Earlier this year, the latest indictment of young people appeared in a new book - The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or Don't Trust Anyone Under 30) authored by Mark Bauerlein, an Emory University professor of English.
While many may agree generally with Bauerlein, I contend the problem is not so much with young people today but rather with our educational system and its emphasis. Now, before you educators run to your computer to respond, read on.
My experience with education, beyond my own schooling, has to do with more than 50 years of covering schools and being married to a teacher. That experience is limited to the Texas education system and, for the most part, this piece will be confined to the Lone Star State's shortcomings. However, extensive reading and observing the No Child Left Behind program in Texas convinces me that the federal exercise has fallen far short of its goals.
Each year we read stories and reports on the standardized testing Texas schools are required to use to measure not only a student's ability to advance and graduate but also the competence of teachers. In the Lone Star State, we use the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS).
The move to standardized testing came through the legislative process and despite our lawmakers' "concerns" about education, Texas ranks near the bottom nationally in, among other things, public school dropouts, in dollars spent per student and in teacher pay. To make teachers more accountable the politicians measure their effectiveness by such yardsticks as TAKS. As if that didn't make things tough enough for teachers, add the fact that public school discipline is a joke. Teachers are the ones punished by some parents who don't allow their children to be punished or penalized. Educators' hands are tied and the resultant disruptiveness has a dulling effect on the learning process.
In addition, some wealthy zealots are trying to divert money from a strained public education system and give it to private schools under the guise of moving gifted but economically disadvantaged students from public schools to the "better" private ones.
One of the worst results of this political solution for education is it forces teachers to "teach to the test." The hope is that achievements will be acceptable enough that teacher pay and benefits won't be cut.
Essentially, what Texas education is doing is not what most of us think education is about in the first place - teaching students how to learn or at least to have the desire to learn, and imbuing in them the ability to develop critical thinking skills. The TAKS tests are on isolated skills some test writer identified as important.
Many methods and drills to which I was subjected a couple of generations ago wouldn't necessarily work today but the goal was correct. Miss Autrey Smith taught fourth, fifth and sixth grades how to spell, what words meant and how to use them. Then, she drilled students on diagramming sentences so they understood how a sentence and paragraph were supposed to read and sound. Following that, she urged them to use those skills by reading and to note that what they learned in her classes helped them understand and enjoy the books and stories to which she guided them.
Today's kids are exposed to more technological tools with almost daily advances than we saw in our entire public school careers. Bauerlein writes that kids today are just as smart and motivated as ever and he thinks they are the "dumbest" because of all the diversions. One point with which most of us would agree is that computer and game "screen activity trumps old-fashioned reading materials." TAKS reading and writing scores would seem to back that up. Miss Autrey was right.
Unfortunately, most of our legislators didn't have Miss Autrey as a teacher. And, we're about to be in danger again because the Legislature convenes in January. Perhaps it's time for Texans to demand the first-rate public education system - devoted to learning - that we deserve and which state government is required by the Texas Constitution to provide.
Willis Webb is a retired community newspaper editor-publisher with more than 50 years in the business. He can be reached by email at wwebb@wildblue.net.
