Toward Progress in Public Schools
Watching the World Go By
By Ralph Lynn
[Dr. Ralph Lynn is a retired professor of history at Baylor University and is a frequent contributor to Christian Ethics Today.]
The Early Settlers: Heroes or Cowards?
The people who settled the United States were running away from their problems. This is not to say that the early settlers were not admirable people. But it is to say that a good many myths have been concocted about them and sold to millions of unsuspecting people.
One of these myths is that the early settlers were such heroes. Actually, they were running from problems in Europe. They were running from lands where they were denied freedom of worship. They were fleeing lands where taxes were high. They were running from compulsory military service. They were running from lands where opportunities for economic and social advancement were few.
In a word, instead of staying and solving their problems, they ran off and left the problems.
Another of these myths is that the early settlers came to these shores in order to build a free, open society. Actually, many of them — the Puritans in particular — came so that they could have the freedom to expel from their political kingdom anyone they deemed a heretic. They wished to have religious freedom so that they could deny religious freedom to others. You must pick your founding fathers with some care if you wish to credit them with the intention of providing for religious freedom as we now interpret it.
Still another myth is the notion that the founding fathers were supermen of some sort who succeeded, against overwhelming odds, in establishing a free society. Actually, they practically fell into freedom.
In the new world, there was no strong, well organized, rich, established church to exercise a near totalitarian control. In the new world, there was no established aristocracy with full control of the land, the administration of justice, and many other areas of life. In the new world, the King and the King`s army were thousands of miles and many months away. In a word, the English colonists in North America found freedom relatively unavoidable in a virtually uninhabited wilderness.
In 1776, therefore, when these Englishmen in North American decided to fight for the traditional rights of Englishmen, they could and did get away with it. But the Englishmen still in England, who were no less brave and who loved liberty no less, could not successfully oppose a despot on the throne of England. Unfortunately, the liberty loving English, the King, and the King`s army were bottled up together on that tight little island.
In sharp contrast with the situation of the early settlers in the United States, we now have no place to run to. We have no place to hide.
But we are discovering that the problems the early settlers thought they had left behind really crossed the ocean with them. There are those among us now who would restrict freedom in religion, freedom in speech, and freedom of the press. Our taxes are high and are getting higher. We have often embraced a form of universal, compulsory military service which when military expediency calls for it, becomes more and more demanding. And automation and the all-pervading sophistication of modern life are making it more and more difficult for the underprivileged to find a satisfying place in society. If we are able to solve these problems in our time, we shall have to be much more wise, much more resourceful, much more given to calm deliberation, and much braver than the founding fathers were.
We must stick it out right here. It is accurate to say that we are condemned to be both brave and brilliant if we are to succeed, against mounting odds, in maintaining the free life which the early settlers could hardly avoid.
Toward Progress in Public Schools
About 150 years ago, in Hard Times, his novel of searing social-political criticism, Charles Dickens depicted the chief participants in our own public school controversies.
Dickens has Thomas Gradgrind representing the politicians and Josiah Bounderby representing the business community — both of whom give uninformed, unwelcome, and unending advice to poor Mr. McChoakumchild, the schoolmaster. We have made some significant improvements. The politicans and the business people who are interested in education are now much better informed and their motivation is often most admirable.
The education bureaucracy has improved so much that Dickens would be incredulous. We have added women to the mix and we now try to stimulate rather than to choke off childhood creativity, wonder, and spontaneity. Since electronic wizardry has solved the problem of arithmetic, public interest is now centered on the complaint that the children are disorderly and that they fail to learn spelling, grammar, and composition. What shall we do about these problems?
Before tackling these specifics, perhaps we should understand and come to terms with some unpleasant realities. First, our commitment to democracy and our admirably unselfish desire to help each student realize his full potential compel us to try to do the impossible: to educate (that hallowed phrase) “all of the children of all of the people.” Second, we should come to terms with the brute fact that not all of the people of school age (including the college years) have either the inclination or the ability to profit from conventional school offerings.
Third, we need to discover the potential of each student and give each the training from which he can profit. It is utter nonsense to argue that one teacher can do this in a roomful of students with widely differing interests and abilities.
Fourth, we must come to terms with the unpleasant fact that our current level of financial support of our education services is grossly inadequate. Moreover, we ought to begin to apportion the education funds equitably both within the states and in the nation.
Fifth, we must recognize that it is unforgivably stupid to expect teachers, no matter how gifted, well-paid, and devoted they may be to be able to motivate the disinterested and to teach abstractions like grammar and higher mathematics to the slow-witted. Teachers who do not become merely perfunctory either are sorely tempted to abandon the profession or to burn out completely.
Now, for some specifics.
The problem of disorder: It may be necessary to put an empowered, uniformed adult in each classroom and in each restroom every hour of the school day. Put the incorrigibles in “probation schools” schools with retired army sergeants as teachers until they learn a bit of common courtesy.
The problem of spelling, grammar, and composition: Understand that a relatively small percent of the general population has the inclination, the ability, or even the need to master these demanding studies.
These few can probably profit most from attentive, disciplined reading of good writing coupled with their writing a weekly essay in English classes. By a kind of intellectual osmosis, the students will learn what correctly spelled words look like. They will begin to be sensitive to proper sentence and paragraph structure. The rhythm of good writing will become part of their intellectual equipment.
Unfortunately, little of this will occur without competent teachers — lots of them. These English teachers must have the time, the admittedly expensive time, to read these essays carefully and to make constructive criticisms both orally and by actually rewriting portions to show how it should be done. Obviously, every teacher is a teacher of spelling, grammar, and composition. Even teachers of mathematics and the sciences might discover that occasional essays on the history and social significance of their subjects are effective teaching aids.
We have made incredible progress since Dickens’ time in the areas of science and technology — where the Gradgrinds and the Bounderbys can make money. Yet times are still hard for millions of our people. Perhaps it is possible that the very survival of our nation, however, depends upon making the general sort of progress suggested here.
We cannot afford to waste the talents of either hands or heads. One thing should be abundantly clear to thoughtful observers of the educational scene: the current push for vouchers by which public tax money would be taken away from public schools and given to elitist private and parochial schools is one of the least desirable alternatives to be advanced since Charles Dickens wrote Hard Times.
On this critical issue let the churches, then, stand up and speak out.
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