Probably the most important thing children learn in schools is how to learn. If they fail to learn that chances are they won’t even graduate from high school. If they do learn that they will continue to add to their store of knowledge for the rest of their lives. Probably the saddest are those who consider themselves to be finished products once they have that high school diploma or college degree.
It hasn’t been so very long since we didn’t have free public schools and all children had the opportunity to get an education. In those days, children learned from their parents, their peers, their church and from examples set by persons in the community.
Teachers in the earliest schools were not all particularly qualified to teach everything children needed to learn. The basics: language skills, history, science and mathematics prevailed. But things that may have been missing from their experience in the family; literature, music, art, dramatics, and other things that some people still consider to be “frills” were often neglected. Good teachers, even then, tried to expose their students to the fact that such things existed and would enrich their lives, thus more children received better educations than the average child had previously gotten at home.
Communities that provided schools for their citizen’s children formed school boards or committees to choose people they deemed qualified to teach in the schools and set certain requirements for what was to be taught. It was only after states set standards and required proof of adequate education and ability that there existed any uniform certification requirements for teachers.
Local school boards and state requirements have been responsible for the much-improved standards and educational opportunities in our schools. Today, some people are questioning the wisdom and authority of those institutions and believe that parents should have greater control over what is being taught to their children. Unless parents are deeply involved in their local school and have a solid sense of just what is being taught, how and why, I believe they should leave those matters up to the judgment of the people they elected to do that job and to the administrators and teachers they hired. Otherwise, why have a school board at all?
I have heard far too many ignorant statements from parents who criticize our schools when they really understand very little of the goals and methods of modern education, the need for teaching certain subjects and the methods of doing so. Here are a few examples of opinions I’ve heard expressed by some people who think they know better than those we pay to run our schools.
When hearing of a pilot program intended to learn if there was value in sending some bright high school students to take advanced classes at a community college, one local businessman blustered that, “What a stupid idea! Not all those kids want to fly airplanes!” In the same vein, I heard a father complain that it was useless to make his children attend social science classes because, “They’re not going to grow up to be social workers!” And a mother loudly complained that her son was not overweight and didn’t need weight training in gym class. “Even if he was overweight, it is not the school’s business to put him on a diet!”
School shootings have necessitated strict measures regarding admission to school buildings. What once was a welcome crew of volunteers has been largely eliminated. Those parents and other community members did more than take over routine chores for teachers. Their presence in the halls and classrooms showed the children that others cared about them enough to come to the school and lend a hand. They brought diversity and experience that only they, as individuals, could supply and were good role-models. Now, when schools are striving to fill that gap by teaching about various ethnic and cultural lifestyles in an attempt to foster understanding and tolerance, they are accused of “indoctrinating” our children. One more reason why parents should leave the teaching to the teachers.