American Dream or American Nightmare?
I well remember the
unhappy day in third grade when our son’s test scores came back. Because he had been diagnosed with a
learning disability which hampered his ability to read, his scores were
dismally low. His third-grade
teacher, who had spent the year helping him to overcome his reading problems,
sat and cried with me. What would
have happened if at that point in our son’s life, we had made a career
pathway decision for him? To what
fate might our good intentions have doomed him? We could never have predicted that he
would overcome his reading problems through intense instruction in phonics,
become an outstanding student who would graduate with a good GPA from a major
university, and establish himself in a successful career.
I recently read about a school district
in the Midwest where third-grade students during the school day are sent to a
large furniture manufacturer in order to learn the finer points of polishing
furniture. These may be good skills
to learn in vocational courses that students and their parents have chosen; but
I do not believe that all students need to focus their school day on work-based
learning, particularly in the elementary and middle school years. Children should be taught that there is
more to life than greed and workforce skills.
Another school district in Kansas
requires the entire high school student body to spend a large part of the day
watching videotapes which cover such things as the correct way to mop a floor,
run a golf-course sprinkler, repair refrigerators, and fix vacuum cleaners.
The term "School-to-Work" is
becoming the new buzzword in education.
Surely everyone agrees that each student should transition easily from
school to work at some point in his life.
It is important that we teachers help students to connect why they are
learning such things as the correct way to punctuate clauses, figure the square
yardage of a room, memorize the names of states and their capitals, and measure
ounces and liters.
However, my concern with School-to-Work
initiatives, which are being forced on local schools through federal and state
agreements, involves this question—who ends up being in control of the
curriculum that is taught in our local classrooms? Do we want the federal government or
even the state to make career choices for our elementary students by scripting
the curriculum, or should that decision be made by parents and their
children? Do we want our classrooms
turned into career centers; or should they be places where knowledge-based,
traditional academic content is taught?
Do we not have the obligation to expose every child to a solid
foundation of core academic content from which he can choose whatever path he
wants to follow?
In a world which almost guarantees that
a person will change his vocation several times during his lifetime, what
happens if a student specializes too early in a particular career pathway? Will he have the flexibility to pursue
another career because he has mastered a broad-based, academic curriculum? Have we limited his background so much
that he is locked into his original career choice? What happens if the jobs in that career
choice dry up? What happens if he
moves to another part of the country where there are no jobs in his selected
field? Will he have the
foundational skills to change to another career successfully?
As teachers, I think our best effort
should be spent jealousy guarding our classrooms from outside
interruptions. We need every minute
we can get to make sure that our students learn to read with ease; it is when
they get to that level that they will plunge into the world of the written word
with eagerness. They must be taught
to write and speak correctly so that the doors of opportunity will indeed be
opened to them. We teachers must
become protective over every single minute that is spent on activities which
are of secondary importance. The
school day must be kept to its primary mission which
is to teach academic skills. When
our students have memorized a foundational concept, we teachers are not
finished until we have pushed our students to implement that memorized skill at
a higher level in all kinds of real-world situations; however, that level of
expertise only comes after intense time and effort on-task.
The job of educators should be to make
sure that children receive a quality education which will give them limitless
choices for the future. If they
want to go to college, they should have the background to pursue that choice. If they want to go to vocational school,
they should have solid foundational skills upon which to base their new
skills. After all, no matter what a
student does with his life, he still should have the background knowledge to be
able to participate as a good citizen and to be able to enjoy and appreciate
the world around him.
Think about how locked out of everyday
enjoyment a person would be who has never studied William Shakespeare,
Frederick Douglass, the Brownings, Harriet Tubman, the Bible, Robert Louis Stevenson, Greek and Roman
mythology, Martin Luther King, Charles Dickens, etc. We in our society are surrounded with
literary allusions. A person who
has never studied the great pieces of literature will go through life missing
the point of numerous plays, television dramas, comedies, jokes, political
references, movies, American jargon, etc.
That person will be isolated from much of society and will not be able
to connect with others through a commonly-shared culture.
Policymakers must not let the American
dream be circumvented into the American nightmare by forcing students into
narrow and limited career choices at too early an age. Our goal in the public schools should be
to prepare students to master the basic skills so that they can pursue any and
all career pathways that they desire.
Employers, parents, and students should expect nothing less from their
schools.
Midway High School
Teacher
Hewitt, Texas
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