|
“How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity?
and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?
Proverbs 1:22
Introduction
He was huge. In fact, he was so tall, I had to step back to look up into his weather-beaten face. His shoulders probably scraped both sides of a standard doorway. As the assistant administrator introduced us, I put out my hand and said “Hello.” With some hesitation, he put his own double size hand out to meet mine. His dark, leathery brow seemed to constrict as he looked down at me. I guess he didn’t know what to think of me. His big hand was strong and calloused. He must be a farmer, I told myself, sizing him up just as he seemed to be trying to figure me out. At that moment his boss came in the room.
She was a red lady. I say red because that’s what I remember most about her. Her outfit was red, as was her hair. Her face was a flush red too, like someone upset or embarrassed. And her eyes were red, a glowing angry sort of red. The look she gave her husband when she saw him shaking my hand said it all. He nearly jerked my hand off trying to get his back. Apparently seeing the instant tension, the assistant administrator asked her and her subordinate to have a seat at the conference table.
“I’m sorry it had to come to this,” she told the administrator without looking at me. “But since Mr. Murray is unwilling to work with us, we had no choice.”
“Excuse me, ma’am,” I spoke up, lifting a hand to the administrator as if to say I could speak for myself without his lawyering. “I’m not unwilling to work with any student or parent, but I cannot waive county policy.”
“Really,” she snapped, her red eyes turning on me.
It didn’t work on me though. I wasn’t her husband. In fact, I felt sorry for him. He just sat there, never saying a word. The administrator tried to ease the tension but with little success. She started talking about going to the school board before he could say much of anything. He knew the parental complaint had to do with their son getting a zero on his English III research paper because he failed to meet the minimum requirement of “four typed, double spaced pages on a one-inch margin – top, bottom and both sides.” It was county policy, and this was my first year teaching. I certainly wasn’t one to go against policy. Just so the administrator knew her son and his parents were aware of that policy, I had brought a copy of the parental letter she had signed explaining the requirements for the research paper before our class began the assignment. I had also brought a copy of the county policy, so there would be no question about whether I had made up the requirements.
“I didn’t know what that meant when I signed it,” she admitted, trying not to look at her signature. Her husband reached for the letter to get a closer look, but she shoved it aside. “It’s just like all them other things y’all’re always sending home for us to sign. Yesterday, I had to sign something about Matt’s tardies. And I just don’t see why y’all gotta make such a big deal out that either. Ever’body’s late once in a while.”
At this point the administrator jumped into the verbal brawl. He explained to her our high school had to take tardiness seriously because too many students did not, that she just didn’t realize what a disruption it was for the teacher to have students dragging into the classroom whenever they felt like it. He added that students who continued to be tardy would end up being suspended for a few days, and if she thought signing a Tardiness Notice was an inconvenience, having to come pick her son up from school and keep him home for a few days would be a greater inconvenience. He really tore into her, which caused her face to grow a darker shade of red. I was right proud of him and really appreciated his support.
“Well, I’m not here to argue ‘bout that one right now,” she conceded, raising her voice as she smirked at her speechless husband. “I’m here to get my son credit for what he done on his research paper.”
“Ma’am,” I said, pushing yet another document in front of her, “Matt only wrote two and a half pages, and that was at the wrong margins.”
She glanced down at the incomplete research paper in front of her and turned up her nose at the big red “0” on the rubrics page. I tried not to smile as I thought about the red ink zero and red ink note at the bottom of the page under Comments: “Does not meet minimum length requirements.” And I thought she liked red. Finally, she lifted the rubrics cover sheet and looked at the short document her son called a research paper. There really was no room for argument. His paper was not only too short, it was bleeding with red ink that pointed out sentence fragments, run-ons, grammar and punctuation errors, misspelled words and incorrect citing of sources. She flipped the document upside down and pushed it back across the table. It didn’t matter to her. She wanted her son to get credit for what little work he had done and didn’t care about policy.
“I reckon we’re just gonna to have to go to the school board,” she sulked.
The administrator placed both his hands in a “Woah there” position. He said he didn’t see any need for all that. He believed “we” could come to an understanding, that there was no need to involve the school board, that “we” could work something out. His support was gone. I could tell. In fact, he looked scared. And I was just getting started.
“I’m sorry,” she went on, confident she had unnerved him albeit not me. “You leave us no choice. And I just want you to know, we ain’t the only parents taking issue with Mr. Murray.”
“Excuse me,” I said, my own face now getting red. I could feel my blood pressure rising. “And what’s that suppose to mean?”
