March 6, 2004
AND THE MATH PRIZE GOES TO... THE WHOLE SCHOOL!
Prizes for Everyone (Notes and Comments, The New Criterion, March, 2004)
Remember the Caucus Race in Alice in Wonderland? The creatures “began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over.” “But who has won?” the contestants asked when everyone stopped moving. At last the Dodo said, “Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.” We thought of the Dodo’s approach to competition recently when reading about the decision of the Nashville, Tennessee school system to abolish its honor roll because it had become “an apparent source of embarrassment for some underachievers.” As The Washington Post reported, “after a few parents complained that their children might be ridiculed for not making the list, lawyers [it’s always the lawyers, isn’t it?] for the Nashville school system warned that state privacy laws forbid releasing any academic information, good or bad, without permission.” [...]
This complements the post below. Parents who object to homework and academic rigour are often not simply trying to protect their own sensitive, over-burdened or dull children. It is the very idea of success and failure they object to. Their determination that their child not fail is matched by a resolve that other children not succeed, and a resentment when they do..
A lot of modern parents have only the vaguest sense of what they want their children to learn, but unlike previous generations, they refuse to defer to professionals and delight in challenging the system in abstract psycho-babble. In our hyper-democratic world of endless choice and psyches as fragile as fresh egg-shell, no one, certainly not a modern educational bureaucracy, can set high, concrete standards without risking the dreaded charges of elitism and abuse. The levellers have captured the rhetoric and left many serious parents dissatisfied but unable to say exactly why. The result is that good teachers and demanding parents must subvert, not lead, the public school system.
I had a math teacher in high school who would get into trouble every year for his unorthodox teaching methods. He presented lots of material quickly. He expected us to have read the textbook before we came to class. He didn't hold everyone's hand and make certain that everyone understood every detail before moving on. If you couldn't keep up, he expected you to put in whatever extra time you needed, either on your own, or after school with his help. He refused to let the slowest students dictate the pace for everyone. He also graded on a curve (the horror!). In other words, he challenged us, and he judged us based on our performance.
Every year, some student's parents would complain that there had to be something terribly wrong with this teacher. Their daughter had never flunked a test before in her life. Their daughter had always gotten straight A's. The truth, of course, was that while Sally was ambitious and hard-working, she wasn't terribly bright. But since she had never really been challenged before, nobody had ever noticed.
The administrators would promise the parents they'd do something about it. They'd read this teacher the riot act, and he'd behave himself -- for a while. Eventually, he'd always go back to his old ways. For which I'm eternally grateful, because I learned more in his classes than any others I ever took.
That's the appeal of Leftism-- not only do I get my money for nothing and my chicks for free, but no one ever gets more than me.
Peter, I can excuse you, because you're a Canadian, but I grew up not too far from Nashville, and I already experienced (not personally, but observed from Catholic schools) school choice and the flight from the common school movement.
It was not, I promise you, motivated by any desire to enhance the academic rigor of schools. It was pure racism.
We called 'em seg academies.
I do not claim that pure racism is a big component of the NCLB movement, but it's a part of it.
Orrin argues that the sufferers from the current common school system are black kids in the slums and advocates a secession movement.
We've been there before. In Prince George's County, Virginia.
Funny how that worked out. Instead of an inferior public school education -- and, no question, it was inferior -- they ended up with none at all.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 6, 2004 4:28 PMRaoul:
It's interesting that you use a Dire Straits reference when speaking of the Left, since almost no industry is as laissez faire in America as the music industry.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at March 6, 2004 4:41 PMHarry:
Thanks for excusing me. All that fur-trapping and maple sugaring we do up here keeps us pretty isolated. We got TV last year though. Man, that Howdy Doody is a gas.
Urbanely-challenged we may be, but I still can't see what the heck your argument has to do with the issue of parents against standards, academic rigour and honour roles.
Nothing whatever to do with principles or anything cosmic. Just an observation that we tried this before and I, for one, thought the results were disgusting.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 6, 2004 7:35 PM"A lot of modern parents have only the vaguest sense of what they want their children to learn, but unlike previous generations, they refuse to defer to professionals and delight in challenging the system in abstract psycho-babble."
Given that "abstract psych-babble" is what the so-called professionals have been peddling for decades that's hardly surprising.
Posted by: ralph phelan at March 7, 2004 6:26 PM