Education Problems

The modern American educational system is filled with an assortment of problems. Many students are not learning much at all. Most students are graduating with less knowledge and capability than similar students in other industrialized countries. Classroom disruptions are surprisingly common, and in some Classrooms, nearly continuous. School violence is rampant, including the many violent incidents we all hear about in the news. Even violence and other incidents on school buses is a tremendous problem.

What is the answer?

In general, the common approaches are to throw money at the problems, and for distant Bureaucrats to establish very broad guidelines and laws to solve INDIVIDUAL problems of the system. Regarding performance issues, the Teachers are generally blamed, and so better selection of Teachers and better Teacher training are publicly called for. Regarding violence, metal detectors and uniformed police officers roaming the halls are considered to be the common "solution." In addition, everyone demands newer, bigger, more advanced school complexes.

These are all bureaucratic attempts at solutions for problems that arise on a very individual basis. Essentially, some bureaucratic "expert" in an ivory tower somewhere believes that he/she has a universal solution for a problem which he/she never actually faced in a Classroom. Such "experts" have no idea of the emotions that erupt in the Classroom, including in the Teacher, when violent behavior begins. It is a peculiar and frustrating situation to be a Teacher a few feet away from two fighting students, knowing that even touching either one of them could send you to jail. I doubt if many of the "experts" know that feeling.

Such "top-down" approaches to establishing a peaceful and safe and productive environment in the classroom have little chance of ever succeeding. Each student is an individual. Each teacher is an individual. They should all be treated like individuals, with whatever amount of respect they each personally deserve, rather than as cattle in enormous herds. You might as well take their names away now and just give them numbers, because the American Public Education System is essentially telling them that they have little importance as individuals, and they better behave like the rest of the herd if they want to avoid being in trouble. Is THIS the way young people should be "controlled"? I hope not. Is THAT the way to prepare then to become quality adults? I hope not. Such authoritarian and bureaucratic structures and attitudes diminish whatever creativity and zest everyone brings to the table. Don't I remember that this country was BUILT on the creativity and diversity of early settlers? So why should we move in directions of Schools being "armed camps" where any behavior that is "different" is subject to question and doubt and possible punishment?

Whoever came up with No Child Left Behind was clearly a good slogan-maker, but whoever tried to think up how it was to work seems to have demonstrated that he/she was a PRODUCT of a failed educational system! In one fell swoop, they managed to absolutely eliminate ALL CREATIVITY in all (public) classrooms. No Teacher is now allowed to actually Teach any personalized perspectives or enthusiasms, because such efforts would be WASTING time which is now supposed to be spent to prepare the students to do well on ONE SINGLE STANDARDIZED TEST. A Teacher is no longer a Teacher but simply an information coach, constantly pounding the same few concepts and themes that WILL appear on the Standardized Test! It is foolish for any Teacher to ever now spend any time in CREATING his/her own quizzes or tests, because they are all given the ACCEPTED quizzes and tests that have been approved as being focused on those specific subjects that will be on the Standardized Tests. And can any Student have any creative thought? No, such things MUST be quashed, because they also distract from the single function of the American Public Education System today, to score well on the Standardized Tests. And in case all that wasn't restrictive enough, ALL Public Schools KNOW that whether they get government funding (which is most of their budget) depends 100% on how well their students do on those Standardized Tests. So, in case School was not boring enough for students, and it is for many, the fact that NCLB forces an absolute uniformity of handling all students, makes sure that the better students will NEVER face any interesting challenges! And those smarter students are smart enough to see that the Teachers now all spend nearly all their time and effort on the poorest students. The smart kids WILL do OK on the Standardized Tests, so why waste any time in working with them? No, instead, spend thirty times as much time with the High School kid who never even learned to read at First Grade level, because THAT kid could screw up the class results in the Standardized Tests. Could anything be WORSE than the idiotic system that is applied that is called NCLB? Even though the CONCEPT behind NCLB was very admirable?

Considering the tens of thousands of (Public) Schools in America, the total financial cost of each of the proposed "top-down" approaches is staggering. And, unfortunately, the likely benefit of each of these approaches is minimal. Yes, metal detectors at School entrances might keep most weapons out of the School buildings, and uniformed full-time paid Police Officers walking the halls might lessen the number of violent incidents. What would keep an angry, vindictive adolescent from then waiting outside, as happened several years ago in the South, where some kids waited outside with weapons to pick off children leaving school? All of the expensive solutions suggested have similar likelihood of success. They may reduce some aspects of symptoms of a problem, but a related, different problem will arise as a result, such that very little real advantage actually results.

I find a similar situation already existing in most Courthouse buildings today. A few incidents of violence had occurred in Courtrooms over the years, so Laws were passed where Courthouses now have metal detectors and a lot of Security Personnel. This is VERY expensive! Is it for OUR benefit, to keep us safer in the building? Apparently not, because people are still shot outside such buildings. The Judges are probably safer now, especially since they look so different out of their robes and since they enter and leave the building by separate private entrances. But the millions of dollars of expense for every one of those large public buildings has almost no benefit for the public. And it has a tremendous downside attached to it. I personally do not like to have to do any business in such buildings, because of the over-bearing feeling of military-style authority that seems to pervade the environment there. It is also clear that many of the Security Personnel definitely enjoy their ability to harass and intimidate anyone they choose, including frisking and body-searching people with essentially no actual reason. I also don't enjoy the mere THREAT of being frisk searched, under the assumption that I am a potential criminal. I am NOT a criminal, in fact, I have been a Pastor of a Christian Church for many years, yet that system seems to REQUIRE each person to somehow PROVE THEIR INNOCENCE! Isn't America supposed to be based on the ASSUMPTION of being innonent UNTIL being PROVEN GUILTY of something? Don't they have it backwards at Airports and Courthouses and Schools? To initially ASSUME that everyone entering a building is dangerous and guilty is a horrific thing for society, and especially for the educational environments for young minds.