“Just what I said,” she chirped, sarcastically. “We ain’t the only parents that ain’t satisfied with you. And a lot of yur students feel the same way. They know ya play favorts’ in yur class.”
“What?!” Now my blood was boiling. Her husband looked nervous. It’s not a pretty thing to see a man that big look for a place to hide.
“You heard me,” she went on. “I’ve heard how yur willing to help certain … certain ethnic students but not reg’lar students like our Matt.”
I knew what she was saying now and what she was up to. I was being accused of reverse discrimination. She was referring to Matt and three or four other Rebel flag T-shirt-wearing, cowboy belt buckle, race car fans whose idea of help was to waive reading and writing assignments and just talk about NASCAR, hunting and fishing. Now, I like these things myself, but I didn’t teach NASCAR, hunting and fishing; I taught English. The ethnic students she accused me of favoring had asked me for instructional help, not waivers. I didn’t do waivers.
I stood my ground and invited her to go on to the school board. I told her and the administrator iF the school board saw fit to fire me for doing my job then I could go back to technical writing and/or quality assurance, or I could teach in a Christian school where standards were not so relative. The administrator wasn’t at all for that. He suggested she wait and let him talk to the head of the English Department then he’d get back with her. She agreed. I didn’t.
The following morning, I was called to another meeting, this time with the same administrator and the English Department Chair. She seemed apologetic when I came in the room. I didn’t like the feel of it. On his desk was a copy of the county policy on research papers. I didn’t like the looks of it.
“Mr. Murray,” she said, taking a deep breath, looking at me then the administrator then back at me, “I realize you didn’t know it, but the county policy on research paper requirements has never been approved by the school board. So, it’s not really an official policy.”
“What?!” I asked, my voice inflected, “You mean I was told to follow a policy that wasn’t a policy at all?”
“I’m afraid so,” she told me, sighing. “And because of that, I can’t stand behind you if Matt’s parents go to the school board.”
The administrator seconded that motion. Now here I was a brand new teacher being left on my own to face the school board for having done what I was told to do. What a deal!!! And they wonder why there’s a teacher shortage!!! But she and the administrator did try to apologize. As it turned out, he used to be an English teacher himself. Between them there was probably 40 years teaching experience. But neither of them had ever known of a single parental complaint about the policy before now. It was just "so unfortunate” the first time someone complained, a new teacher was the one forced to make a humiliating compromise or face the wrath of the school board.
“I had 17 students who got zeroes for not writing their papers to the standards of the county policy,” I told them.
That was okay. I only needed to change Matt’s grade, to give him credit for what little work he’d done, and thereby satisfy his mother – I mean, parents. But I couldn’t do that. If one student would not be required to adhere to the policy, whether it was an official policy or not, it seemed to me no student should have to adhere to it. No student should be assessed by a different standard than his or her peers!!! That’s just plain wrong! That evening as I re-graded 17 research papers, I understood why students like Matt put forth so little effort in the classroom. It was okay for him and millions like him to be stupid. They have legal permission to be stupid – permission from their parents, permission from administrators, the school board and other politicians and permission from teachers’ unions, both national and international.
Yes, I realize there are a lot of folks who take great offense with the title of this book and the very assertion that our dear school children would be called stupid by a teacher, someone entrusted with filling their young minds with knowledge and preparing them for college and the workplace. However, for those who are willing to read just a few more lines, please indulge me a moment with an explanation of what I mean by stupid. Mere ignorance and stupidity are not the same. Ignorance is simply a lack of knowledge. We’re all ignorant about something, some of us more than others. And until or unless we seize an opportunity to learn about some things, we will remain ignorant about them. Stupidity, on the other hand, is a matter of the will. That’s right, will. When someone refuses to learn, that person is exercising his free will. He is willingly putting his mind in “mental darkness," a thing Frederick Douglass vehemently denounced as the worst thing about slavery. Such a person makes himself one of George Orwell’s “proles.” And because such a person is willingly ignorant [or as Creation Evangelist Dr. Kent Hovind would say, “dumb on purpose”], it’s only right to say he is stupid. Likewise, a society that accepts willful ignorance, mediocrity and failure in its public schools is stupid.
Since the National Commission on Excellence in Education submitted its 1983 report, A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Education Reform, those most responsible for the “tide of mediocrity” uncovered in the report (Orstein and Levine 444-445) have gained an even stronger hold on public schools by continuously re-naming their same failed teaching strategies as “reform.” But America’s education problems require more than reform that reduces low tests scores or teacher shortages. These are just symptoms of the real problem that money alone won’t fix. We’re lost our will to learn – really learn. Oh, we talk about it all the time, but talk is cheap. Knowledge, real knowledge is just about as hard to find in public – government – school classrooms as wisdom is among education leaders. Reading and writing (thinking) skills have been sacrificed in favor of so-called technological skills, producing a generation that’s technically proficient but one that cannot think! Someone wants it that way.
