Musings and questions about America's broken education system

5/6/06

I had the privilege recently of attending a fundraising luncheon for Gabrie's Angels, an amazing nonprofit organization in Arizona that uses pet therapy to heal child victims of domestic violence, enabling them to regain trust, love, hope...and eventually free them from the cycle of violence.

During the luncheon, the conversation turned to the question of how we got here...to a place where 25,000 children in Maricopa County, alone, are living in shelters as they await placement in foster families. How did our society get to be so broken?

I was going through some old e-mails today, and came across one on a related subject. Back in April, the Arizona Republic ran a special section on Sunday, April 16, called "The Faces of Domestic Violence." This was a marketing/informational piece announcing the upcoming "Walk to End Domestic Violence" on April 22.

After reading the entire pullout section, I realized they had never even touched on the entire theme of the walk, the ending of domestic violence. In response, I wrote the following letter to the editor:

I just finished reading your pullout section, "The Faces of Domestic Violence." It is good to see serious attention finally being paid to what is an epidemic in our country. But I am puzzled and saddened about a glaring omission in all of your coverage: there is not one single article that discusses how we let things get so out of control in the first place. This issue did not spring up overnight - it has been with us since the dawn of time. But if your statistics are correct, and one in three women is a victim, why are we merely worried about there being enough beds for those who are fleeing and overlooking the need to END the cycle of violence as quickly as possible?

We cannot continue to pour money, time, attention, and energy into bandaging the broken women and children after the fact. We must begin to understand the myriad sociological issues that begat the problem, and taking every measure necessary to address the issues, correct them, and prevent the cycle from continuing, ad infinitum.

Yes, let us continue to support the female (and male) victims of this insidious crime. But let us not ignore the source of the problem; let us expend at least an equal effort to get the violators the help they so desperately need.

My letter was not published.

After the Gabriel's Angels luncheon, I sent the following e-mail to my friend who had generated the question about how we got here, including the text of the Letter to the Editor I had submitted to the Arizona Republic:

Hi, David.

Thanks so much for attending the luncheon yesterday. Interestingly, I sent this letter to the Arizona Republic following their publishing of a special section that preceded the "Walk to End Domestic Violence." Apparently, my thoughts were somehow counter to their agenda, as they did not publish my letter. It explores the same issues you raised at the luncheon yesterday...and suggested a solution.

I guess those of us with strong — but alternate — opinions just need to keep on speaking until someone begins listening.

Have a good weekend —

L

To which, he replied...and sent me a link to an article he thought I would find interesting because he believed it was related to the subject. First, you must know that David is (and he will admit this readily) a hard-core conservative. I, obviously, am not. Now the article he sent is, in my opinion, a lot of right-wing propaganda. However, I read the whole thing, and have to admit that I did find some truth in in.

The next piece is my response to David regarding the article he asked me to read:

Hi, David.

That's a mighty interesting piece of writing. I won't disappoint you by telling you that I agree with the whole of it...don't forget my largely l-i-b-e-r-a-l perspective. I do, however, see an accurate theme run through it, in that we've become so acculturated to this whole idea of political correctness that we no longer even have a benchmark against which to measure any of our instruction. When, for instance, did English become "Language Arts"?? And this whole idea that 2 + 2 might not necessarily = 4 scares the shit out of me! I remember you ranting a while back about purple ink - teachers starting to use purple instead of red because kids are being psychologically "damaged" by all the red on their school papers. Right. Well, use enough purple ink, then it will become the "bad" color and a new purple ink psychosis will develop. Christ — there actually are correct answers, sometimes.

My biggest problem is less with the politics and morality that is or is not being taught in our schools than with the way education is done, overall, in America. Rather than teach our youth HOW to think, we worry exclusively about teaching them WHAT to think. OK — so that does fall under the purview of the material in your article. But I believe the human brain — and particularly the brain of a child — is so adaptable, that learning what to think is something we can do as we meander through life, regardless of the method by which we learn it. If we live on a farm, we learn to count eggs. If we live in New York City, we learn to count taxis. The counting skill set, though, is the same for everyone. The critical tools which virtually no students in American schools are developing today are the skills of how to think, reason, analyze, and become resourceful, enterprising adults. Creativity is neither taught nor measured — in fact, if children are too creative, they're branded "problems" and quickly hooked up with a nice prescription of Ritalin.

One guy in our Toastmasters club gave a speech a few weeks ago about the workforce in America. It wasn't a great speech, but he did say something I found interesting — and alarming. The Gen X and Gen Y employees in the workforce today are, by and large, INCAPABLE of doing the work for which they have been hired. Meaning that there's lots of room for baby boomers who want/need to keep on working...but what do we do when the last of the baby boomer generation moves out of the workforce? And why is no one alarmed enough about it to do anything about it??

No one thought Rome would fall...but it did. We're sitting on the precipice before collapse, right here in the good old USA. I'm not a pessimist or one to focus on the negative, so I fully intend to keep on working to teach and heal the world. But as an entrepreneur, I'm learning that the money, the notoriety, and the visibility comes in providing big solutions to big problems. The biggest hurdle we face with education is in getting people to acknowledge that it IS a problem — and then getting them to talk reasonably about effective solutions.

Home schooling is not the way for everyone to go...but I certainly think it is a good idea, where practical. In my opinion, Montessori is much more on the right path, in that this whole idea we live and die by in our country of educating children according to their chronological age, rather than according to their ability and emotional maturity, is a significant part of what's wrong in the "education" factories that masquerade as schools here. God forbid little Johnny be 9 but be in the reading group with 6-year-olds...because his parents would be embarrassed. What's more important — parental pride or getting your kid the skills he needs to make it in life?

Thanks for sharing. Be well —

Laura

I truly welcome your comments on this subject.