AMERICAN EDUCATION IS A MESS

Copyright, 2000-2008,

by Surly

There should be no indictment that we have failed to educate all of the people in America. It is an impossible task. At best it has led to mediocrity, at worst to lowest common denominator institutionalization and ignored lives. Over fifty percent of Americans are functionally illiterate and that number is growing. Many people do not want what little education is offered or forced on them. Shouldn't that be their right?

In our educational system individuals cannot follow their own minds in a course of study. Everyone must first go through the standard system. This implies that we cannot respect independent paths to knowledge. We have narrowed our viewpoint to the existing system and filter out much insight and potentially new knowledge.

Compulsory public education was a bad idea that has only been partially successful. Americans wanted it to provide benefits denied to past generations, perhaps even to level the playing field. But the consequences were unforeseen. Now it is institutionalized and no one is happy about it, and it is difficult to change.

In lieu of compulsory schooling those who want it will create a market for it. And a free market just might produce quality education. Or would providing free, non-compulsory public education be a better idea? If there were no public schools, but only private ones, we would soon discover which students fared best because the differing methods used would prove which ones are superior. This competition would be useful and healthy. Differing methods that suit different students would out.

Institutionalized public schools are a fairly new phenomenon in human history, and at first only existed in cities, and attendance was not required. When most children were were sent to public schools many old ways of learning ceased. Parents assumed that it was being taught in school, teachers assumed that it was being taught in the home. Without the time but for limited personal contact between parents and teachers neither could assess the quality and relevancy of knowledge being taught. This problem has continually worsened.

Government supported education requires that the majority or government experts decide what should be taught and how. It was the beginning of thought control. Thinking people are dangerous to the conformity of the status quo. The system does not present any opposing viewpoints to its values and beliefs until college after the student's basic values have been formed. Yet, if there is to be publicly funded education, minimum standards for everyone must be set even for private schools no matter what other curricula they teach.

There are good and bad teachers, good and bad schools. Why? Is it only a matter of money or does the problem lie deeper? Is it a class problem?

Teachers aren't accorded the respect they deserve. Their pay is abysmally low for professionals whose backgrounds should be seen as equal to managers. Shouldn't they have more control over education? After all, they should be the ones who have the education to know best how to educate children. If not, why?

Standards in the public education system are abysmally low and restrictive. At one time it did try to offer the basics - the “Three Rs” - and now we want to go back to that standard. But that ignores most knowledge about society that is required to live in it and make important decisions. Sometimes education has attempted to offer an egalitarian viewpoint - that of a broad majority rather than the narrow viewpoint of one minority, but that has rarely been successful. Students may be exposed to many ideas, but often not in depth. Standardization cannot address the individuality and uniqueness of students that causes some of them to suffer.

Except in the very best and expensive private schools, education suffers many of the same problems - lack of money for programs and facilities, narrow viewpoints, inability to teach independent thinking and reasoning. It is usually a better public schooling, differing only in degree and slightly in style. For those who can afford it, at least it provides choices.

Public schools teach the safe and traditional common beliefs and social attitudes. We have narrowed our viewpoints to the existing system that filters out much insight and potentially new knowledge. A true and balanced understanding of the world is not learned there. Much must be unlearned before that is possible. Individuals cannot follow their own minds in a course of study. Everyone must first go through the standard system. This implies that we cannot respect independent paths to knowledge. Schools should teach facts about the world and let the students form their attitudes about it.

Education is still in the dark ages. Drill/rote memory practice is inefficient, inflexible and boring. By learning empty formulae and rote memorization (how to do a process as a skill without understanding it) how does anyone expect any understanding of subjects to be instilled? A foundation of “why?” should be given before or at the time anyone is taught the processes. How a process (a mode of thought) functions is not enough. The student has not learned much at all and is very liable to forget much of it. How can it be used to the fullest without the understanding of its function? The principles aren't present in this kind of teaching.

Our educational system tries to work too fast to fill one up with knowledge before age 20, and then set one up for a job or career after which there is no learning.

Competition in our society is for more than survival, but for social power and prestige, and it is taught before, during and after time spent within the educational system. But learning suffers from competitive attitudes. It is not as if there were a limited amount of knowledge to be fought over. Competition should be eliminated from education.

The Great Divide:

In America, we have an unease about intellectuals. They are revered and reviled. There has always been a schizophrenic contempt and a high regard for education in the U.S. A rift exists between the lower educated and the higher that defines the basic American class division. It reflects the same ambiguities we have about education. Common laborers may look on a higher education as a waste of time and elitist, effete, snobbish, overabstract and useless mind games. The intellectual establishment believes it should be a requirement and that the best of them should be respected to lead the nation.

There was a time in America when every class wanted their children to have a higher education because of the social advantages it granted. But the common people became disillusioned with the attitudes of the intelligentsia and the higher educational system. It reflected a greater class stratification and conflicts among belief systems held by respective classes. Yet, the lesser educated people often do not have the knowledge to address the problem. And the intellectual establishment has its own biases, especially disdaining the opinions of the lesser educated. It has created resentment against the intellectual elite. Anti-intellectualism drives current politics.

