Public Schools: Part Four

Victor Davis Hanson on the public schools:

The K-12 public education system is essentially wrecked. No longer can any professor expect an incoming college freshman to know what Okinawa, John Quincy Adams, Shiloh, the Parthenon, the Reformation, John Locke, the Second Amendment, or the Pythagorean Theorem is. An entire American culture, the West itself, its ideas and experiences, have simply vanished on the altar of therapy. This upcoming generation knows instead not to judge anyone by absolute standards (but not why so); to remember to say that its own Western culture is no different from, or indeed far worse than, the alternatives; that race, class, and gender are, well, important in some vague sense; that global warming is manmade and very soon will kill us all; that we must have hope and change of some undefined sort; that AIDs is no more a homosexual- than a heterosexual-prone disease; and that the following things and people for some reason must be bad, or at least must in public company be said to be bad (in no particular order): Wal-Mart, cowboys, the Vietnam War, oil companies, coal plants, nuclear power, George Bush, chemicals, leather, guns, states like Utah and Kansas, Sarah Palin, vans and SUVs.

He's absolutely right. During a discussion immediately after 9/11, my college students weren't able to articulate how we were any different from the Islamic terrorists. Another student couldn't distinguish between the rights of humans and the "rights" of animals. A little girl recently told my teen daughter that "Christopher Columbus was a very bad man", and another little boy was overheard saying, "The earth is ugly and getting uglier!!!" Just a few off-the-cuff examples; I'm sure you can provide many more of your own.

Another paragraph from the same article on what would help save the public schools:

Four years of high-school Latin would dramatically arrest the decline in American education. In particular, such instruction would do more for minority youths than all the ‘role model’ diversity sermons on Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X, Montezuma, and Caesar Chavez put together. Nothing so enriches the vocabulary, so instructs about English grammar and syntax, so creates a discipline of the mind, an elegance of expression, and serves as a gateway to the thinking and values of Western civilization as mastery of a page of Virgil or Livy (except perhaps Sophocles’s Antigone in Greek or Thucydides’ dialogue at Melos). After some 20 years of teaching mostly minority youth Greek, Latin, and ancient history and literature in translation (1984-2004), I came to the unfortunate conclusion that ethnic studies, women studies—indeed, anything “studies”— were perhaps the fruits of some evil plot dreamed up by illiberal white separatists to ensure that poor minority students in the public schools and universities were offered only a third-rate education. [Emphasis added.]

I agree. Virtually all of the homeschoolers I know teach their children Latin. It's a touchstone to the past, to the foundations of our civilization. Besides that, it's the language of our Church.

So, again: It's not the teachers who are the problem in public schools (with the exception of the lousy ones, but you find that in all professions). It's the curriculum.

Previous posts on this topic:

11/05: "Today" (initial comments)

11/19: "Public Schools: 'Take your kids out immediately'"

11/19: "Public Schools: Part II"

11/23: "Public Schools: Part III"

Public School Series: Part Three

More about Bill Ayers and the radicalization of the public schools, from the City Journal article I'd linked previously.

America’s historical ideal of public schooling as a means of assimilating all children (and particularly the children of new immigrants) into a common civic and democratic culture is already under assault from the multiculturalists and their race- and gender-centered pedagogy. Now Ayers and his social justice movement, by dismissing the civic culture ideal as nothing more than “capitalist hegemony,” subvert the public schools even further—while subsidized by the taxpayers, including the capitalists who supposedly control the schools.

On politicizing science, rather than actually teaching science:

Teaching science for social justice? Let Teachers College professor Angela Calabrese Barton, the volume’s [Teaching Science for Social Justice] principal author, try to explain: “The marriages between capitalism and education and capitalism and science have created a foundation for science education that emphasizes corporate values at the expense of social justice and human dignity.” The alternative? “Science pedagogy framed around social justice concerns can become a medium to transform individuals, schools, communities, the environment, and science itself, in ways that promote equity and social justice. Creating a science education that is transformative implies not only how science is a political activity but also the ways in which students might see and use science and science education in ways transformative of the institutional and interpersonal power structures that play a role in their lives.” If you still can’t appreciate why it’s necessary for your child’s chemistry teacher to teach for social justice, you are probably hopelessly wedded to reason, empiricism, individual merit, and other capitalist and post-colonialist deformities.

What about math?

Accordingly, Gutstein has relentlessly politicized his math classes for years, claiming that this approach has improved his students’ math skills while making them more aware of the injustices built in to capitalist society. One lesson, for example, presents charts showing the U.S. income distribution, aiming to get the students to understand the concept of percentages and fractions, while simultaneously showing them how much wealth is concentrated at the top in an economic system that mainly benefits the superrich. After the class does the mathematical calculations, Gutstein asks: “How does all this make you feel?” He triumphantly reports that 19 of 21 students described wealth distribution in America as “bad,” “unfair,” or “shocking,” and he proudly quotes the comments of a child named Rosa: “Well I see that all the wealth in the United States is mostly the wealth of a couple people not the whole nation.”

No wonder that so many people have fallen for the hoax of man-made global warming, or can't do enough basic math to realize that they can't afford the mortgage they just signed.

