Double the RDA of Educational Straw Men

Chris from On The Borderline has posted--and crossposted to the Badger Blog alliance--"Nine Assumptions of Government Schooling." These come, apparently, from John Taylor Gatto, who is an anti-public school crusader. (There is an irony in that, in Gatto's crusade, he rails against the "dumbing down" of children and the corporatist mentality of public schools. These are the same things that I--and other liberal educators--have been fighting against, but starting from another place entirely.)

These nine items are thoroughly offensive, not to mention untrue or, at best, gross exaggerations, and I feel the need to deconstruct each. Please bear in mind that these responses, of course, do not represent the opinions of anyone other than one guy in a classroom trying to do the best he can.

1. Social cohesion is not possible through other means than government schooling; school is the main defense against social chaos.
The American people put a lot of pressure on schools and teachers. One of my themes recently has been "the other 82%," the idea that, even though I am expected to, I can't really make up for everything else that goes on in a child's life once he or she leaves my classroom. But anyone who believes, realistically, that schools are the last defense against "social chaos" is smoking some pretty good crack. Social cohesion is and has been created in countless ways in countless parts of the world across time.

I wonder if this point--and several that follow--doesn't stem from a lingering resentment of busing and desegregation. It is pretty ridiculous now to think about schools and courts forcing students to ride buses for two or more hours a day to integrate schools. I think all of us in the liberal desegregationist side of the fence see solutions not in busing but in examing and redressing segregation issues within the community first.

2. Children cannot learn to tolerate each other unless first socialized by government agents.
This is not true. Not at all true. And again, I wonder if there is not some holdover resentment toward desegregation attempts. Fact is, children learn to hate or love from their parents, and while schooling and socialization can help overcome those barriers, tolerant children are created every day outside of school. In addition, I can't fathom why anyone would object to "tolerance" education (the programs I know of never take the place of core curricula--don't worry, kids still get the three Rs). In fact, I make it a point in my own classrooms to call students on their intolerant and insensitive behavior, explain why it is inappropriate, and ask them to stop. I brook no racism, sexism, classism, or homophobia in my classes--in part, because it's good manners, and in part because that attitude doesn't fly in the real world, either, or at the university. Can I be faulted for preparing my students for life after high school? Or perhaps these anti-gubmint-schoolers yearn for the days of segregated and intolerant society?

3. The only safe mentors of children are certified experts with government-approved conditioning; children must be protected from the uncertified, including parents.
This is also not an assumption I hold. There is danger--as expressed in the local paper's series on Milwaukee's voucher program--in placing students with teachers who do not know such basic things as the content area, multiple intelligences theory, and cognitive development theory. Parents, of course, know their own children's learning styles and stage of development, and as long as they have access to quality instructional materials, can do okay. But teachers expected to handle a room of 20 or 30 kids and teach them, say, geometry, need to know both math and how to handle the kids in the class. Certification is, of course, not necessary for this, but it is not something just anyone can step in off the street and do. I welcome anyone to join me when school starts this September; you can try teaching my ninth-grade English class for a day and see whether you agree.

4. Compelling children to violate family, cultural and religious norms does not interfere with the development of their intellects or characters.
I am curous to know what "family, cultural, and religious norms" they think we violate. It's true, as I mentioned above, I don't accept open expressions of intolerance, cruelty, or bigotry in my classes, but if that's the family norm then that family has problems I am not qualified to solve. I'm guessing this is mostly about the "religious" norms. But even here, schools do not systematically set out to compel students to violate anything. Kids can carry their Bibles, say grace before eating, pray facing Mecca (I have seen it done), eat kosher food, be excused from sex ed or the evolution unit, and so on. This is the law and school policy everywhere I have been.

5. In order to dilute parental influence, children must be disabused of the notion that mother and father are sovereign in morality or intelligence.
I don't even know where to start with this one, since it makes little sense to me. Serously, if someone can explain how schools do this, I'd like to know.

6. Families should be encouraged to expend concern on the general education of everyone but discouraged from being unduly concerned with their own children's education.
I laughed out loud at this one. Teachers love to see parents. All the time. We want them to be partners in their children's education. We want them to be involved. The biggest single complaint I have about my teaching experience here in Milwaukee is that parents don't seem to care as much as they should. They don't read with their children, attend conferences, check homework. Give me more, please.

7. The State has predominant responsibility for training, morals and beliefs. Children who escape state scrutiny will become immoral.
I don't know a single person who believes this. And I know a lot of people.

8. Children from families with different beliefs, backgrounds and styles must be forced together even if those beliefs violently contradict one another. Robert Frost, the poet, was wrong when he maintained that "good fences make good neighbors."
I laughed out loud again, mostly at the Frost reference. Take a moment and read the poem, then come back. Ready? Okay. It is clear from the poem that Frost is arguing against fences. "Something there is that doesn't love a wall,/ That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,/ And spills the upper boulders in the sun" denotes nature's abhorrence of artificial barriers between people. The neighbor building the fence "moves in darkness." To suggest that Frost "maintains" that good fences make good neighbors is absurd and a gross misreading of the text, and says something about the critical thinking skills of anyone who would read it that way. But beyond that, to the larger point made here, is again a seeming reference to desegregation efforts. I cannot condone such bigotry.

9. Coercion in the name of liberty is a valid use of state power.
Here is an opportunity for me to discuss what seems to be an underlying thread: People who believe these things must also believe that the gubmint schools are out to turn their children into Bad People who are Not Like Mommy And Daddy. Let us start with a news flash: Most children rebel against their parents; it is a key feature of adolescence. This has nothing to do with the gubmint schools. In addition, people who believe this are operating under the false assumption that the teachers in the gubmint schools are all mindless, godless communists whose sole purpose is to turn children into mindless servant drones of the state. These are people who have never set foot in a classroom. I have. I have been in my own classroom, of course, but I have also seen my colleagues at work. Every good teacher I know--and most of the bad and mediocre ones, too--wants children to become vibrant, vital, critical, smart individuals. I suppose the push to make these kids explore the boundaries of their own knowledge and discover whatever it is inside of them that will drive them to academic success could be construed as coercion. But I don't see it that way, and I don't see how anyone with actual, as opposed imagined, knowledge of what happens in school could believe it.

In the end, I think about what many of these same conservative anti-gubmint-schoolers demand from public schools. They want everyone in schools to say the same prayers, they want everybody to learn how to read in the same rote fashion, they want everyone to learn that their creator designed life on earth. This is coercion. This is hypocrisy.

I am happy when my students just write a good essay, read outside of class, or get accepted to a good college. I don't want drones, I don't teach them that mommy and daddy are wrong, and I don't force them to suppress their personalities or moral and religious beliefs. I don't know any gubmint school teacher who does.

This list of nine is a collection straw men, exaggerations, distortions, and propaganda. It is misleading to say that they accurately describe the public schools that, at least here in Wisconsin, are a part of our constitutional repsonsibility. It is a lie even to suggest that they describe me.