High School Philosophy

One reason foreign countries are often ahead of us in education is that they don't mess around. Their philosophy is that students should be taking courses rich in content from an early age. Students begin chemistry in middle school and are exposed to complex literary and historical issues which engage the brain with their quality. The foreign exchange students I have met have also had a course in the great ideas of Western man, his literature, art, and philosophy. They can discuss the works of Plato or intricate details of literature and the historical and philosophical ideas underlying the writer's viewpoint. It doesn't reach everybody by any means, and those who can't cut it are dropped out of the system and funneled on to vocational training.

Ok, now, in a Battle Royale between Plato or Popeye for the world's greatest philosopher, which do you think would win in a U.S. high school? Up until this point, my bet was on Plato. Now I'm not so sure. This generation has been inundated with pop culture to the point that they have little or no desire to understand the core truths that have been valued in our nation for over 200 years. Don't get me wrong - they really are great kids, smart kids, wonderful kids. My point is not to demean them.

I can go out on a limb here, though, and take a hard look at our country and its values, and what it might be doing to our children. NCLB is certainly trying to set a higher standard of core education for American students and I have seen a modicum of improvement among my students in a general understanding of key principles and foundational knowledge.

But overwhelmingly in the past three weeks I have been faced with the stark impression that education is not important to this generation. They are of the belief that 'I am what I am, and that's all that I am, and you can't make me be anything else.' They think that any road will get you there and life is a journey, so if you have to take a little side trip through the school of hard knocks, so what? They absolutely refuse to see that education might have an ultimate purpose outside of the classroom. And, they may be right, but this is a new attitude that I have not seen during the last 33 years. It is prevalent across the country.

Furthermore, this has not been my experience, nor the experience of thousands of people for whom education signified a way out of poverty and into the ease of the middle class. This attitude may be one more sign of post-industrialism, but the creators of South Park and The Simpsons certainly had access to that kind of an education. Their cartoons are filled with references to Hamlet and haiku and Plato's Cave Allegory. Only it will be wasted on most of our kids. But, it's okay - they'll still laugh, because Cartman will let out a string of curse words and Bart will do something devious.

In the midst of the ease of our middle class lifestyle, we have forgotten a few key principles ourselves. Just this week the news about the American dollar has not been good. Neither has the housing market report been good. China holds millions of dollars of our debt, which can't be good. But, don't worry, 'cause it's all good, and maybe Popeye or Batman will come and save us. Hey, it could happen. Just as a positive end note, in an informal survey, most students felt that they functioned under virtue ethics, striving to at least try to do the right thing. If it is a representative sample of the majority of American high school students, it might be our saving grace.