Why We Need to Change Our Flawed Approach to Educating America’s Children (Video)
Students once learned how to think rationally instead of memorize facts for a state test.
February 16, 2013 - 12:24 am
Click the image above to watch at PJTV.
PJ Media columnist Victor Davis Hanson joins Allen West to discuss our modern educational system. In the zero-sum game of educating our children, who is benefiting from all the money flowing into public education? Find out why Dr. Hanson believes we need to change the flawed approach being used to educate America’s children.
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image courtesy shutterstock / Suzanne Tucker
Begin by teaching them to read, so you don’t have to make videos.
My sentiments exactly Stan, As a former educator, it really angers me when I see an interesting topic being presented on one of these web sites, and instead of being offered a well written article that requires comes contemplation from careful reading, a video takes it’s place. This is a result of the reduced attention span of so many Americans today.
Although I’m a huge fan of VDH and West, I always feel like I am wasting my time when I have to watch a video. Not sure why…
It’s because you can read a lot faster than you can watch a video.
In addition, a printed transcript of an interview lets you go back and look over any passages you might have missed. You don’t have to replay a large part of the video to find them.
Moreover, if you don’t have a reliable, high-bandwidth Internet connection, you ARE wasting your time trying to get the dratted thing to download.
What’s the point of a video? All I want are the words, and maybe a few illustrations if they are relevant. I don’t need to watch a couple of low-resolution talking heads.
I agree. I am a very fast reader and I can’t stand watching videos for information- unless it needs need to be conveyed by video- (e.g. a meteor impact, fashion show or other dramatic visual event). I realize much of this is for advertising dollars, but I never watch news or commentary involving videos. I’ve become adept at ferreting out which icons are utilized by which new organizations to indicate a video presentation, and I run the other way….
its is the possessive. it’s is contraction of it is. US teachers represent the lowest 10% of college graduates and they stay in teaching for an average of 3-4 years. Retirement programs for longer lived teachers simply cannot be sustained financially. Our culture requires us to continue learning to maintain work competence. We can’t expect everyone to keep uptodate through formal schooling. The computer in all its configurations has the instructional power we need, and it can be constantly updated and upgraded. We can devise sophisticated programs infused with our values, constantly updated and be mightier and cheaper than the sword available to all the world. Students find it difficult to admire teachers, but bright, graduate students can inspire young people far better than teachers. Most of my children taught themselves out of Mennonite textbooks in 90 minutes a day. As parents, we had little to do with their school instruction.
All of age have gotten scholarships and done superbly well in college.I’ve had eleven children and 25 grandchildren, etc and can see that it’s what happens around them the first three or four years that makes most of the difference.
I have taught teachers, teachers of teachers, and college presidents.
I absolutely despise the PJTV video player.
First of all, the site requires me to register to watch more than a few videos, which is just plain stupid. There is no reason for that. A lot of people won’t bother to do that, so they won’t see either the video itself, or any comments about the video that I or others might post there.
Second, it’s impossible to pause and restart a video without it going back to the beginning. I have a slow and failure-prone Internet connection at this time, and it is a poor use of my time to be dealing with this.
Third, it doesn’t provide for embedding videos on other sites. That makes it difficult to post a video within another article as a topic for forum discussion or as an illustration of some other point.
The upshot?
Do it right and post transcripts here. Let illiterates follow the link to PJTV if they have nothing better to do with their time.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/02/swallow_your_pride_save_your_child.html
I call for the separation of school and state! The political class have their children avoid the indoctrination centers. We want school choice vouchers instead of a union group dictating!
SCHOOL SUXS: The American Way
Don’t let the title fool you. This video is actually about how government-run schooling contributed to the rise of socialism, imperialism and eventually fascism in Germany between the 1890s and 1940s.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okPnDZ1Txlo&playnext=1&list=PL9325A6657749C526&feature=results_main
Greetings:
I have a bit of concern about your initial dichotomy. How exactly does one think critically without first acquiring some kind of “fact-base” ??? I would offer that your cart may be before your horse.
You are on to something, but no one will listen. Facts are boring and annoying. It’s much more fun just to spout.
For anyone inclined to do a little factual research, go to your public library and find an elementary or secondary school textbook from many years ago. You will see that children were reading at a much higher level years ago. There is no secret to educating children well and we don’t need another version of the newest plan. A century ago, kids graduated eighth grade better educated in the basic components of education than most college students today.
It’s all about how long you spend acquiring that fact base. Go out and look up the Classical Education. There are defined time periods in it for certain things. You spend the earliest years of a child’s education cramming in facts to form the base, but by the time your child is in his later elementary years, you start adding in things to help develop his critical thinking ability. It’s the idea of the trivium.
“The core of Classical Education is the trivium, which simply put is a teaching model that seeks to tailor the curriculum subject matter to a child’s cognitive development. The trivium emphasizes concrete thinking and memorization of the facts of the subjects in grade school; analytical thinking and understanding of the subjects in middle school; and abstract thinking and articulation of the subjects in high school. Subjects unique to Classical Education which help accomplish the goals of the trivium are Grammar, the science of language usage; Logic, the science of right thinking; and Rhetoric, the science of verbal and written expression.”
The problem with the trivium today is that it’s construct has been undone. Professor Hanson addresses this fact very succintly when he cites that the school systems have assumed the role of the parental function. By assuming this role, teacher’s unions were able to significantly aggrandize their roles by adding para-professionals to their ranks. This swelled their numbers and increased their clout with politicians. At the same time, it reduced the amount of time spent on providing the necessary foundation for the trivium to function properly. It’s one of the main reasons why so any 20 year olds have such poor reasoning skills.
