Rare Book Monthly
Articles - October - 2005 Issue
Taken To School: What's Wrong With Education
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The class emerged as the stereotypical movie or television poor neighborhood schoolroom. This was Blackboard Jungle, or Welcome Back Kotter. The teacher was not another "Sir," the tough-as-nails disciplinarian portrayed by Sidney Poitier in "To Sir, With Love," but he was not a pushover either. He was a normal, middle-of-the-road teacher attempting to deal with a bunch of unruly kids who needed to be gagged and shackled. They talked to each other... constantly. Occasionally, they played games on their cell phones, tossed paper around, made fun of the lessons, talked back to the teacher, and were generally first class jerks.
I asked my son what was wrong with these kids. Is this what it's like in high school? He nodded yes. This is what his classes had been like in high school. Why do they act this way, I inquired. He explained that teachers don't make instruction interesting. Early on children find school boring. Once they conclude that school is uninteresting, they are gone. They can never be brought back again, even by good teachers. The educational system has lost them forever.
I think he is wrong. Sure school can be less than exciting, but have you ever seen some of the crap they watch on television? Being boring is no bar to their attention. No, the problem in class is the same problem that leads them to drink and drive: peer pressure. These kids were not stupid, no matter what the appearances. They understand the extreme dangers of drinking and driving. Most also understand the importance of education. However, they are slaves to peer pressure. I have no idea why acting rationally and intelligently is not considered "cool," or whatever term kids use today for that concept. I do remember it was the same way when I was young. We got away with as much as we could. The last thing any kid wanted their peers to think was that they were actually interested in learning. Perhaps it's the rebelliousness of young people trying establish their identities as people different from their parents. When you're young, it all makes sense, and you believe this attitude displays your independence and individuality. Revisiting it from the experience, if not wisdom, of age, you can see it for what it is. It is peer pressure. These kids are deathly afraid that their peers will not regard them as "cool" if they do not behave in this predictably rebellious and "individualistic" way. Absolute conformity to the rules of "individualism" must be slavishly followed. No, it is not bad schools, bad teachers, old textbooks, or poor facilities that are the major stumbling blocks to a good education. It is the insidious influence of peer pressure, which forces kids who would really like to learn to act in the most self-destructive of ways.
