant crime or rundown communities. And an educated public would probably be more stable and peaceful, working together to solve the next human challenge instead of fighting for a piece of the pie. To me, these seem like very valuable returns for my investment in time and money.
We must stop paying lip service to the empty mantra of “Education Comes First” unless we intend to back it up with actions. Parents must be responsible for nurturing traits necessary for a child to succeed in formal education, especially respect and responsibility. Parents and teachers must work together and demand that respect and responsibility be applied to the learning process. They must back each other up instead of working against each other. Business must become more flexible for families by allowing the pace of commerce to relax a bit, or by adjusting their business plans to help accommodate the time families need to make children into good adults. Society must promote personal interaction and development as more valuable than pure wealth attainment. Young people must be taught that their role in society is to learn the skills that will allow them to become productive adults instead of having their whims indulged at every turn. Educators must choose to put their student’s needs ahead of their own by dispensing knowledge without bias or omission. We must show our children that we value education by offering them safe, clean buildings, accurate and complete information, qualified teachers and accountable administration officials.
If you teach a child to throw rocks at windows, you can’t very well be angry with him when you come home and all of your windows are broken out. He is just using the knowledge he learned in the way he was taught. In the same vein, if we allow our children to sit in front of a television or video game for hours at a time, if we allow them to ignore their teachers or disrespect us as parents, if we give them everything they ask for and expect nothing in return, we can’t blame them for becoming uneducated, disrespectful, anti-social adults.
It will do us no good to reform the way we spend our education dollars, or to restructure our teaching methods, or mandate specific mastery of specific skills, or make any other superficial changes to the system without repairing the foundation that we send our children off to school on. Without an educated society we will eventually become one of two things: either a society of ignorant peasants working for the man or a culture of autonomy, locked into the solitary, technological grid and unable to relate to others or contribute much to anyone. The alternative is the promise of an educated society. Which will we choose?
[tag]education[/tag]
9 Responses to “A Nation of Teachers”
By steve on Sep 1, 2006 | Reply
Speaking as the husband of a school teacher… The problem is the home life of these kids and not the school teachers per se. It’s not the programs, the lack of programs, video games and TV. Video Games and TV are just objects, much like a book sitting on the counter or a musical instrument collecting dust in the corner of the room. You can have all of those things but they only work when the kid is taught to use them correctly. And that comes from parenting not the school district.
“Society must promote personal interaction and development as more valuable than pure wealth attainment. Young people must be taught that their role in society is to learn the skills that will allow them to become productive adults instead of having their whims indulged at every turn.”
I do sort of disagree with these statements. It’s almost like preaching Communism in a way. The business world is cut throat and the educational world or governmental state job that a lot of people fall into are not. The world lives and feeds off the business world. The business world doesn’t reward you for being a busy bee in an office based on how long you work there or necessarily on how productive you are. A capitalist society has consequences. Yeah, some day you can plunk down 8K on some wheels for you SUV but when that credit card bill comes, then what? No kid is taught this, EVER!!! We should be teaching economics along side math and reading. Kids also need to know about the legal system they someday could enter by being shitheads their whole lives. We’re not teaching reality we are protecting them from it!!
We cater too much to these “bad” kids because of their socio-economic backgrounds or because some doctor says they have ADD or some ailment. Punishments are not carried out. Kids are sent out of class and then sent back with a slap on the wrist. You can’t sit a kid in the corner because some liberal fear of isolating that child. You can’t verbally ridicule a kid for not doing his class work because of isolation or intimidation. Teachers have no real authority in their classrooms and many are just there because they hung out for 20 years to earn that 70k paycheck.
Public education is joke when you have to have armed policeman and metal detectors and dress codes and we spend all the money on that instead of textbooks, computers and renovation of old schools.
Wanna improve education in California Ken, remove Barbara Kerr from the CTA. She spent more time in effort asking Schwarzenegger for money the state didn’t have because the Democrats spent it all. Instead of blaming the Democrats for spending the money before Arnold got into office, she decided to blame Arnold for the tough he had to make. She wanted Arnold to fail. She wanted him out of office. And now the state has a surplus and guess who benefits from that surplus now: Barbara Kerr.
By gcblues costa rica on Sep 1, 2006 | Reply
public education is dead. honor diversity, get rid of it and start anew. when we look in the yellow pages and parents have dozens of schools to choose from we will have progress. while we have one govt run monopoly we will always have failure. thats the only key. getting rid of an mordibound institution, replacing it with a vibrant changing responsive to the customer industry. when walmart runs education, you’ll get what you want at the price you are willing to pay.
close all public schools now!