James Cooke Brown, writing in his novel, "The Troika Incident", was insightful in saying that education in America is for girls. His contention is that America is a nation of mechanics, and our educational system is geared to producing more mechanics. Mechanics, being a male-oriented profession, therefore is not real education. Our educational system is geared to job training. Real education is oriented to mental fulfillment and enlightenment, seen as useless and impractical ideas, luxuries only fit for girls, not for the practical minds of working men. It is a chauvinistic idea ingrained in our society.

Before formal schooling these attitudes are learned by children - that learning is hard, school is competitive, most knowledge is of little use and pretentious, that one needs good grades to get ahead in life - it is no wonder they hate school. How then can we expect any child to learn?

There is an old maxim, "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity." Never was there such a truism, but most people are not stupid, at least not all of the time. But in our current culture too many people do not use their minds to best advantage. The social climate tends to simplify every idea and issue to the point of inaccuracy and irrelevancy. Absurd sensationalism and vapid entertainment values reign, very little of which is intelligent. The average individual has little social and political discernment. An anti-intellectual climate is fostered by media and politics. Is this a plot to control society? People are taught by society to fear the unknown, to act stupid, think stupid, therefore, they are stupid. A countervailing appreciation of thoughtful intellect could easily be fostered. People would quickly catch up once they had been deconditioned to believe themselves stupid.

Respect for education can only be regained by freeing up the system. We need more diversity of programs and individual attention. Standardization must be reduced. Students do need some control of their education, but unlike the rebellion of the 1960s when students wanted total control, demonstrating an ignorance of the knowledge they needed, how could they control what they did not understand? Teachers should have that answer, therefore should have an equal control over education.

America has become very politically ignorant because our children are no longer taught "Civics" or "Social Studies" in school. Bad as that often was, it gave us some foundation for understanding our society and how the system should function. Most kids don't have any idea how our government and society operate or even what democracy is. How many of you do? With the emphasis on testing for math, elementary science and reading skills, many other important subjects have been downgraded. No one should be able to graduate from elementary school without knowing at least the basics for democracy.

We will not be able to have a fully functioning democracy nor fight authoritarianism in its many guises until a majority of citizens have a broad education that gives them the understanding of politics, society and the falsehoods of fascist ideologies that give credence to totalitarianism. Our schools teach a limited historical and philosophical perspective. In many ways they are no better than those under authoritarian regimes with their biased viewpoints. A broader view is needed.

Discipline and Responsibility

We Americans are neglecting to teach responsibility to our children. This was not always so. At one time parents taught that one must be accountable for one's acts; that an individual's word was his bond. Children were delegated responsibility for tasks and taught the value of work in its practice and otherwise learned much of their responsibility in the school of hard knocks.

In modern schools students are so divorced from real life that there is a crisis in education. They are taught to work for grades, which represent little value, rather than real work toward a goal. How can they respect education?

Discipline problems in our schools are symptoms of dysfunctional families that have not instilled in their children a respect for knowledge nor even a basic cultural knowledge. Schooling does not seem relevant to many of the poorer students. Teaching methods leave a lot to be desired to the disinterested. Expulsion and suspension from school for unexcused absences is an absurd punishment that gives those students what they want. Reducing a recalcitrant student's grades is not a good answer, either. These are only social control practices, having little to do with education.

Supporting Education

Both public and private schools must raise money, and sports has been one proven way to achieve that support. But emphasis on sports to promote education has had a detrimental effect in that sports and creating good athletes have become more important than education. Sports are fine for extracurricular activities, but institutionalized and semi-professional sports in secondary schools and colleges today should have no place. Team sports should be relegated to the private sector or local community organizations, divorced from education.

Sports in schools are destructive. They don't really create school spirit and certainly don't nurture academic excellence, but foster a competitive divisiveness and social hierarchy, rather than cooperation. The amount of knowledge isn't limited and need not be fought over. Team sports detract from academic pursuits and eat up money that would be better spent on purely scholastic pursuits. But sports in schools demonstrate that we value sport greater than we do education. Sports teams should be community-based, not in the schools. Then, they might foster community spirit. I'm sure I'll be raked over the coals and called un-American and unsportsmanlike for this.

For those who survived higher education and went on to professions, the greatest current problem is overspecialization and lack of curiosity about any subject other than their own. This curse is in part caused by the sheer amount of knowledge that is known and one must know to practice in a field. Education has become limiting and self-defeating.

Colleges and universities sell knowledge, not only to students, but research to government and businesses. Professors are paid little to teach, more to research. Education has become a business. It propagates institutions and administrations, not education. It teaches training for prestigious professions. But in an ever increasingly complex world we need more real education so that we can understand and perhaps do something about what is happening to us.

The better part of a college education today is the campus life experience, not the restrictive, academic one. Exposure to the academic community is an educational experience which shapes the student's outlook toward the world. That experience may not always be positive.

