76-02-A5
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Education (A)
TranscriptFor some time now a lot of us have been asking why can't little Willie read or do arithmetic and the answer is he isn't being taught to do that. I'll be right back. The story is told of the new young schoolmaster telling the old-timer about progressive education. He was enthusiastic about how the children were allowed to express themselves, play games, draw pictures, visit with each other, etc. The old boy heard him out and said, "we had that when I was in school." The young teacher said-"You did?" and he said, "Yep we called it recess." A few weeks ago a national magazine carried a one-page story by a lovely young lady 24 years of age. She titled her story "Confessions of a Misspent Youth." but don't let that title fool you. She was in no way a juvenile delinquent. She is instead a victim of some of the modern ideas in education that have been around for a couple of decades or so. Her parents were of that era when permissive education seemed to be the wave of the future. At age four (in 1956) she was enrolled in a small private school which she describes as a school without pain. It specialized in freedom-the freedom not to learn. The idea was to cultivate the innate creativity each child was believed to have. According to this graduate of the educational sandbox they had different hours for each subject but they were free to dismiss anything that bored them. School policy forbade them from being bored, miserable, or made to compete with each other. In studying history by recreating it's least important elements. In early American history they made teepees, pounded corn and ate buffalo meat. Another year there were maids and knights in armor and drank orange juice from tin foil goblets. As she says that was "the Middle Ages", but they never found out what the Middle Ages were. There were other examples-copying hieroglyphics on brown wrapping paper without ever knowing what the hieroglyphics stood for. They spent a lot of time being creative because they were told that was the way to be happy. At age 10 they were functionally illiterate. Reading hadn't begun until third grade. I have a set of the old McGuffey Reader-back when education was old hat. The first volume is for kindergarten. Sadly this young lady says that upon graduation all the happy young children "fell down the hill." No matter what high school they went to they were the underachievers-more handicapped than any underprivileged children. One of her fellow students killed himself after flunking out of the worst high school in New York at age 20. Others have put in time at various mental hospitals. Her own mother was advised to give her psychological tests to find out why she was blocking out information. She wasn't blocking it out she didn't have any information to begin with. Rejected by all four-year colleges she finally got a degree by way of a start in junior college. She rejoices that her eight-year-old younger brother was yanked out of the same progressive school when her mother finally saw the light and didn't want him to be like her. Her poignant closing line should be over the door of every teacher's college in America. Quote, "And now I've come to see that the real job of school is to entice the student into the web of knowledge and then if he's not enticed to drag him in. I wish I had been." This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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