Thursday, September 16, 2010

Teach the Children Well

While there are a number of problems facing our nation, whenever I hear a discussion about the state of our education system, I can’t help but marvel at how that happened. More money has been spent during the period of our educational decline, yet there’s been no appreciable impact on the slope of that decline. It’s extremely sad, for one thing - a curious mind is a glorious thing to see in a child and watch blossom into the catalyst of that person growing into a happy, contributing participant in God’s gift of a life. On a less dreamy, more pragmatic level - I want smart, proactive people running this country’s engine when I’m old and doddering.


In the midst of laundry, it occurred to me, could it be possible that this whole water slide started when parents took over how schools can discipline. Think about it – I’m 48, so if you’re around my age, think back to grade school and high school. (Remember, back in those days there weren’t many middle schools and whatnot.) I admit, I was a pretty decent student – couldn’t stand social studies, loved me some English and math – but, I was into my share of stuff you don’t want Mom to find out about. One thing I totally recall is avoiding any kind of terse communication between Mom and school. Man..that would just be trouble that my wantin-to-hang-out-with-my-friends-after-school self just did not need. Folks got paddled, put in detention, suspended, p’s called to the principal’s office – and then punished more when they got home. Just not good stuff. But…I wonder if it made us more, I dunno… receptive?

These days schools have metal detectors, teachers and parents are no longer partners and our kids have no idea that "text" used to be a noun (do they even do parts of speech anymore). I don’t exactly know how we did it, but we went from a place where kids were never in the house, generally respectful and learning stuff (for the most part), to a place where a commercial showing a 12 year old gettin an attitude because she can’t get a $150 pair jeans is mainstream? I mean…what the hell!?

Technology has certainly made learning different, we parent differently and society is decidedly different. It’s hard to pin down what needs to be attacked to ensure that we aren’t raising a generation of mindless drones who can’t get to Grandma’s ‘cause their gps failed in the middle of the trip and their cell phone’s dead. I realize that it seems that I’m wandering, but there are really a bunch of fibers that make up the fabric of a people. I also realize that I’m generalizing, so if you/yours are clued in, please don’t get your panties in a wad.

I worry that we teach to tests not to problem solving; I hate that it’s cheaper to feed kids crap than good stuff; I’m sorry that the days of homemade popcorn balls from Miz Taylor’s house down the street can’t be part of a kid’s Trick-or-Treat bag anymore (would most kids these days appreciate it anyway). Where’m I going with all this, you say? I dunno... if you know/have an urchin, do what you can to expand their experiences to include the simple things. You never know what fiber is going to hold their fabric together – how cool if it turns out to be something that you wove.


All clip art used in this post obtained from free-clipart.net