By Jersey McJones on Sep 1, 2006 | Reply
Steve, if people didn’t have to work so damned much (more than we did 100 years ago) perhaps they’d have more time for their kids. If people weren’t so self-absorbed and individualistic, per haps we wouldn’t have as many single parent homes where the single parent has no time for the kids. Perhaps if we have the fairness doctrine we wouldn’t have idiots calling for closing all the public schools. Perhaps if we actually spoke the truth about who and what we are and where we come from, we’d have a more realistic grasp of the world around us. And finally, if we spread the tax burder out over a greater pool in regional districts, perhaps we’d have the diversity and variety of academic displines that we need to progress as a society.
JMJ
By steve on Sep 1, 2006 | Reply
“And finally, if we spread the tax burder out over a greater pool in regional districts, perhaps we’d have the diversity and variety of academic displines that we need to progress as a society.”
So you too are guilty of using an educational topic to encourage the spread of Communism.
Good luck with that JMJ!
By Jersey McJones on Sep 1, 2006 | Reply
What would you call school vouchers, Steve?
You completely and totally missed me yet again. What I meant was that is we had broader regional districts, we could have have fairer funding, lower tax burdens, and a variety of types of schools within the region rather than cookie-cutter copies from town to town.
Get it?
JMJ
By steve on Sep 1, 2006 | Reply
I call school vouchers a choice! It’s our freaking tax money in the hands of the American People for once. But no Democrat would have that because they would not have control.
Admit it, you guys are all about control. You have all the “right” decisions and the script to push them through.
Bravo!! So one sided.
Fairer funding, ha!!!
By Jersey McJones on Sep 1, 2006 | Reply
Steve, what choice? Choice to do what? Can parents educate their kids in Nazi Youth camps? This is not about “control.” It’s about the survival of the nation. We are proposing options. You are screaming for an utterly unaccountable, theoretical, non-existant “choice.”
As with healthcare - NO ONE WANTS A FUCKIN CHOICE - they simply want their healthcare. It’s the same with schools. We all NEED good schools. We can’t just leave it to the chance of the private market.
Let me put it this way - look at healthcare costs over the past generation. Do you really believe that by imposing the same system we have on healthcare to education that things will be better?
Get real.
JMJ
By gcblues costa rica on Sep 1, 2006 | Reply
excuse me, i do not want govt health care, i prefer to pay my own and not yours.
and it is choice, the right to not have to pay for commie public schools and have your kids not be contaminated with anti-intellectual unionized democrat dependant teachers.
man you leftys are patheticaly unable to run your own lives, and you want to tell us how to run ours and to pay for yours too. grow up.
and since the poor recieve income from taxes, and pay nuttin, i assume you mean by speading the burden that we successful people will start getting a break.
i had a business in eugene oregon. planned to work till 60 or 65. tax rate exceeded 60%, employee liabiltiy ridiculous. no problem at 49, aug 2004. sold everything. fired everyone, left the states and converted my income to mostly long term cap gain. no state tax. no self employemnt tax. no oregon income tax. no property tax. long term cap gain 15%. i net as much not working as i did busting my ass and dealing with idiot public employees making me miserable. and eugene can try to replace my evil business contributions. you need to speak with a few self employed people maybe.
you neo-stalinists offer nothing but poverty, bad services, and totalitarianism. central america is loaded with expats that used to be in business. swedes, italians tons of canadians bailing on your ignorant liberal ant farm ideas. here they own business’s live a good life. but no longer provide wealth in our countries of origin. we can sit here with a shot of flor de cana and laugh at you sinking under your socialist crap. while you continue to piss on the people that support your weak ass.
pay for your own needs and go away. you do not give a damn about people without. you just want to justify your lack of living life. “its those rich bastards holding me back”.
que pathetica!
By ken grandlund on Sep 1, 2006 | Reply
Hey gc- do you even read the essays that are posted or do you just enjoy going off on these diatribes? Since when has Central America been a bastion of freedom and democracy? Hell, Central and South America ARE the neo-communist regimes in the western hemisphere. Sound like you’ve been sipping a bit too much flor de cana. Seems as if the only person important to you is yourself. What a miserable existence you must lead. Running from a country that you couldn’t make it in so that you can sit in your rattan lounger getting drunk and spouting inanities.
And since you’ve left the country, what the hell do you care what we want or do anyhow? Frankly, with ex-pats like you running around down there, I’m happy to still be here. We could do with a few more misanthropes like yourself heading south so you can run those countries into the ground as well while we try to fix the mess you’ve made of this one.
que pathetica indeed amiguito. That must be your mirror talking to you.