We try to raise tests scores by teaching to the [dumbed-down] tests – tests that were designed to determine if students are learning the minimum content knowledge about specific subjects. But is minimum really good enough? We say teachers’ pay is too low and classroom discipline is out of control, and that’s all true. But that’s not the real reason teachers quit. Many teachers are just tired of the charade. We know we’re not really allowed to teach the full extent of our course specialties for if we try to really teach, many of our students will lose interest and act out their frustrations by disrupting class or dropping out of school. And administrators, school board members and parents won’t tolerate that. So, they pressure the teacher not to fail students who refuse to learn anything and thereby “cause” these students to become high school dropouts. They think it’s better that these kids remain stupid and graduate than to drop out and remain stupid. Either way, they remain stupid, but their self-esteem will be superior. Teachers are bullied by Big Brother’s Strategy Police who watch over them, ensuring their “failure rates” are not too high or their “class averages” too low. Through various means, a Separate but Equal education system has been re-established through Different but Equal teaching strategies and academic standards. These different teaching strategies are the result of different [lower] expectations, which create different [lower] standards and ultimately result in different [lower] academic achievement!!! But as the Dr. Mickey Carter would say, “Things that are different are not the same.”
Failure rates though are simply a measure of what students are learning or not learning. Still, administrators use failure rates and class averages to gauge whether a teacher is effective or not. High failure rates supposedly reflect poor teaching strategies, rather than low achieving students. And it is assumed that low failure rates demonstrate students are actually learning and prove the teacher is doing a fine job of educating them. However, billions of standardized tests scores over the last 50 years and the testimony of athletes and entertainers [e.g. American Idol’s Fantasia Barrino] prove this is a stupid notion.
But if students choose not to read assignments, take notes or study for tests, it’s said to be the teacher’s fault for not trying multicultural [international] alternative teaching strategies, efforts supposedly to motivate unmotivated students to want to learn. This is another absurd notion of a generation and society that condones, if not supports irresponsible, lazy behavior. My experience as a teacher has found a lot of teachers are no longer challenging students to really learn anything of substance because doing so will increase their failing rates, which could place their jobs at risk. Those who tire of fighting The System or who cannot sacrifice their integrity in this way either quit, or we’re pushed out of The System. So, in turn, we have fewer teachers willing to take the risks and actually teach and millions of students with inflated grades and self-esteem but empty minds.
Legally STUPiD is a critical and sometimes satirical (especially the Addendum) summary of America’s legalized stupidity problem that was created by education philosophies, theories and practices going back over 50 [actually, 150] years ago as well as current school board policies that support these philosophies, theories and practices. I use textbook definitions and opinions of like-minded writers as well as statistical data and lots of anecdotal evidence in my indictment of these philosophies, theories and practices in order to show the general public (not other educators) the lies they’ve been told by politicians, education officials, teachers unions, business leaders, entertainers and the news media.
Most of the information in this book is presented from a first person point of view, based on four years experience as an English teacher in two Harnett County, North Carolina high schools. In some ways the book is written like a diary with specific chapters being written as I was experiencing the effect of some particular teaching strategy or policy that very day. This explains the blunt, informal tone of the book. Of course, my literary background as an English teacher explains the hundreds of literary, Biblical, historical, political and even contemporary allusions made throughout the book. Perhaps the highest [only] compliment ever paid to me by school administrators was their insistence that I’m “a very smart man.” This they’d say then begin to chastise me about my class averages and failing rates. It’s not true though. I’m not smart at all. I’m really a very simple man with a technical writer’s knack for explaining complex things in simple terms. Read on and see for yourself.
Harnett County is a rural, mostly low income county that is typical of most failing school systems around the country. It has the same low standardized test scores and high dropout rates and discipline problems of other school systems. Not all schools suffer with all these problems, but I understand about 80 percent do suffer with most of these problems, and coincidentally, that’s about the same percentage of schools that follow the above mentioned philosophies, theories and practices to the letter. I don’t pretend to be an expert on modern education theories; I’m just a witness to the new segregation program these theories have created in public schools. Nearly half this current generation of public school students will attempt to get into colleges or find jobs, but won’t succeed because they’re not academically prepared for college or the workplace. They can only be described as stupid, but they got that way with the legal blessings and/or conspiring of a national as well as international education monopoly.
