There are a lot of topics on my mind today, but they can wait for another column. For now, let me climb atop the worn soapbox and take off on a topic close to my heart.
Most of you recognize this line from Shakespeare, but there is a far different take on these six words today. I know that, of my readers, many are of my generation. However, I empathize most with those of you who are far younger. What we can be depends on how and what we learn as children.
Often, the simple children’s songs stick with us. So it is with this one. Perhaps you remember the tune and its lyrics. “School days, school days, good old Golden Rule Days. Reading and writing and ‘rithmetic, taught to the tune of a hickory stick. You were my girl in calico. I was your bashful, barefoot beau. And you wrote on my slate, ‘I love you, Joe!” when we were a couple of kids.”
Been in a school lately? Aware that the old-fashioned methods are totally absent? Anyone who knows a fig about learning knows that it takes far more “brain power” to put a pencil to paper than to press a button. Yet, despite this fact, children today use electronic tablets to do their work. The days when the early grade classrooms were adorned with the beautifully illustrated cursive alphabet are all but gone.
So where are we today? Some schools do not teach children to write in cursive at all. Relying on a tablet or computer impacts legal documents. What are we do? Have people sign with an “X?” Where on earth is common sense in this, folks?
Sadly, there go the basics of handwriting. And math? Well, that’s another story. My sons are in their fifties, but I well recall the fight it took for parents to have what administrators called “the new math” thrown out. Complicated, it did nothing but confuse students. Fathers who were engineers had their hands full trying to help with homework. Those gifted in math found themselves shaking their heads. Most parents were at their wit’s end. Logic was nonexistent.
Today, math is an echo of that educational failure we recognized in the 1970s — a current nightmare for parents. The days when a child did homework, turned in a paper, got it back and saw precisely what worked and what didn’t work — not to mention why it didn’t work — are gone. Do you understand how this impacts a child’s progress?
When we were in school, we had one teacher per classroom. Aides were unheard of and a teacher went over each child’s work. Spotting who had trouble and with what polished a teacher’s skills and worked wonders for his or her students. If a person other than the classroom teacher corrects the homework, the teacher is missing an important element of teaching – intimate knowledge of each student’s weak or strong points.
Bound ahead into the “Twilight Zone” of education seen today, and one’s mind spins. I can’t remember when I first encountered any mention of sex in school, but I imagine it was in the upper grades. Even then, at our local high school, the girls had a woman for health and the boys had a man. Not so for me. I enrolled for summer school and took health at Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis. Coed class. I remember the teacher’s first sentence on the first day. “Ladies and gentlemen, if there is anyone in this room who doesn’t know what a vagina or a penis is, please step into the hall.”
Nobody got up. To this day, I don’t know if anyone in that class did or did not know the terms; but, from that day forward, our man teacher did a magnificent job in teaching basic anatomy, procreation, and good health habits. I would never have had that exposure at my local high school. Clearly, even 60+ years ago, school systems differed widely in their approach.
And what do we have today? Transgender programs in schools and libraries… Parades where personalities once only seen in “side shows” cavort before children, often baring body parts and making a mockery of whatever theme of a particular celebration.
Excuse me, people. Basic human anatomy and childbirth remains the same as it has for millennia. Man and woman have child. There is no third gender, or any deviation from the two which God created. Blasphemy is a word we hear rarely, but this truly fits the bill.
I care not what people do behind closed doors, but inserting as spectacle behavior which, for centuries, has been morally unacceptable, is nothing less than dangerous. Is it any wonder that — given the current circumstances — young married people decide not to have children? Dropping birth rates are alarming, but few people discuss the subject. Who would want to try to rear a child when such exposure is out there and couched within a public school?
Perhaps we need to change the spelling. What I call “government schools” are failing our kids. Recognizing what is being pushed toward our children, maybe we need to adjust the spelling. Just change the term PUBLIC SCHOOLS TO PUBIC SCHOOLS. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever expect to witness such a disservice to our children.
When will this change? Only when parents and grandparents demand school choice. My experience tells me that quality beats quantity any day. Before school integration, there were countless Negro schools across the country. Indianapolis had one of the very best – Crispus Attucks High School. Its faculty held more advanced degrees than any school in the state and the education the highest quality. Another example is Chicago’s West Side Prep. Run by Marva Collins, the students there were reading classics and Latin in the elementary grades. I remember hearing her speak. Paraphrased, she said, “Don’t tell me a Negro child cannot learn. That child needs only to be taught. Encouragement, praise and patience work for everyone.”
How right she was. The disastrous scores from inner city schools frustrates parents who sign up in a lottery basis to enroll their children in schools that do a good job. Charter and religious schools have the key to the problem. The stumbling block is the immense influence – political and financial – of the teachers’ unions. Most teachers join to take advantage of legal protection, retirement benefits, and sundry other built-in elements.
Yet, when you listen to the heads of these unions speak, you shake your head in disbelief at their socialist bent. When will this end? One step is to abolish the Federal Department of Education. The old saying “All politics is local” also applies to education. Schools belong to their individual neighborhoods, cities, and towns.
When Virginians elected Glenn Youngkin their Governor, it was a direct result of him stepping forward to defend parents unfairly labeled “terrorists” for public disagreement at local school board meetings. The very best result of this was that parents began to step forward to run for school board seats. Let’s hope this continues and that universities and colleges that train teachers return to the basics. Without them, our kids are at risk. Listen to Winsome Sears. You can find her on line. She speaks truth to power. Take time to hear her wisdom.
To be or not be educated…. That IS the question!
Think about it.