Attention Orthodox! The Educational Crisis in America

[ProfChrysostomos]

Greetings all!

An excellent article appeared recently on the OrthodoxyToday.org web page, by Fr. Stanley Harakas, my former professor at seminary, and an internationally renowned ethicist. It is entitled: "Crisis in Education: A Moral Cause." It offers several enlightening points that I've always believed and, on occasion, have spoken about myself. I believe it should be carefully read by everyone.

http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles7/HarakasEducation.php

Not only in America, but throughout the world, we are noticing that the distribution of wealth is growing larger between the different classes of people. Teachers, whom Aristotle and Plato regarded as the bulwarks of society because of their calling to shape minds and characters, are indeed the least appreciated and most underpaid civil servants for the nature of the work they do. Entertainers and sports VIPs are the most exposed and highest paid, because that is what society glorifies and is willing to pay a hefty price to be entertained. This speaks volumes about where our priorities lay.

But don't be fooled. This same crisis exists equally in places like Greece. Some time ago, a newspaper article in Ta Nea or Kathemerini (I don't recall which one) delineated where people's interests lay in entertainment. Most countries surveyed in Europe (Greece included) were split between watching soccer matches such as World Cup or Eurovision. Greece itself is facing very severe problems in its educational system, among which is the government's push to secularize public education even further by fighting to remove religious education in a nation 98-99% Orthodox Christian.

Finally, as the article points out, subjects typically referred to as humanities (history, philosophy, etc.) are looked down on and, in some cases, even removed from high school and university curricula. They are considered "unnecessary" in today's high-paced technological world. That comes as no surprise, if society today wants robots and not free-thinking individuals with the liberty to critique and the prerogative to believe in a higher power that in faith sustains them and helps them make sense of an otherwise senseless, mad-paced existence.

Indeed, everything comes down to a choice. May we choose well.

Blessings,
+ Prof.

[Grand_Duchess-Elizaveta]

I'd love to read it, but unfortunately orthodoxytoday.org never works for me. The page won't open at all. I've tried both Mozilla and IE and still it never opens. I haven no idea why.

[JustinHesychast]

Sounds good. Thanks for the link! I'll give it a read.

[rusmeister]

Are you seriously asking ME to get involved in an education thread?!? C'mon, you know the rusmeister always drops like a bomb into this subject! :P

By the way, I hit 1,500 posts! Should I celebrate, or cry?

Alright, alright. I'll read it and get back to you...

[JustinHesychast]

It was a pretty good article. I seen some weird spelling mistakes and a repeated 2 sentences, though. O_o

Reading the article and looking back into the past 2 years of my high school career, it's completely correct. I'm among them, too. Gah, I have to do better.

[Greg the byzantine]

I realize now at the end of my high school education, going into college, just how blessed I am to have gone to the High School that I did.

I went to a public school that is "selective", only accepting 250 students out of 3500 applicants. The school also has a specific curriculum that I will describe below.

I know my experience was much different than most students in High-School. It is first and foremost a humanities school, and an all-honors curriculum. The city requires 2 years of world history, 1 year of American History, 1 year of economics, 1 year of biology, 1 year of chemistry, 1 year of physics, 1 semester of art, 1 semester of music, 4 years of english, 4 years of physical education (which includes a semester of health and hygiene), and 2 years of a foreign language.

In addition to that my High School required 2 years of a classical language (either Latin or Classical Greek), 1 semester of an intensive writing course, 1 semester of linguistics, 1 year of an intense Humanities Seminar co-taught by a college professor(taken in the senior year), 2 college courses (also in the senior year), in addition elective courses are required which range from biomedical-ethics to photography.

After reading the article, I felt a real pull to what Father Harakas wrote about the science fairs. I was involved in NYSCEF the New York Science and Engineering Fair, and many of my friends were in the Intel Science talent competition, Siemens Westinghouse, and ISEF (the International Science and Engineering Fair). Father Harakas, is right. All these intelligent students who I met come from families and cultures where respect, discipline, and hard work are emphasized.