High School destroyed any interest i ever had for learning
I believe Hanson is incorrect in assigning the start of the decline to the 1960s. In that decade, the disease metastasized but it began somewhere around 1930. Growing nationalization of education in the 1960s along, centralizing the failure point by requiring teacher indoctrination at schools of education as well as the growing number of education PhDs who have personal success incentives to “experiment” and not maintain what works killed off the pockets of local control that slowed “progress.”
On the upside, now that education is failing so miserably, some Ph,D. will publish research on teaching the inductive method and how it is the “new” learning. They just have to wait until the old ways are forgotten so they can get credit for reinventing the wheel.
In the meantime, I recommend: How to Study and Teaching How to Study (1909) by F. M. McMurry, Professor of Elementary Education, Teachers College, Columbia University. Available online via google. A highly regarded work of its time on what we now call “critical thinking” and how to teach it to children in earnest starting in 3rd grade. Much of what individuals cite as the “old way” of teaching in the early 20th century is traceable back to this work.
One odd realization finding that book caused. Have you noticed in all the discussion of students, education and learning there is no discussion of teaching students, one who studies, how to do their job, i.e., study?
Google “how to study” what you find is a lot of weak anecdotes that while help in creating the environment offer the student no advice on what to do other than stare at the page till it is absorbed. McMurry’s book lays out the factors just assumed to come natural children even as we spend hours and thousands of dollars to teach them how to throw a ball.
A more recent book, Losing Our Language, By Sandra Stotsky (published in 1999) provides factual data demonstrating that children were educated to read, write and do arithmetic at a more proficient level than today. She provides actual examples of reading passages and the questions children were asked to think and write about in school texts back around 1900. She then compares them to current examples. Based on her work, she estimates that today’s average school child is assigned reading material that is about 3-5 grades behind the average school child of a century or so ago.
Today’s top students are still well educated, especially those who pursue studies in math and science at the university level. The rest are falling further and further behind.
I did not like to read. I liked numbers. I liked memorizing formulas. Like addition, multiplication, square roots, a squared plus b squared equals c squared. I have had a career writing software for over 30 years that has had been VERY fruitful. The “critical thinkers” of my day ended up with BAs and not much else. I’m sure they will respond with very eloquent rebuttals and not much else.
Teach kids to fear God, first. Then see what they like to learn and let them go in that direction.
And that was with 11 1/2 years of public education. 35 kids in the classroom from kindergarten thru twelfth grade. A college course here and there but no degree.
scotth, here you speak of the individual quality of drive and perseverance. When I went through grade school through high school in the 60′s and 70′s there was a clear line between achievers and otherwise but all students were required to participate, do their homework (it was part of our grade) and the assignments that were put in front of us.
Nowadays, the focus has shifted away from it being work and it has to be fun. In other words, the socialists in the DOE think that students will do better if they are having fun overall. They ignore the basic tenet of seeing a task that’s daunting at first, to getting at it piece-by-piece, to being victorious over it and triumphing. Only the best teachers I knew back when were able to get students to accomplish such things.
I’m not saying these teachers are no longer around but they are certainly fewer and also hampered by “group-think” and collective Borg existence learning. Though the Borg weren’t known for having fun, teachers today seem far more concerned with having fun with their students than actually learning the hard stuff. Usually those kids in the “gifted” programs are assumed to learn on autopilot and are largely self-motivated and need no encouragement. Hence, “outcome-based-education” which was the biggest crock ever to be sold to the people.
No attention or recognition offered to A and A+ students. D and F students were given high levels of attention and encouragement and praise for the most ridiculous of “accomplishments” with the theory being that reinforcement of the ego results in a more “actualized” (whatever the hell that means) student and better person. But the obvious end-result is Barack Obama and millions more like him.
“I have been praised for my inadequacy but I’m still better than you.” Something someone quipped to me and though a non-sequitur, it’s not only hilarious but seems to sum it up perfectly.
I had the exact opposite problem like a lot of kids growing up in the 60′s and 70′s with my Korean War era parents. Nothing I did was good enough. If I got a “B”, I should’ve gotten an “A”. If I did “X” really well, then why couldn’t I apply that ability to “Y”. However that kind of thinking eventually gets people to think and realize that it’s correct. It also causes introspection and lots of soul-searching and it should help the person arrive at a workable solution, ie: “I am able to do ‘X’ and I worked at it and enjoyed it…so why can’t I work at it and find something to enjoy in ‘Y’ that will result in a better outcome?”
Along with the aforementioned critical thinking skills, it builds strong kids seven different ways. The current trophy-for-just-showing-up is crap.
Government schools are doing exactly what they should be expected to be doing. Asking them to change the way they do business is asking entirely the wrong question. They encourage that.
Why stop at the children.
One of the best ways to annoy liberals is to remind them that Hitler and the Nazis were lefties.
The most expensive Nazi film to date about the Titanic underlines the point.
No evil Jews, just dastardly capitalists and a rather limp-wristed Aryan hero.
You can see clip of it in: “Titanic Lie” at:
http://john-moloney.blogspot.com/
Yep, whenever I point out that the Nazis were socialists, you can nearly hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth for a precious few moments, before denial sets in. Then I am lovingly referred to in the most unflattering terms. Meh, I quit caring what closed minds think long ago.