Is that the environment that would be conducive to young minds being open and receptive to new educational ideas? Not a chance! Instead, it foments an atmosphere that minimizes creative thought or intellectual growth, very much like our military branches INTENTIONALLY do during boot camp or basic training. As soon as metal detectors and an obvious police presence exist, the light, airy environment necessary to effective learning experience evaporates.

As it happens, I was both a student and then later a Teacher at Thornridge High School in Dolton, Illinois. As a student, I happened to win First Place in the Illinois State Science Fair, which the High School took to be something significant. They mounted a Brass Plaque with my name and that accomplishment on the wall of the hallway of the Science Building. I was later an effective and respected Science Teacher in that same building a few years later. At a later time in my life, I happened to pass near Dolton and decided to see if the Plaque was still there (and whether the Teacher's Cafeteria still made a delicious lunch meal!) I barely entered the door before three Armed Security Guards surrounded me and demanded that I lie down on the floor! They didn't ask a single question and simply issued that demand! It was clear that I was about to be seriously beaten! So I repeated over and over that I used to be a Teacher there and that I wanted to be taken to the Administrative Office (where they might still have recognized me as a prior Teacher). The Security Guards would NOT take me to the Administrative Office, and my only option was to talk to them. Since they clearly were looking for some entertainment in beating up an elderly white man, there was no future in that. Since I was only two steps inside the School building, they eventually decided that they would let me back up and leave, as my ONLY available choice! I have no idea if there is still a Brass Plaque honoring me in that School, and I never again had the slightest interest in ever knowing. (I was immediately aware that if I had been an elderly BLACK man and they had been young WHILE security men, they would have immediately been put in prison for what they did to me that day, and I probably would have won millions in a Civil Rights legal action! Sometimes, there are severe disadvantages of being a white man!) It could not have been any more of a Military Camp environment. I was GLAD that I was no longer a Teacher, as I could never Teach under those conditions, and I REALLY was glad that I was no longer a student, as I would have been in permanent fear OF THE SECURITY GUARDS, in addition to whatever threats that they believed existed that they were paid to overwhelm. I was NOT impressed!

IF you work in an office somewhere, do you think you'd get your work done as efficiently if you continuously saw an armed Police Officer out of the corner of your eye, often staring at you with the apparent expectation that you might be about to do something illegal or dangerous? You might for a little while, out of a fear factor. But, soon, you would likely have an indescribable feeling similar to paranoia, whether regarding the permanent reminder of the possible threat the Officer is supposed to thwart, or because of his presence itself. Your clarity of thinking, your creativity, your overall efficiency, your learning of new skills, would all certainly degrade. Just because he was there.

This is the real world. Bad things sometimes happen. There are bad people. In principle, we could each hire a dozen permanent armed guards to stand outside our homes, 24/7. We could do the same for our vehicles. Is this the future we are looking toward? Or desire?

Should we live every moment of every day, dreadful of the multitudes of dangers and threats "out there"? Should we provide a Public School environment that inculcates this attitude into our young people? I hope the answers are no.

Does this mean that there is no answer to the problems?

Not at all.

I taught high school in Illinois for four years some time back, before I started my manufacturing business. I might have stayed in Teaching, if it hadn't been for one characteristic that was in the process of change about then. When I had been a student, the locus of authority in every Classroom was in the Teacher. Both the Teacher and (the majority of) the students KNEW that the Teacher was virtually God in that Classroom. The students certainly had no authority there, and, in a sense, seemed to have few rights, except those graciously permitted by the Teacher. School administrations, parents, society, all believed in and supported that environment. It may not always have been perfect, but it allowed for reasonably consistent learning to occur in classrooms.

Students all KNEW that if they did anything bad in Class, the Teacher might call their Father, and the consequences at home could be really undesirable.

These days, people look back on those days as the "Dark Ages" of Teaching! It was certainly true that a rare Teacher would take advantage of the vast authority he/she held, and a few bad things DID happen to some children. Granted! However, most Teachers comprehended the importance and the responsibility given them in that position. After all, society and the parents WERE handing the children to those Teachers to mold their minds, and what could be more important than that? Wouldn't it also seem appropriate to put total trust in the Teachers' judgments regarding social, moral, and ethical issues that arose in that classroom? To enable and empower each Teacher to establish personal and possibly unique behavioral guidelines that would apply whenever anyone was within that specific classroom?

Aren't there rogue Cops who break laws, steal drugs and guns and money captured as Evidence? Do we therefore ASSUME that all Police are horrific people who cannot ever be trusted? No. We CHOOSE to still trust Police, ASSUMING that there are methods in place to weed out the bad seeds.

Doesn't a similar situation apply in the workplace in privately owned companies? Doesn't the boss/owner set an assortment of rules, to which each employee must comply? In most cases, this is done to establish organization and structure and consistency in the operations of that company. (In rare cases, it is because of some character flaw in the boss/owner.) Most employees tend to stay in such environments, and comply with the existing rules. A few choose to leave, to look for some other company that has rules that seem more personally compatible. Some are successful at finding such an alternative, some are not.