It really starts and ends with the students and the families that raised them. The teachers are extremely important, but if the students aren't willing to learn and work hard to do it, then the teachers might as well not be there.

Which brings me back to my high school. Besides all of the courses, the curriculum, and the environment, the reason my school is so great is because it is selective, and selects only those students that it feels will be able to meet the challenge.


Sorry if this post isn't relevant, I am reminiscing a bit because High School is over forever :(

[SeraphimSarov]

Even more frightening for the future of America was the lack of awareness regarding this situation: one of the statistics was that about 95 percent of high school teachers were of the opinion that their college-bound graduates were "ready for college," while only 44 percent of freshman college faculty felt that they were really ready and able to do college work.

I am now a senior in college studying journalism. For the past three years, I have been rehashing the same stuff I learned in my AP English courses in high school. It may be that high school graduates these days aren't ready for college, but then again, at least where I go to school, standards are being lowered in accomodation of this. Which results in a lot of :sleep:in class for me. Ugh.

[EmperorConstantine]

Two words that can "revive" the education system: corporal punishment.

[buzuxi02]

Its quite sad but not surprising in the least bit. Most parents could care less with their kids education, in fact most kids today dont even have parents.
I grew up in a upper middleclass to rich neighborhood where 80% of the students by the time they reached sophomore in high school did not grow up with the same two parents that gave birth to them.
Many single parents that work too much, to be around. Throw in laziness and and inability to realize that we take our luxuries for granted and instead rely on "others" to do everything for us.
This is a problem of western culture in general, we have gotten complacent and lazy and thats why the future tends to be in what are called the "emerging markets".

[SeraphimSarov]

Two words that can "revive" the education system: corporal punishment.

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Lotar]

I think I'm going to do my best to keep my kids out of public indoctrination schooling. It's kind of rediculous that we graduate kids who can't find Europe on a globe, but know how to use 15 different types of birth control, are certain that they couldn't avoid pre-marital sex if they wanted to, and know that homosexuality is a perfectly legitimate lifestyle.

I still remember how we skipped the Civil War and WW2 in American History because we had to learn about things like some woman who invented some sort of toothpaste and some black person who invented some type of hair products.


On the other hand, I can understand some things in the Universities. Lib Arts people can complain all they want, but they do not understand the frustration of having to take classes in things like Philosophy and Psychology when you are an Engineering major and already have at least 5 years worth of classes to take to begin with.

[Hoankan]

I'll disagree with the corporal punishment. While there are uses for it, the biggest problem is consistency and fairness in punishment. Many of these parents now will tell Johnny, "Don't do this." and then turn around and give him $20 to go to the arcades. I've also seen (when I was a student, I don't even want to imagine it now) parents who would get angry if their kid was even scolded. "How dare you do that to my golden little angel." or something along those lines. And the system is getting afraid to do stuff. And let's not even get started beyond the school (criminal justice system anyone?)

Anyways, the criminology studies show that consistency is the best when it comes to punishment starting at a young age like from the beginning.

[EmperorConstantine]

Anyways, the criminology studies show that consistency is the best when it comes to punishment starting at a young age like from the beginning.
I think that that, more than anything, is the problem.

In public schools, there is no discipline from Kindergarten to maybe 6th grade (or so I've heard, I went to a Roman Catholic school). Than out of nowhere, they expect you do be a hard-working individual!

I remember at the Roman Catholic school right from the beginning if you did anything horribly wrong, you were disciplined. The worst of the punishments (suspensions and the like were rare) was a trip to the vice-principal's office.

Kids are spoiled. People didn't like one thing one generation and they made it easier for the next generation that needs a real challenge.

[repentant]

I just know that I hope to God, when I have children, I can afford for them NOT to be educated by the government..

[rusmeister]

His article, taken apart, basically says that there is an enormous lack of interest and underachievement, particularly in higher education; he feels that things like teacher pay are contributing problems, but that the real problem is our dying religious (Christian) tradition and resulting lack of morals.

