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Nissa Annakindt
The Daggett Demagogue
Daggett, MI
Experts agree--- American education is going downhill fast. Test scores are plummeting, kids graduate from high school without the math skills to balance their checkbooks, even supposedly well-educated adults don't seem to have the general knowledge that was once expected of them. But who cares? We don't really want better education in America.
Want evidence? Look at your local news media. What type of school activities get positive notice? Anti-drug, anti-sex, and anti-gang campaigns top the list. But is it education? Education means giving kids facts, and the logic skills needed to think for themselves, using those facts. What would happen if the schools gave kids drug education? The kids would learn the about the scientific evidence on the effects of legal and illegal drugs, and make up their own minds based on the evidence. We can't have that! Because, given the fact that alcohol is physically addicting and can cause death by alcohol poisoning, and marijuana is not physically addicting and can't cause death by overdose, many kids would come to the logical conclusion that using marijuana is safer than alcohol, and therefore if one of the two drugs should be outlawed, it ought to be alcohol. And since kids are the political power of the future, someday the little weed-puffing monsters could legalize their joints and outlaw Daddy's booze, just because of some dumb scientific evidence! Unthinkable!
The whole point of the anti-drug, anti-sex, and other campaigns in the schools isn't to teach kids facts or independent thought. It's to change their behavior--- in other words, it's propaganda, although teachers are carefully trained to use the term 'behavioral goals' rather than 'propagandistic brainwashing'--- sounds nicer that way. And if meeting those behavioral goals means telling kids lies, fine! If it means using meaningless propaganda slogans ("This is drugs. This is your brain on drugs..."), fine. And since teaching kids the basics of logical thinking might help them see through the lies and the slogans, well, logical thinking will just have to be consigned to the scrapheap, won't it?
And what about parental involvement? Sometimes parents do get up in arms about the problems in schools, and try to do something about it, right? But what is it that parents get up in arms about? Ever hear of a bunch of parents storming a school board meeting, demanding to know why their fourth graders don't even know who Charlemagne was? When was the last time you saw parents picketing a high school, demanding that their kids be taught what happened in 1066?
No, that's not what brings parents to the school board meetings or the picket lines. What does? Usually the issue comes down to parental objections to sex ed classes, the teaching of evolution and science, or books in the English class or school library with 'naughty' words in them. "I don't want my kids exposed to that!" the parents cry. In other words, parents are worried that their kids are learning too many facts, not too little. And if the people who spend a lifetime studying the science of educational psychology try to be reassuring, people make comments about 'eggheads'. Scientific expertise is far from a respected commodity in this country. That's why the ultimate authority over America's school is not some individual with a PhD in education, but whoever can get themselves elected to the school board.
Now, if people were to come out and say, 'I don't want the kiddies to do all that thinking in school. Just teach 'em a little survival math & reading, and scare 'em into behaving the way I want 'em to, and that's all they really need," well, that would be fine. At least it would be honest. But when people go around saying they want a first-rate educational system, and then go around acting like learning certain things is the worst fate that can befall a child, they are sending mixed messages. Is it any wonder when a kid, exposed to those messages, opts out of learning and in to drug use, alcoholism, or religious fanaticism?
There's an old saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. A first rate, old-fashioned classical education is even more dangerous. If you want America's youth to be educated, you have to be willing to accept all the consequences. And one of those consequences is independent thought--- even independent thought you don't agree with. But if you want the milk of scientific and educational advancement, you gotta step in a few sacred cow chips. {In case you are one of the many victims of American non-education who don't know what happened in 1066, it was the Norman conquest of England. And no, that didn't have anything to do with Norman Bates.}
©Nissa Annakindt 1995
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