[Vision2020] NYTimes: The Uneducated American

[Glenn Schwaller]

Mr Marcy states: "it seems . .necessary, to reorganize public
education toward providing more and better services to adult learners
. . ."  and I whole-heartedly agree.  However I do NOT agree with
providing remedial education as part of the university curriculum to
freshly-minted graduates from the high school.  This is, in a word
(well, two words) seriously crazy.

Not to over-state the obvious (but when it need to be done it needs to
be done), this should be the role of our k-12 education system and
apparently it is not working.  Mr Marcy churlishly states my "why has
nothing worked question" is broad, bland and overreaching and then
goes on to offer a broad, bland and rather lame excuse that well hell
things could be worse.  C'mon Ken, even MoscowTom can do better than
that!

I ask still - why has nothing worked?  Dr Wade Carpenter published a
10 year study on education reform (Carpenter, Wade A. 2000. “Ten Years
of Silver Bullets: Dissenting Thoughts on Education Reform.” Phi Delta
Kappan (January): 383–389),  and pretty much concludes the same thing
- 10 years of silver bullets have produced a very limited effect.
Included in these "silver bullets"are investment of more resources (I
think this would address HerrDoctorProfessor Joe's solution to blindly
throw money at things when you have no idea what the underlying
problems are), establishing national goals and high-profile
commitment, and introducing a more competitive environment.  I think
the question is neither broad, bland, nor over-reaching but right on
target.

Our students are not motivated.  We are drifting towards a system
where there are hardly any consequences for poor performance.  We
can't give them "bad grades", we can't make them re-take a failed
course, we can't hold them back because the poor dears may be
stigmatized, socially shunned and have their feeling hurt.

Parents seem unwilling or unable to help their kids with homework,
much less helping out in the classroom.  Our attitude is "that's NOT
my job.  You're the teacher, YOU do it."  People don't seem motivated
to do things out of a sense of responsibility - it's always "so what
do I get out of this?"  So much for altruism . . .  If we as parents
can't be motivated, are we surprised our kids are not??

So in keeping with the "what's in it for me" attitude, I would suggest
giving parents (or anyone for that matter) a carrot - volunteer to be
a teachers aid, specialist, whatever on a per week, per day, per month
basis, and receive along with your W2 form a 1099EDU.  You get X
dollars of instant off the top tax credit for every Y hours of
in-class help. Do ya feel da motivation??  Do ya feel da sense of
accomplishment??  Do ya feel da burn??? Or do you feel the need for a
nap and a "great ideal let someone else do it wake me when the ball
game is on."

Sigh . . . I see my silver bullet in a parabolic flight, gradually
swallowed up by the great sea of ho-hummedness . . .

GS


On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 6:12 AM, Kenneth Marcy <kmmos1 at verizon.net> wrote:
> On Friday 09 October 2009 13:29:06 Glenn Schwaller wrote:
> <snip>
>> Why has nothing worked?
>
> This broad and bland, not to mention over-reaching, question overlooks what
> may be the obvious observation that things could be worse.
>
> Suppose society did not educate persons at all. What might result therefrom?
> Thomas Hobbes has suggested "No arts; no letters; no society; and which is
> worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of
> man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." -- Leviathan, chapter 12.
>
> So one reason for education is to inculcate within individuals some higher
> sense of self-control -- an extension of toilet training -- with the goal of
> avoiding multifarious problems that could ensue. Society educates people to
> avoid problems, and associated costs, that would occur without education.
>
> To the extent that one can look at contemporary society and notice that it is
> not completely chaotic, one might suggest that something must have worked.
>
> The question arises whether things might be better with more education, and,
> more specifically, what sort of education provided to what sort of persons
> for what purposes. Beyond education as a means to avoid problems is education
> as a means to facilitate contributions to society's well-being. Less crime
> and more prosperity may be partial measures of success, individual stable
> lives and personal satisfactions notwithstanding.
>
> Relatively high levels of education are a twentieth-century phenomenon.
> History of earlier times suggests education was primarily for richer, upper
> class persons who need not deign to soil their hands with trade work or
> manual labor, even in a society primarily comprised of small farm agriculture
> subsistence. Contemporary society has urbanized itself away from farms, and
> though the elites may still disdain efforts beyond commanding the hired help,
> most people find themselves faced with multifaceted needs to engage in a
> complex and dynamically changing set of social conditions.
>
> The existence of dynamically changing social conditions, and the necessity for
> many individuals to be aware of those changes, suggest that society needs to
> organize itself in such ways as to best facilitate not only dissemination of
> information about change, but also to educate individuals concerning the most
> appropriate ways and means to respond to change for the benefit of society
> and themselves.
>
> So, it seems to me not only appropriate, but necessary, to reorganize public
> education toward providing more and better services to adult learners who
> have passed out of the juvenile social promotion system that attempts to
> educate while providing collective means for social control of adolescents.
> One way that at least part of such revitalization of individual education
> could be provided via public institutions would be to establish institutions
> for adult learners to allow them to accomplish, or to re-accomplish, tasks
> associated with what are deemed to be minimum acceptable education standards.
>
>
> Ken
>
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