We’re Not All Impresarios Of Twaddle
Who’s responsible for the Bored of Education? The state? The Feds? Disconnected politicians who jump on the “Eviscerate Education” bandwagon every election year?
Yes. To all of the above, according to my mail.
A few weeks ago, I quoted from a high school Spanish teacher’s lament. “Teachers of foreign languages are once again being asked to make sense of yet another version of the state-decreed competency model and incorporate it into our courses of study.”
She complains of the state’s infatuation with “double-think” jargon like: learners (formerly “students”); progress indicators (tests); and sociolinguistic competency (Hey, Ma! I can speak the language!). And elimination of the words: grammar, memorize, learn, verb, conjugate or study. “Instead,” she writes, “we have ‘awareness of culture’ and ‘insight into the nature of language’.”
“Insight into the nature of language?” Think about that one for a minute. I don’t know about you, but to me that would translate into something like: Language: What we do instead of grunting and hitting each other with clubs.
Nature of language: “Don’t hit me with that stick, Thor, ‘cause I know where your momma’s cave is at.”
Well, Senora, you’re not alone.
Frank Farr, a teacher in Crownpoint, N.M., writes: “Ole’! I am in my 41st year of teaching Spanish (less 10 years in administration). Along the way I taught French, Russian, and many English classes. I hear you! I’m teaching Navajo kids now after 30 years in California schools. The problems are the same. Over the years we’ve gone through ‘New Key’, ‘New Math’, ‘ALM’, ad nauseum. Good students still learn, and good teachers still teach, though the Office of Civil Rights is doing its damnedest to make it harder for us here in the four corners area of New Mexico. We need more informed statements like yours.”
In a follow-up, Farr adds that he is not an educator who has been cocooned in a classroom. He was an Air Force officer (navigator) in World War II, a prisoner of war in Germany for six months, a Fuller Brush man, vice principal, principal of an alternative high school, newspaper stringer, editor, summer principal for migrant education students and served his community as chairman of the Planning Commission, and mayor. He’s been teaching Navajo high school students for 11 years.
Mel Eaton from Snohomish, Wash., writes: “Just read your column. You and the teacher mentioned were on the mark. I recently retired after 30 years in the classroom. One large contributing factor was the continuing political nature of the job. With a real trend in Washington state toward ‘standards driven’ content, the art of teaching may one day be lost. We too have been questioned about the ‘value’ of memorization. After all, the calculator and the word processor can do it all.
“I have two major concerns. With an empty memory, how will good judgments and decisions be made? What would be the points of comparison or contrast? How will anyone be able to understand a concept when no basic knowledge is in memory.
“In math we were always asked to teach the concepts. I found that concepts escaped those students who could not add, subtract, multiply and divide with pencil and paper.
“There can be no useless knowledge, only a lack of knowledge. When students asked me why they should learn the lesson, I tended to answer them that it was always a good idea to know how the world was working.
“Well, you get the point. Thanks for voicing the working point of view.”
Another letter was from a parent in Everett, Wash., thanking me for the chance to read a “letter from an educator who can communicate. As a parent I am often frustrated by politically correct double-think jargon. I call it educatorese.
“It’s a language of a secret society where they talk about re-engineering core processes and outcome-based education, without really saying anything. A room full of parents at a school district meeting look like deer on the highway, blankly looking into the light of education and not understanding the danger.
“It’s time that educators translate into English, make their communication clear and understand that parents aren’t the enemy. Here is the body of a meeting notice I received last week as an example:
‘To discuss a request to adjust a limited number of school days second semester. We are requesting time to seriously examine critical issues facing students now and in the future. The education of your student is extremely important to all of us. The investment we make now will pay great dividends in the future. Join us for further information and discussion of this proposal.’
“Not much educatorese, but lots of fog.”
It’s good to know that parents understand that teachers are not necessarily willing participants in the plot to shroud education in twaddle.
An anonymous, simple and to-the-point e-mail said it all: “Amen!”
That goes for me, too.
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