If you grew up in the 60's, 70's, or even the 80's, everything you know about school runs counterintuitive to the reality of secondary education today. While for the most part teenagers don't change, even over millennia, the social millieu in which any generation lives determines much of what goes on in schools.
That, according to Mark Bauerlein, professor of English at Emory Univserity, is exactly what is wrong with students today. The social millieu in which they live has been taken over by constant text messaging and social networking to the exclusion of deep meaning in other areas of students' lives.
Bauerlein contends that even though Advanced Placement course enrollment is up and college enrollment is rising, actual student knowledge is stagnant at best, but most probably in decline. Anyone who has tried to take that graduation test from the turn of the century that floated around the Internet might suspect this is true. One might also believe him, based on his experience as a professor who has seen classes of the best and brightest come and go, and so has a yardstick by which to measure.
Bauerlein is not the first professor to question what has happened to American education. In 1963 Richard Hofstadter penned a book called Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. In 1987 Alan Bloom wrote The Closing of the American Mind. He was followed by E.D. Hirsch who claimed that we were losing our cultural literacy and so wrote several books on what every school child should know. This year Professor Bauerlein published the most scathing expose of our youth yet, entitled The Dumbest Generation. Evidently Americans can get even dumber than they were in 1963.
I can also cite one of my favorite professors at OU, J. Fears, who obtained a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to bring American history teachers up to par. Evidently freshmen in the required American history courses knew little about our country, even though they have civics in middle school and American history and government (and possibly AP Government) in high school. Dr. Fears surmised it was the teachers who were not prepared. What he discovered after several years of teaching the NEH History of Liberty Summer Institute course was that the teachers knew their history, loved it and taught it with passion to the best of their ability. Somewhere, somehow, though, the transfer of knowledge did not make it from teacher to student.
We all know that every generation thinks the succeeding generation is not quite up to snuff. I suspect that what is at play here is that yes, for whatever reason - rap music, the self-esteem movement, desegregation, free love, or helicopter parents - students are not as well educated as in the past. But another factor is that in all our affluence and technology, we expect better kids and can't understand why they aren't smarter given all the money spent on education, feel good programs, and, of course, technology. It could be the answer has more to do with human nature than with our belabored schools and shallow teenagers.
Perhaps the younger generations are behind in the humanities but in the sciences we are above and beyond the generations that preceded us. Science and technology are advanced daily by the younger generations (look at Mark Zuckerberg). Organizations in the intelligence community like the CIA and NSA commonly recruit analysts that are still in their teens. As for schools and teachers, they do just fine in these subjects. My dad once noted with surprise upon looking through my high school biology book that we were learning things that he learned in medical school. Maybe we're not all the experts on American History or literature that the generations before us are but to be called part of the dumbest generation offends me. I hope Mr. Bauerlein realizes there is more to being well educated than English literature.
ReplyDeleteConnor, Bauerlein is an alarmist. However, I am about to cite statistics, which can be used any way a person wants or might be tainted by faulty practice (read Bad Science, it's an interesting book). That said, the TIMSS, which has been given for the last 15 years, consistently shows the U.S. behind in science and math, at least in grades 4 and 8. I'm hoping we catch up by 12th grade and surpass everyone by college. In science we are listed at 8th in 4th grade and 11th in 8th grade. In math we are 11th in 4th grade and 9th in 8th grade. What it all means is open to interpretation - stats can be found here:
ReplyDeletehttp://nces.ed.gov/timss/table07_1.asp
As for your generation, the verdict is still out and will be for about 25 years. I don't think you are any better or any worse than any other generation. Bauerlein is merely comparing you to The Greatest Generation and who can compare with that!
The trick is, though, that the things may be in the textbooks, but whether people are learning them or not is a different matter. We should be alarmed that with all the education and technology available, the high school graduation rate in the U.S. is dipping into the 70%'s. If this were the industrial or agricultural era, those people would have a place to go in society, but what do we do with them in this economy? Start a war? Just kidding....
love you, Connor - hope all is well.
Melony
p.s. saw photo of you shaking President Obama's hand at graduation - awesome!
Sorry Melanie, but the truth of the matter is that unlike Europe and Asia, here in the U.S. all students are tested; including those who are mentally impaired, limited English proficient, and economically impoverished. Thus, comparing a test given to all u.s. high school students with a test given to only 10% of European students is not a valid comparison. (The other 90% of European students are not university tracked, so they typically are not included in these tests) I would love the TIMMS test to reflect a more accurate comparison, - say the top 5% of our high school students with those European students. Just a little perspective....
ReplyDeleteMary, I think you are thinking of the EOI connected to NCLB legislation. That is given to special ed students right along with regular students. Also, since the TIMSS (sponsored here by the U.S. Dept. of Education) tests only 4th and 8th graders, the comparisons are equal in student population. The test to separate out those going on to college from those studying a vocational path is usually given in the 9th grade.
ReplyDeleteOne more thing, let's not forget the number of subjects those European and Asian students take per year, let alone the increased number of days they attend school. I think if you take chemistry in 8th grade, you will probably do better than your American counterpart who has not even had physical science yet, let alone six years of a foreign language, algebra, philosophy, physics....do I need to go on?
ReplyDelete