I also rely on 13 years of military experience in writing this book. I have always been associated with the military, having grown up the son of a Marine then joining the Army to become an infantry paratrooper and later a personnel and a public affairs supervisor. I have one military history book and more than 300 published articles and personal essays to my credit, many of which relate in some way to military life. This military part of me is why I don’t accept excuses, nor would I accept “good enough” from my students or education theorists. The U.S. military cannot and will not accept mediocrity, and neither will I. My experience as a soldier and NCO taught me to quickly identify both untrained and unmotivated soldiers and take corrective action to get them mission ready. However, I know you cannot expect soldiers (or students) to respect their NCOs and officers (or teachers) if you do not have the full support of your chain of command (parents, administrators, superintendents, school boards, teachers’ unions and the public at large), particularly when your chain of command makes a habit of undermining your authority and requires you to violate legal and moral law with discriminating teaching strategies. See Chapter Five.
Last, but by no means least, I rely heavily on ten years experience in manufacturing as a quality technician and technical writer. During my factory years, I earned an associate’s in Industrial Engineering Technology plus three certifications from The American Society for Quality. This final part my qualifications to write this book explains why this book has lots of charts and graphs, which provide just enough statistical data to back up the empirical evidence of my personal experience in the classroom. Even those with whom I strongly disagree have likened schools to a unique manufacturing plant, responsible for taking raw, young minds and supposedly shaping them into refined young adults who’ve acquired the necessary core knowledge to compete for seats in college classrooms or for jobs in the workplace. But if colleges and small business owners/employers are our primary customers, it’s seems only right that public schools provide them with the quality product they say they want. If we don’t, our customers could outsource public schools with someone who can do a much better job of educating the next generation. For those readers still with me by Chapter Eleven, I’ll discuss some of these other sources.
Throughout this book, as I point out non-conforming philosophies, defective theories and discriminating teaching strategies in America’s public school system, I also offer ideas, suggestions and possible solutions on how to fix the problems identified. Just as surely as my quality assessments will be challenged and disputed, I know my recommendations to scrap current multicultural [international] philosophies, theories and teaching strategies will be condemned by those wanting to maintain the status quo [except with more money, which they always want to increase exponentially].
If we seriously want No Child Left Behind to mean anything, we’ve got to stop passing off non-conforming product (students) as being ready for the customer (college or the workplace). Like it or not, some students need to be left behind until they’ve been re-worked (re-trained) and are ready for college or the workplace. This practice of issuing a high school diploma to students who can’t read or write has got to stop!!!
A final section of this book [Chapters Eleven & Twelve] will discuss where I and a lot of other people think we went wrong in our public schools, a discussion that comes from a Christian perspective and the worst kind of Christian at that, a Baptist. I’ll make no apologies for my Faith and offer no explanations to those who believe differently. As Chapter Twelve explains, my Faith is an unalienable right. But if my Faith or support for Christian education is a problem for some readers, I suggest they stop reading after Chapter Ten. Someone wants to control all knowledge – academic and biblical. And because stupid people are easily led or misled [i.e., controlled], it’s important for those who would rule over us to deconstruct the language and math skills of as many people as possible. And because they’re doing it with permission of parents, school boards and all levels of the government, they’re doing it legally.
Education involves academic as well as moral and spiritual training. Until the mid-19th Century, most Americans received their academic, moral and spiritual training at home and/or through the local church-run, one-room schoolhouse, not government schools. And back then this nation was over 90 percent literate [and very eloquently literate, compared to today’s standards]. Since 40 percent of today’s public school graduates can only be described as functionally illiterate, I think we need to return to what used to work quite efficiently. And we need to do so right now!!! Every parent needs to be reminded that he or she is a teacher, and every local church needs to be willing to accept its responsibility as a school, as well as house of worship [true worship where the Bible is taught, believed and obeyed]. We can go back to what worked the first two hundred years of American history, or we’re going to become just another faded chapter in world history.
Socialist and atheist John Dewey called it cooperative intelligence. Other like-minded constructivists [i.e., deconstructionists], including Piaget, Vygotsky and Erikson, called it discovery or student-centered learning. Extremists like John Holt called it unschooling. The very idea that students should be allowed to learn what they want to learn, when they want to learn, and how they want to learn, iF they want to learn at all is what opponents like Samuel L. Blumenfeld call a fraud; E.D. Hirsch calls it a knowledge deficit. John Taylor Gatto, Charles Sykes, Charlotte Iserbyt and Maureen Stout call it dumbing down. I call it just plain stupid. As you read this book, see if you don’t agree with all of us. And if you do agree to even a small degree, make a decision to do something about it right now, not regarding the 50 million other children attending government schools but your own children.
|
