Two Cultures in American Education
In Which Fred Endeavors To Get Himself Lynched
April 21, 2003
I spoke recently to a gentleman, now getting on in years, who
spent a career in the slum schools of a big American city. He was
bright, tough, and realistic, one of the very few gringos hereabout who
speaks good Spanish.
Though white, he had also grown up in a housing
project and so knew well the culture of the bottom of society.
Most of what he said of his experience tracked with the descriptions of slum schools that are found everywhere-dropout rates in excess of fifty percent, unconcerned parents, the usual. We need not recapitulate them here.
He made the interesting point that most education has no purpose
other than to prepare the student for further education. Algebra in high
school, for example, readies the student for the study of chemistry in
college, but is otherwise useless, as one never uses algebra in daily
life.
Other examples may easily be imagined. Roman history has no
relevance to anything that a black teenager in downtown Chicago may do
in life; it does however prepare one for the study of further Roman
history and of Shakespeare, which also have nothing to do with the
teenager's future life.
He thought that instead of academic subjects, students should be taught to read, do arithmetic, balance checkbooks, be good parents, take out a mortgage, care for their health, and suchlike practical matters.
He had a point.
The majority of students don't need to know history,
mathematics, physics, or literature, do not want to know them, and in
fact do not know them.
Few are interested. Most children of the urban
slums, if one can believe the studies, will pass their entire lives
without reading a book. Why try to teach them what, for them, are
hideously boring subjects they won't learn, and in any event will never
think of again?
Why indeed? Much of the public, probably a majority, lacks either the
capacity or the interest required for an academic education. Nor do they
need the knowledge conveyed by a liberal studies. They do not need to
know how to write clearly, since they never will.
Virtually everything
they learn after graduation will come either through television or
conversation. An eighth-grade vocabulary suffices.
They don't need to
know the multiplication tables since, on rare occasions when they need
to know the product of two numbers, a calculator will serve.
In fact they do not know these things. It is well documented that the
schools teach little.
Poll after study after test shows that astonishing
majorities of Americans cannot find England on an outline map, place the
Civil War in the correct century, name the major countries involved in
WWI, or recognize the Bill of Rights.
Poor teaching and dumbing-down
account for some of this dark night of the mind. A lot, I think, springs
from trying to teach people what they don't want to know.
Why waste their time and the public monies?
All of this strikes me as reasonable. Yet I find myself becoming
annoyed when I think about it. I come from the minority culture that
does not regard education as preparation for watching television and
punching a time-clock.
I saw algebra as worth learning because, yes, it
was necessary for chemistry and calculus later-but also because it was
just plain interesting, and further because it is an important element
in the intellectual development of mankind.
I'm glad I studied it. Later
in life, when for mysterious reasons I became interested in differential
geometry and classical mechanics, a fluency in algebra and calculus
allowed me to read them.
For some, reasons exist for learning things beyond tying one's shoes and reading traffic signs. People who do not know history live in temporal isolation; those who do not read literature, in a small mental world.
The gentleman from the big city saw no purpose in diagramming
sentences. For his students, no. But for others, there is a purpose:
Those who do not understand the mechanics of their language cannot
appreciate such writers as Spenser and Milton and T.S. Eliot, as Twain
and Mencken and Milne. Writing is an art as well as a means of
communication. Art means imagination within rules. You have to know the
rules.
Nor are the grammatically inept at all likely to be able to learn to read or speak another language. The reason is less that they have no idea what an indirect object or past subjunctive is than that they are incapable of seeing the language apart from its content.
It is true, as the gentleman suggested, that most people have no
interest in languages or literature.
But I do. So do countless others
from cultivated families. How do we reconcile the existence of the two
cultures? Of people who want from the schools things almost
diametrically opposed?
The beginning of wisdom would be to recognize that there are two cultures, and to let each study what it chooses. No?
I should not be allowed to impose algebra on people who will never do
more than count on their fingers; they should not be allowed to
enstupidate the schools to which I send my daughters. (Yes, they may be
intelligent. But they are an enstupidating influence to the extent that
they are uninterested.)
As far as I am concerned, the lower classes
(which is largely what we're talking about) can study anything they
want, or nothing at all. I don't care. It's their choice. But leave my
schools, my language, and my civilization alone.
I'm not being heartless. Should the intellectually uninspired ask my advice, I would happily give it. If they wanted to study Sophocles or digital design, or bird-watching or golf-ball repair, I'd be delighted to supply the teachers. Anyone from any class with the ability and desire should be encouraged to learn. But if people choose not to, I don't care.
Why require anything of them beyond basic literacy and let them out after the eighth grade? They aren't going to learn anything else anyway. (Again, this is documented reality.)
For those who want an academic education, I say establish separate schools, and make attendance at all schools voluntary after the eighth grade. Those who wanted to learn nothing more would simply drop out, to the great benefit of serious students. The force of parental suasion would keep those students in attendance who ought to be in attendance.
Finally, decouple jobs from degrees. Hiring should be dependent on the results of a test, given by the prospective employer, of preparation for the particular job. This would empty the universities of students with no academic drive--a splendid idea.
How's that for PC?
Used by permission from Fred.
- Lakeem Scott and Press Incitement to Murder
- Machete Wielding Hispanic Shot Dead
- Christina Eilman Rape Costs Chicago Police Millions
- 12-Year-Old Emily Haddock Murder
- Emily Haddock killers Get Plea Bargain
- 15-Year-Old White Girl Gang Raped at California School
- Defining Fake News What to Watch For
- Democrat Identity Politics Spreads Muslim Religious Violence
- Climate Change Another Excuse for Muslim Religious Violence
- Muslim Violence from Muslim Religious Cults
- Black Criminals not Shooting Unarmed Black Men the Problem
- Crime Explodes Pubs Close in London