The motivation for this post started with a blog in the Atlanta Journal Constitution here: http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2011/07/01/wrong-message-to-students-barely-good-enough-is-good-enough/?cp=2
Maureen Downey quoted a piece by the esteemed Etienne R. LeGrand, president and co-founder of the W.E.B. DuBois Society, concerning the matter of education and how Good Enough is NOT Good Enough. Please go read this article first before reading my comments. I sincerely hope it moves you as much as it moved me.
Everything she said was dead on target. Some excerpts:
'When we allowed the public education debate to focus on high school graduation as a marker for success, we unwittingly lowered the bar on expectations of what our children can achieve. Thus, high school graduation became the goal, not the springboard, and we have established for students the floor, not the ceiling, of our expected ambition for them." ....
"More teacher training is likely on the horizon to ensure teachers know how to teach to these new standards. However, this policy, like most others, incorrectly presumes that students are invested in learning and know how to achieve, and that all they need to compete more aggressively in the classroom is more rigorous standards and better teachers."
An additional thought to the paragraph above. She said, " Policy all too often presumes that students are invested in learning and know how to achieve ... all they need are more rigorous standards and better teachers." I totally agree. Far too may students are not invested in learning. We want to fault the administrators, the teachers, and "the system" and generally anybody in the education or government systems.
BUT, one major issues is that many students are not invested in learning. They do not have the backgrounds that motivates them to learn. In my last years of teaching (I will not return to public education except in the setting of a community college which is entirely different) I saw first hand far too many students who had grown up in an atmosphere that provided little to no motivation for higher education. Too many had parents, grandparents, extended family members, and neighbors who not only did not have an education but did not value it.
Having and education and valuing it are two entirely different things. I have some very dear friends who never went to college but I consider very intelligent and they understood the value of and education enough to ensure their children did on. My parents never went to college. My mother attended a secretarial school and my father attended a technical school, both before WWII. After the war, my father worked at Sears as an appliance repairman, winning numerous awards for the quality of his work. My mother worked at times as a bookkeeper (before calculators and computers!) Neither had a formal education but they valued it. At no time in my early years can I remember a time when it was not a given that I would go to college. (I did, attending one of the four coed, liberal arts, state supported military colleges in the country, North Georgia College in Dahlonega Ga. I currently have two Master's degrees.)
My in-laws did not attend college as WWII interrupted plans but again, my wife and her brothers always knew they would go to college. The oldest would have except that once again war intervened (VietNam). The younger brother went on to college and is now the head of the financial department of a nationwide firm. My wife has two Master's degrees and is currently finishing her PhD work.
In both cases, the parents (like mine) did not have a college education but they valued it and they instilled those values into their children. In contrast, today's young people look out and see parents and grandparents, who don't value an education. They look around and see friends who have hopped up cars with wheels worth more than the car, a couple of girls hanging onto them, and a roll of cash in their pocket. Why do they need an education when they can have that? I dealt with that issue among many in public school teaching. Some of them would be better off financially than I was or would be. The problem is they don't see any further down the road than today. They live for today because that is all they have. (It is said that a person doesn't fully understand the consequences of their actions in a cause -effect relationship until they are about 24 to 25 years old.)
What is the solution. Hard to define. There isn't "One Magic"solution. It is a many faceted problem that requires many different simultaneous efforts. Rather than having government programs spend tons of money on new tests and having a continuing revolving door of teachers (2/3s of all teachers quit in their first three years - a statistic true when I taught in the 70's and still true today). We need to quit blaming teachers and let the parents and community shoulder some of the responsibility. Teachers cannot change lives in a few hours. The efforts has to continue at home also. We need local government to get involved in establishing programs that will motivate children. We need businesses to take actions and develop young people. (I know all too well that the current economy makes that even more difficult).
Children need positive role models. Right now they lack that. As I said in my previous post, we need to re-develop a Master/Apprentice learning environment for you people to learn practical, viable skills that can be applied to living life. Instead, they are taught that Getting By is Good Enough. We need successful role models for youth and American Idol isn't doing it.