Public Schools: Part Two

In a previous post, I said that the public schools are controlled by the ultra-leftists in the NEA and the universities.

Here, in an article by Sol Stern, is just one bit of evidence for that claim:

As I have shown elsewhere in City Journal, [William] Ayers’s politics have hardly changed since his Weatherman days. He still boasts about working full-time to bring down American capitalism and imperialism. This time, however, he does it from his tenured perch as Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Instead of planting bombs in public buildings, Ayers now works to indoctrinate America’s future teachers in the revolutionary cause, urging them to pass on the lessons to their public school students.

[snip]

Ayers’s influence on what is taught in the nation’s public schools is likely to grow in the future. Last month, he was elected vice president for curriculum of the 25,000-member American Educational Research Association (AERA), the nation’s largest organization of education-school professors and researchers. Ayers won the election handily, and there is no doubt that his fellow education professors knew whom they were voting for. In the short biographical statement distributed to prospective voters beforehand, Ayers listed among his scholarly books Fugitive Days, an unapologetic memoir about his ten years in the Weather Underground. The book includes dramatic accounts of how he bombed the Pentagon and other public buildings. (emphasis added)

More to come.

Public Schools: "Take your kids out immediately"

In a prior post, I made some off-the-cuff suggestions about what we (meaning, we conservatives) should do next.

One of my suggestions was this:

If you still have your kids in public school, take them out immediately. We simply cannot have any more children brainwashed by the leftists in charge of government schools and textbooks. Send them to private schools, or better yet, homeschool them. You can do it, trust me. You certainly won't do any worse than most of the public schools, and you'll probably do much better at teaching your children the truths of faith and freedom. More about this later.

Of course, this was a rhetorical statement. I certainly don't expect everyone to pull their kids out of public schools. But I do believe that conservative parents, especially Catholics, should do everything possible to keep their children out of government schools.

That post attracted some attention from a nephew on my husband's side who left a comment.

Here, slightly edited, is my emailed reply to him:

I'm really sorry you were hurt and saddened by my post, as it wasn't directed at you or any teacher personally. And I'm very aware of all the teachers in the family, including my own mother, aunt, and several friends, besides all the teachers on your side of the family! :)

If you read my post again, you'll see I said nothing about teachers, at all. That's because my complaint is not with the teachers, but with the curriculum, which has been driven by the leftist agenda. I didn't have time to fully develop this idea on the blog, however, which is why I said "more to come later" in that post.

In a nutshell, my concerns about curriculum include anti-American propaganda, historical revisionism, and the neglect of civics and economics. Maybe not in every school, but in far too many.

As I'm sure you can tell if you've read any other posts, we were really discouraged by the outcome of this election. I believe that 40 years of left-leaning curriculum in the public schools is a big part of the problem.

I'm well aware of the good that many teachers do, and of the great sacrifices that many of them make and how much they care for their students. I know many teachers who put in long hours, spend their own money for supplies, and make a wonderful difference in the lives of children.

I just wish those same wonderful teachers had a much different curriculum to use. But since the schools and textbook publishers aren't about to change any time soon, then the next best thing is for conservative parents to pull their kids out and exercise their right to choose a different form of education. That's what I was getting at.

One other point: The NEA is a liberal organization, always supporting candidates I'm opposed to, and annually issuing a resolution condemning homeschooling. I believe that the liberal agenda of the NEA and their opposition to school choice is also a part of the problem with public schools.

More to come.

Today

So last night I wasn't ashamed to admit I cried. Well, today, of course, I'm embarrassed that I admitted it! Oh well. Chalk it up to the 1/4 Irish in my blood, along with a glass of red wine which helped drown my sorrows.

I still believe what I said, however: America is lost. We've lost our understanding of freedom and what it means to be an American. We've lost our moral bearings completely (well, not completely, as gay "marriage" bans passed in California and Florida). We've lost our economic freedom because we're indebted to the tune of trillions of dollars.

Today, it's time to figure out what we're doing next.

Michele Malkin says "gird your loins, conservatives".

Feminine-Genius says "God's will in all things", and also encourages us to:

• Pray and work to defend the marriage bond;
• Pray and work to defend the sanctity of all human life;
• Pray and work to restore life-giving collaboration between men and women;
• Pray and work to restore cherished devotions and a Catholic culture.
• Stay close to the sacraments and allow God to use use you as He will.

The Anchoress has a huge round-up of reactions.

My thoughts:

• I'm thankful that we had a peaceful election (though I can't say I'm sure it would have been that way had the outcome been reversed, based on the attacks, bullying, and intimidation that happened during the campaign).
  

• Since we might not always have talk radio or conservative blogs, we should start planning other ways for conservatives to stay connected to each other.

• If you still have your kids in public school, take them out immediately. We simply cannot have any more children brainwashed by the leftists in charge of government schools and textbooks. Send them to private schools, or better yet, homeschool them. You can do it, trust me. You certainly won't do any worse than most of the public schools, and you'll probably do much better at teaching your children the truths of faith and freedom. More about this later.

• Figure out what you personally can do to build a culture of love and life. More about this later, too.
  

Back to work here ... a house to clean, kids to take to various things, and supper to cook... the beauty of quotidian activities.