For many years I was head at St. John the Baptist School
where parents sent their children with hard won wages and
knew full and well that there was no such thing as hard won
taxes - only money extorted from them by a state that was as
indifferent to their needs as to their beliefs.
What they cherished and sacrificed to achieve was an
education for their children that would leave them literate
and numerate in order that they could have balances in their
checkbooks and not be a burden to society. Further they
wished their children to learn discipline, goodness and
knowledge in order that they might better know, love and
serve God. They knew that this latter condition was the
birthright of their children but also knew, that in a
pluralistic society, they had no right to impose this vision
on the larger society.
As we become more pluralistic - more diverse, if you prefer
- there will be more and more parents legitimately longing
for the opportunity to bestow their vision on the
architecture of their children's education. The sad truth is
that they may have less and less opportunity to realize
their vision because the institution of public education is
unwilling and incapable of responding to either the needs of
children or the vision of parents.
With the need for immediate action to reduce carbon
emissions in order that our children may live to realize our
vision and enjoy children and visions of their own there
must be radical changes made to public education. The idea
that it must produce literate and numerate citizens has
become its new alpha and omega. From counting to calculus
and from letters through grammar and rhetoric have become
its new boundaries.
A universal curriculum or reading, writing and arithmetic
that may be easily set, easily taught, easily graded is all
that is desired. Parents and children of any background
could participate in this schools with the sure and certain
knowledge that nothing offensive to any background would be
taught. Since the curriculum would be so very simple it
could be taught with minimal costs, requiring no special
equipment, in a shortened school day in the children's
neighborhood.
Consider, if you will, a new golden age where children will
be passed on to the next lesson as soon as they have
mastered 100% of the previous lesson. It will be the end of
trousered apes turning out functional illiterates. It will
be the end of children waiting on buses before the dawn to
take them away from their homes and the end of the
alienation of these children from their communities and the
end of the pollution that these yellow diesel belching
monsters strew in their wake. It will be the end of days
that stretch from 7 a.m to 7 p.m - and beyond - for teachers
tied to reports and the endless minutiae of a profession
that has ceased to teach. John and Jane either know how to
spell their names, that those names are nouns and that two
plus two equals four or they do not. If they do they may go
on to the next lesson and if they do not the teacher may
TEACH them those things in order that they may go on.
I know many will raise the hue and cry of things not done.
Where is the football team? Why doesn't Jane have a dance
recital? Why isn't john being taught to play the tuba. There
is a very simple answer. This is not the legitimate end of
taxpayer supported public education.
Take football as an example. There are fewer than 2,000
professional football players in the United States. Each of
these players is hired by a billion dollar enterprise which
is part of the entertainment industry. Should John and Joe
and Jack be taxed to support this industry any more than
they should be taxed to support Hollywood? Is this industry
incapable of financing itself all the way down to a system
that promotes youngster's participation without tax dollars?
A carefully reasoned review will give you an appreciation of
the correct answer.
This system will also free the parents to guide the further
education of their children. Learning their place in the
family and in the family of man certainly requires a parent
as a first teacher and the music and drama that we all wish
to enrich our children with most likely has its roots in our
ethnic and religious traditions. Be it dancing while painted
blue at the spring solstice or signing hymns in Latin at
Christmas, enjoying fish fries on the beach or singing
around a campfire while enjoying barbeque, all of pleasures
of our history and all of the lessons that they impart are
best found, preserved and learned when the village raises
the child.
Coleridge said that prose was words in their best order and
poetry was the best words in their best order. The
underlying thought of both is the requirement of simplicity
and that is what we propose.
Chatboards
Mailrings
Classifieds
Lessons
Jobs
Projects
1996 - 2009. All Rights Reserved. Please review our Terms of Use, Mission Statement, and Privacy Policy.