A court might define what religious schools do is a secular activity, then could come the interpretation that religious schools should teach the same thing as public schools and possibly leave religion out of it. Any religious viewpoint should not be accredited because is cannot be verified.

How do We Learn?

Recent research has discovered that children can learn at an earlier age and faster pace than previously realized. We can begin teaching children when they are still infants. Their minds can assimilate facts and understand some ideas if presented in the context of their experience, i.e. observatory power and social background. The fantasizing that children love and require for mental growth is a very abstract process that demonstrates a sophistication we had ignored.

Children must try new things, make mistakes, risk harm, learn to accept that actions have consequences. They may attempt dangerous activities for the thrill of experiencing something new, not because of a rebellious spirit.

Children could be reading at an earlier age than usually taught them. But the vocabulary of schoolbooks is often much too simple for them to learn effective reading skills. The dialogue and description is unnatural, thought processes unrealistic; this isn't how children and adults talk to each other. There is needed a better factual literature. There exists already a wealth of good fantasy literature, such as by C.S. Lewis and Madeline L'engle .And these books are so well-written as to hold the interest of an adult.

It is known that we all could learn to speak and listen faster, effecting more information transfer in a shorter time. It just takes training. Are most languages spoken at the same word rate or do they differ in information rates? It must average out to a basic word rate. If we could speak faster we would have to listen more closely to the information. The possibilities of improving educational systems with speed speech are as great as those of speed reading. The improved observation or concentration needed to listen would be useful in many applications and improve the mind.

There is much controversy over allowing dialects to be taught and spoken in schools. Standard English is out. Does this hurt communication? Nothing is wrong with using dialect if one knows a standard form of the language.

We know that we know much information today, but there is an information overload and it is virtually impossible for one person to learn all of it or even have a decent conception about the different fields and ideas being studied. Even in one field it takes an enormous amount of effort and time to begin to learn it thoroughly, and that is beyond the scope of most of us. This could certainly lead to a fatalism and apathy against learning anything because with all the knowledge we have, it still doesn't appear to be solving our problems, but causing more. Specialists within fields have proliferated to approach specific problems, but they often don't fully understand the broad field from which their work developed. There is an alienation from so much general knowledge that must lead to narrow thinking.

If the brain records all incoming data, then we need a method to recall it. Good memorization requires a structure and understanding of the subject or a rhythm or melody to put it against - requires a depth, and mnemonic devices to aid memory as in the words of a poem. However, rote memorization is nothing more than mimicry like that of a parrot.

I have a very high IQ, but I didn't do well in all subjects in school. Subjects I loved were easy. Sometimes, I wasn't interested in a subject, other times I didn't get it. Why? With all my intelligence it took me years to realize that some of my teachers were inept (I'm being kind). Some teachers may have been competent, but taught in a way incompatible with my needs. Other teachers I loved because they presented the material in ways that I immediately understood. However, I have often learned best when self-taught, and I've done a lot of that. Individuals need to learn in different ways; standardization won't always work to produce the best results.

A good example of the failure of American schools, especially in science education, is the ignorance of many people regarding consumer electronic devices. Too many people don't understand the basics of the appliances they use everyday. There are people out there who shouldn't be allowed to plug in a lamp! They can't program their VCRs, TVs, DVD players, etc. Many have problems hooking up a home stereo system. It's simple: Outputs go into inputs; left to left, right to right. People don't understand simple polarity, the + and - of direct current, or the difference between that and alternating current. Shouldn't science education be applied to practical matters? Perhaps people shouldn't be allowed to use anything they don't understand. Learning science should stick, then.

College education has become nothing more than high level job training. The original concept of education was to improve the mind and understand the world, but that's too impractical for Americans. Little of this remains except in the Liberal Arts degree, almost useless these days. Yet, professional training still has vestiges of the well-rounded education required, basic courses. Perhaps there should be job training schools that concentrate only on preparing a student for a particular job in two years and forsake all other college courses. And universities should be educational and research institutions - places for improving the mind and extending knowledge. We shouldn't expect all to attend.

Rigidity, PC, narrow, verily the Ivory Tower syndrome. I call this Academitis. Postmodernism is the ideological keyword today, ruling almost all of academic discourse. How can anything be postmodern when modern is the term that should be used for the current condition?

We must fault public education in its emphasis on a return to the basics that our democracy and freedom have suffered. The decline of "Social Studies" classes have left students ignorant of the workings of society and government. We will not be able to have a fully functioning democracy nor fight authoritarianism in its many guises until a majority of citizens have a broad education that gives them the understanding of politics and the falsehoods of fascist ideologies that give credence to totalitarianism. Our schools teach a limited historical and philosophical perspective. In many ways they are no better than those under authoritarian regimes with their biased viewpoints. A broader view is needed.

Political correctness in academia and politics is thought control.

Propaganda is based on truth, but with a biased spin on it. Other truths or facts are conveniently ignored. It's also political polemic directed at us to persuade and influence our views. The best defense against it is an education that teaches how to think, sadly lacking now in America.

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