He certainly touches on a central problem, but misses the cause of that problem. The decline of respect towards religion is a direct result of the public ideology of pluralism taught in our schools, including multiculturalism, tolerance and diversity, whose aim is to emphasize the relative unimportance of our own traditions in favor of others. The problem began as soon as the first teacher was rolled off the assembly line, so to speak. To construct it backwards, focusing on the contribution of schools:
1) we have this massive problem of ignorance and apathy nationwide
2)It starts in the home and in school, but the home is formed by people who have been through school
3) Most people attend public school
4) Someone somewhere designed the schools in their current form and function and determined how and what the teachers would be taught - and by extension, the children(and that licensing would be the means of ensuring the teachers underwent this training)
Surely this last ought to be of some interest. Not learning about it is like trying to talk theology without learning about the Holy Fathers and Church history. Yet this is what people do all the time.

This is a key phrase:

Even more frightening for the future of America was the lack of awareness regarding this situation

And yet, whenever you raise the issue, you'll notice that everyone has an opinion on the subject, regardless of the extent or quality of their knowledge. The most important thing is not offering opinions, but seeking to understand why our schools produce this result. If you don't know the history of our education system, you can't talk about it intelligently.

So most people will just continue to be bewildered, talk about solutions like vouchers, or paying teachers more, their solutions will all differ, schools will continue to pretend to do all kinds of reforms in all kinds of directions that have a half-life of 10 years, and nothing will change.

The topic of education history seems to have had an 'unnoticeability spell' cast on it. I'll bet most won't even respond to this post.

[EmperorConstantine]

It is because religion is treated as "superstition" and "a think of the past" and completely ignored, that things are the way they are.

I think Jim Jones said it best when he said "Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it."

[Prawnik]

I read Gatto's book and found it intriguing. So were Ivan Illych's books on the subject.

Thing is, look at a place like Russia, where almost everyone is ferociously well-educated, and government schools are ubiquitous at all levels. Interestingly, a frequent subject of complaint is that the quality of education has fallen along with Communism.

I also recall a conversation with Taiwanese students, who were shocked at the lack of respect in America for teachers. To listen to the Taiwanese describe it, teachers and parents were unquestionable sources of authority.

If the teacher stated that 1+1 = 3, then this was as close as you could get to the Word of God on the subject. This is the opposite of Gatto's ideas on education, which are populist, individualist, and subjective, but you can't deny the results of the Asian educational systems, at least on the primary and secondary levels.

Zhilian and others can offer us better insight than I.

[Prawnik]

It seems that our problems may go back further than we thought:

http://ww3.telerama.com/~joseph/eng.html

Interestingly enough, Mark Twain disagrees with J.T. Gatto's assessment of the German educational system. Both Twain and Gatto agree that rote memorization of facts is useless and that education should teach pupils understanding instead of knowledge.

The question was which side the German educational system came down upon.

[rusmeister]

It seems that our problems may go back further than we thought:

http://ww3.telerama.com/~joseph/eng.html

Interestingly enough, Mark Twain disagrees with J.T. Gatto's assessment of the German educational system. Both Twain and Gatto agree that rote memorization of facts is useless and that education should teach pupils understanding instead of knowledge.

The question was which side the German educational system came down upon.
Is that text supposed to be Twain's? I couldn't find attribution to him.

Gatto's argument, though, is that the so-called educational system is teaching neither understanding nor knowledge (of facts), but rather behavior - the kind of behavior needed by large governments and businesses for their machinery to work.

[Prawnik]

The text is by M. Twain, called "English as She is Taught in Our Public Schools" or something like that.

Anyway, IIRC, one of J.T. Gatto's arguments is that public schooling in American is patterned on the Prussian model, and as such it emphasizes rote learning over developing independent thinking skills.

At the end of "English as She is Taught", Twain contrasts American public schooling with German (by that point the Kingdom of Prussia swallowed up the rest of Germany), stating that American and English schools were the ones teaching rote learning while the German educational model taught critical thinking.

Which is correct?