Product of Public School Shares Her
Story
As a substitute teacher who has
taught from kindergarten to high school, for the past 12 years, I
would say this young 16 year old's description of what has gone on in
her education is what I see in the vast majority of classrooms that I
have taught in. I have had to teach from some of the same strange
books that she was assigned to read, and sometimes even worse. I also
have wondered what ever happened to great classical literature? I have
witnessed the same "dumbing down" effect and have seen students become
less and less interested in learning. School seems to be more about
social engineering than anything else.
Orlean
------- Original Message --------
Subject: Product of Public schools shares her story
By Ashley Anderson, 16 years old
September 2003
It's back to school time! This is for all the parents and their
children who attend public school. I attended public school all my
life, until September 2002 when I began attending a private, Christian
school. The differences are incredible! Reading, writing, and
arithmetic used to be what a child learned in school. Is this what you
think your child is getting in school? Throughout most of my time
spent in public school, the kids in my classes only read one or two
books throughout the whole year. I was identified as being smart/dumb
enough to go to "Gifted and Talented" a.k.a. Advanced Placement
classes. The Advanced Placement courses have now been replaced with IB
classes, which are part of the International Baccalaureate
Organization, UNESCO, United Nations. In this class, we were assigned
numerous short stories to read, mostly about the myths of other
countries, and about their religions. This class bragged it was a
higher-level class, in which advanced students could "maximize" their
learning capacity. I was busy learning about the religions and
cultures of other countries, but never knowing such authors as Henry
van Dyke, Washington Irving, O. Henry, or even Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow until I attended private school. These authors and others
like Mark Twain and Emily Dickinson are purely American, and the basis
for all literary writings in America to date. Why were they never
taught to me? Even in the so-called advanced classes we never read
"Rip van Winkle." Instead, we were assigned books like "The Giver" by
Lois Lowry, which gave the details of killing babies and living in a
world where no one was special and a person's worth was based on
his/her ability to conform to the group. Was I being conditioned?
After reading this letter in a shortened form in the newspaper last
week, two public school teachers fired back with a letter of their
own. They spoke about how great their school was and how their
students read a book a week, not one a year. Are they really reading
them, or are they "skimming" and using "study guides" to pass the
test? They criticized my remarks about "The Giver" being inappropriate
reading. They said, "The Giver is certainly about much more than
'killing babies'. In fact, the reader should realize the novel is
based on what would happen if our individuality, freedom and world
were taken away. Its theme is similar to 'Fahrenheit 451' by Ray
Bradbury and '1984' by George Orwell." I wonder if they know that
Lois Lowry's book is being read to children as young as 6 years old
and sometimes younger? How can a child that young understand the
significance of what's being read to them? After reading it, I was
really shaken up, wondering why I was reading something like that when
I was only in the seventh grade. This was in the "Advanced
Placement/pre-IB" class; I was still only about 12 years old. What
about the book, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou?
It's a book also being assigned to black as well as white children to
read. It's a story filled with disappointment, frustration, and
tragedy. Why do young children need to know that the author was raped
at the age of eight? This is literary significance? Kids are told they
will be writing in a "journal" and that no one will see it except the
teacher, and they are free to write whatever they are feeling. They
could write about parents, friends, pastor, and anyone else, and
parents would never know! When I was given this assignment, I knew my
privacy was being invaded, so I wrote about how ridiculous it was to
write in a journal. It was really none of the school's business.
Strangely, I was never reprimanded or counseled. They were
profiling me and to see how and what I thought. Why else would they
want to pry into my private life? They were treating me like just
another "product" of the education system, just another number. They
want worker bees. Push a button. Pull a lever. Get just enough
'education' to learn how to be compliant, happy little 21st Century
workers who don't ask any questions and keep their noses to the
grindstone. I thought, "surely, not my school". I was wrong.
In the 8th grade, my science class spent the first six weeks
learning from the end of the textbook. It was all about global
warming, recycling, and population control. It made me wonder how this
"control" will be accomplished. My teacher wanted to get all those
things out of the way so we wouldn't have to deal with them later in
the year, but why are they in the curriculum in the first place? For
one geography assignment, I was asked to list all the major appliances
in my house including microwave ovens, telephones, televisions, etc.
They even wanted to know what the highest level of education my
parents had achieved, and a roundabout figure of how much they earned
each year. It was an exercise to make me feel badly that American
families have so much and the rest of the world goes needy. I began to
feel sorry for people in other countries who don't have as much. I
started to want everything to be fair, and for everyone to have
exactly the same. The very things my parents taught me, like working
hard, don't cheat anyone, and earn your own way, were changed little
by little in seeing how people live in these third-world toilets. It
scared me that someone could just change my ideals by playing on my
emotions. They were manipulating my compassionate feelings and using
them against me to make me want what they call "equality". I still
wonder at how they will use the list (which was taken up) in the
future. When my mother was in school, she was taught phonics. In
public school, I was taught to memorize the look of words and how they
sounded. I was taught to remember the answer, not understand the
question. I didn't have spelling or vocabulary words to learn past the
sixth or seventh grade. Why not? In my private school, everyone has
spelling and vocabulary words, in every grade, every week, to
understand and learn how to use them in sentences. Words like
philanthropy, misanthropic, and ameliorate were never taught to me in
public school, despite the so-called "advanced" classes I was in. My
mother, however, insisted on my having vocabulary words, even though
it was not provided in public school.
Reliance on technology was very big in public school. I was told
not to worry about spelling something correctly, because computers
have spell check programs on them. Isn't school the place to learn how
to spell correctly? These were English papers I was writing in middle
school and I'm not supposed to be concerned with spelling? Learning
arithmetic has taken on a whole new meaning in public schools. I was
told to use a calculator every chance I got, and was even reprimanded
for doing the work on paper. I know how to push a button on the
rectangular device, and it's not that difficult. The more advanced
students are made to wait for the others to catch up, and the advanced
students are given "busy" work. I reviewed daily however, when doing
the math in my head or on a piece of paper. The textbook often goes
unfinished, and the students are passed anyway, because they tried
their best.
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