I've been in education long enough to realize that most of the fixes that have been floating around only treat this or that symptom; what's at the heart of the condition remains untouched.
Whatever is at the core usually appears to me as a nebulous confluence of technology complacence, with perhaps a bit of torpescence mixed in for thoroughness. I'm no Neo-Luddite, but I'm beginning to wonder if technology, combined with good old fashioned oppression, is not at work in our society, pushing our relative education level down, down, steadily down.
I had an eighth grade student ask me turn on the television so she could find out what time it was. I leave my television on channel fifteen, which is the channel for school announcements and such. When no announcements are posted, a digital clock appears.
I pointed to the analog clock on the wall.
"Why don't you just look at that?" I asked.
"I can't read that!" came the response, as if I'd suggested she translate the Odyssey for kicks.
Mildly shocked, I mentioned it to other teachers at lunch. They all agreed: a shocking number of students don't know how to tell time with an analog clock.
Now a reasonable case can be made that analog clocks are on the way out, that it's not that critical a skill because such clocks will almost certainly disappear in the near future. Point taken. However, what disturbed me more than anything was the girl's reaction: there was no hint of even trying to figure out what time it was. She just gave up.
Math teachers tell me this is rampant in their classrooms these days. "They want instant answers," one told me. "They're not willing to take the time to work through something, step by step." She conjectured that this was due to the ease of information availability on the internet.
I mentioned all this to K, and she sympathized, then added, "On the other hand, our grandparents knew how to do things we have no idea how to do, simply because they're not necessary anymore. Could you guide a horse and buggy?" she asked.
"No," I replied, adding, "But I would at least try to figure out how."
Granted, I'm talking about fourteen-year-olds, and they're a special breed in and of themselves. Still, taking my personal, anecdotal evidence with the fact that America is sliding steadily downward in international academic rankings, and it's obvious that something is terribly, terribly wrong. The anecdotal evidence further indicates it's not just a problem with the education system; it's a problem with the culture, with the Facebook, iPhone zeitgeist.
I find myself asking, "Don't politicians and high-level educators realize what's going on?" Don't they realize that it's a problem so much deeper than making sure teachers know how to "incorporate student test data into their planning"?
If they don't, they're seriously out of touch. There is a breakdown in communication of catastrophic proportions.
Lately, though, I've been thinking that perhaps they do know. And the state of the US education system is just what they -- and the real people running this country -- really want.
An educated public is capable of critical thinking. An educated public stops to think, "Do I really need a BMW when I won't be saving anything for my retirement as a result of my payments?" A public capable of critical thinking would wonder whether the cable news station they watch is giving them the whole story and seek out other points of view, thinking, "There might be something more to this." A public that is knowledgeable about chemistry and biology will look at the labels of most of the "food" that's for sale and demand something real. They'll wonder whether their weekends are best spent in front of the television watching sports and amassing football trivia. An educated public questions, and that's not what corporate America wants.
An uneducated population that, by and large, lacks critical thinking skills is easy to rule. They don't stop to think, "Wait -- those special interest groups and lobbying agencies are spending billions to circumvent my vote."
But what are the options? We have elections every two years for Congress, every four years for the President, and every six years for the Senate, and nothing ever changes. We throw out the Republicans and put the Democrats in; nothing changes. We throw the Democrats back out and put in the Republicans; nothing changes.
The only way this can happen is through the "pressure" of interest groups and lobbying agencies, hired by the corporations that are run by an insignificant percent of our population, people who only want more. They give the Senators, Representatives, and the President the money to get elected and reelected; what do we give them? A meaningless vote.
Maybe this is why the education system is not improving. Perhaps the corporations don't want it to improve. As George Carlin said, the corporations want citizens bright enough to run the machines and do the accounting, but stupefied enough to be content buying meaningless trinkets and ignorant enough not to realize all of this.