For
a long time, Minnesota
was considered home for one of the best schooling, both primary and secondary.
In 1970s and early 1980s the state consistently was ranking among the nation’s
best. Our family settled in Minnesota
just for this reason. What happened afterwards, is anybody’s guess.
My
children attended the high school that won the presidential award for
excellence, and still I think their liberal education severely lacked in many
respects.
Then,
just recently, the idea of creating the STEM school was unearthed by Mich
Perlstein in his article in a local newspaper, “Star Tribune”, entitled ‘There
should be a school for that’ (September 22, 2012). Interested reader will find the
entire article on www.startribune.com.
Permit
me to quote a few lines from it:
“Our strongest students don't measure up in science,
technology, engineering and math. Let's create a fertile environment. …Just one
example: Six percent of U.S.
students perform at what's called "advanced proficiency" in math.
This is a smaller proportion than in 30 other nations. “
Sadly, it is all true. The public education system is not
performing very well, neither is private. He goes further writing:
“If our interest is in more fully serving all students, the iconic
"Nation at Risk" report, released in 1983, correctly framed the
destination and tension this way: "The twin goals of equity and
high-quality schooling have profound and practical meaning for our economy and
society, and we cannot permit one to yield to the other either in principle or
practice."
At this point it all becomes confusing, for the idea of
creating elitist schools predominates in this article. This is not the solution
for elevating standard of education in this country and creating a word class
society.
My reservations are summarized
in the following.
Educational Conundrum.
Just the other day I asked my son
what is his point of view on the level of education in our country. He is an
accomplished young man, freshly out of a four year college and who aspires to
continue his education. With no doubt he is determined to acquire more
knowledge than most graduates may be satisfied with. This drive is not
surprising, considering that both of us, parents, have advanced degrees and he
was raised in the environment nurturing merits of education. Another value in
his case is in that all his ambitions and commitments are not at all inspired
by any material consideration. It is just what I would call the “lust for
knowledge”. Once developed, it is
intoxicating and becomes an addiction, a good one for an individual, and the
society.
To instill this craving for
knowledge should be the first and foremost aim of educational establishment of our public
school system. Without it, the mission of national education system is in part
a failure. True, it will “manufacture” certain amount of work force that is
degradingly called human resource. But this will not put the nation on par with
others in the world, the issue that is gaining wider recognition, as we strive
to retain our leadership among the nations.
The times
when our country was an envy of the world in terms of general literacy, the
times of Alexis de Tocqueville, when every citizen had access to printed matter
and was involved in public discourse, the very formation of our democracy, is
long gone. The question arises, can the history repeat itself? Another
pervasive issue that is so common and insidious in our society is the issue of
appearances. It is enough to appear right, to be well received. It is enough to
appear knowledgeable to be listened to. It is enough to look professional to
secure respect and recognition. Whatever happened with the old adage “do not
judge the book by its cover”?
And so it
brings me back to an article by Mitch Pearlstein treating about “STEM” schools
for Minnesota.
Aside from ideas of alleged lack of egalitarianism, costs of running such
schools, or outright absurd notions of private-public partnerships involved in
creation and cost sharing, the very existence of such establishments is
questionable. What about the criteria of admission, or socio-economic condition
of the applicants? Are they going to be a matter of corruption, like many
things are? How to avoid such problems and scores of others to preserve their institutional integrity. I
have been personally the subject to many such discriminations.
Creation of
knowledge incubators is an idea well known. Here, however, we have different
issue at hand.
It is the general level of
education of the whole population, every single citizen. We do not want to
create knowledge wizards just to show other nations that we can produce
individuals able to compete on the same level with others. We need to increase
general level of education of the whole country, and in the presence of it, our
best will come out naturally, without artificial stimuli which the “STEM”
schools in fact are.
From the
very beginning of the ground school, and through the whole process of
individual’s education, the “lust for knowledge” should be developed from the
early years of the learner and carefully catered to. Teaching should not be a
simple discharge of duties by teachers, not a career.
Maybe the
schools ought to just begin teaching and stop experimenting. Stop burdening
students with the time consuming “projects” that involve parents more that
their children. It may be time to start teaching some reading, dip into a
treasury of the literature of Western Civilization instead of forcing the
children to read “Holes” or such similar nonsense.
At this I
realized, looking back at my several score years, how much more my parents and
their contemporaries knew in comparison to me, and how much more I know as
compared to my son. This is not precisely the knowledge of genetics or
chemistry which made a tremendous progress since I was his age. This is the
knowledge of life, civic responsibilities, critical approach to solving
problems, understanding of the position of individual in the society and mutual
dependence of both. Maybe the absence of digital technology created the
atmosphere more conducive to different type of learning, but there is a
considerable body of evidence that there it is not so, prime example of my son
testifies to this.
In the
effort to stand on par with others and produce the world class society, we
should not relay on the local knowledge resources only. In fact, in our country
the education is highly fragmented and subject to considerable experimentation.
Every school district, almost every building that carries the task of education,
has a different agenda and a different profile of learning. Diversity may be
good, and differences between individual teachers may create desirable
variations, in general, however, this, as we see on the international arena,
leads only to grater disparity, with our country falling behind.
The
remuneration of school administrators and teachers is certainly generous. A
school board of one of the districts was asked by me at one time, why the
district is to pay so much to the newly hired superintendent ( more than the
State’s Governor). The answer received was that this it is in the interest of
the system to find and hire a world class individual. To my next question which
was: does the district provide the world class education, there was no answer.
Do we indeed pay too much, or not enough to attract good personnel. The old
system of “throwing money at the problem” doesn’t seem to work. We are still
falling behind.
How about
the technology? By this I mean the digital signal transfer, computers, tablets,
etc… Does the presence of such gadgetry improve teaching, or learning?
Expensive as it is, the advocacy of it elevates the standing of the person
proposing it (sic!), but is it bettering the quality of education? Slowly,
gathered evidence points to the contrary.
Minnesota has always
been a state well known for its good education system. The citizens here are
always willing to support schools and do not spare expenses to deliver on their
commitments. However in recent years this trend seemed to have withered. Could
it be because the disappointment with the results?
The final
question is, do we want to appear to be a well educated country, or we want to
be one?
The answer
is probably very simple. We need to have “STEM” type schools and nothing but.
How to make it a reality is much more complicated. The current education system
participants are well organized and well entrenched. We must remember that the public school
system was established not to benefit individuals involved in the process of
delivery, but the nation as a whole, to prosper and flourish.
Hugh
Harding, Lakeville
Retired
