A Revolution in the Classrooms
The more we probe the techniques of teaching and the philosophy of education in the public schools, the more we should become alarmed. As parents we have entrusted our precious children to a group of strangers, granted they may be friends or neighbors, to educate them to read, write, compute and to think. But as we examine these techniques and philosophy, we find a real Pandora’s box with all kinds of debates on what, which, why, when, and how children should be taught.
I have written previously about the “feel-good” and “self-esteem” progressive educators. To them it really doesn’t matter much whether or not a child can read or write well. What matters is that the child feels good about himself. If his spelling and math are not too good, as long as he has tried he should be rewarded. At all costs he must feel good about himself. Knowledge is secondary.
We have educators who feel that we should return to Core Knowledge in which academic matter is stressed, leaving the child to develop his own self-esteem. These educators feel that when a child succeeds in doing expected work, he will feel good about himself because he has done good.
Now the progressives are at it again. They are changing the type of literature our children read in the classrooms. Again they are trying to create a ‘feel good about yourself’ atmosphere. The reasoning is that minority children, whether from different ethnic groups or with different skin color, are being robbed of the right to succeed in life. The guilt for this must be laid on the “main-stream majority” who are the ones denying the chances for success.
Current textbooks and readers have been slanted towards social inequality matters. In addition, basal readers have been “dumbed down” so .slower learners do not feel the failure of not meeting set standards. So the controversy continues. What are concerned parents to do?
The following are a few suggestions. First, visit the teacher in the grade your child is in. Request the teacher to show you the various textbooks and have her explain the reading philosophy behind them. Is the material geared to improve reading ability or to promote social concerns? Make sure you leave knowing what your child is reading about and what he is to learn from it.
Second, make sure that the books use standard English. No hybrid languages such as Japanglish or feature a great deal of conversation in dialect such as black, “deaf;” or Appalachian? or Pennsylvania Dutch. Third, ask out – balance between the number of selections about or originating from ethnic groups. Do the texts attempt to racialize ethnicity at the expense of a rounded picture of people? Fourth, ask the teacher to explain what her philosophy of teaching reading is. How does she approach the reading activity in her class? Fifth, ask the PSS who selects and how textbooks are selected for the schools? Sixth, get the PTA’s involved in discussions about this matter.
Many of us remain ignorant of the confusion existing in the public schools wondering why our child is so far behind the neighbor’s child who probably is attending private school. Also we get so involved in the deplorable condition of the school facilities and are convinced that if more schools were built and old ones renovated, and more money pumped into the system, all will be well. Not true!
Until we parents become actively involved in communicating our concerns about the quality of education given to our children, the furor will continue. Become involved. If you don’t, your child may end up a loser–an illiterate youth!
