Our Failure to Value Education
Tenth grader Stanley Thompson Jr. writes a most perceptive column about educational troubles today, including its greatest problem: The failure of American society to really value academic pursuits (“When We Value Intellectual Pursuits, We’ll Be Richer,” Op-Ed Page, Jan. 9). Not surprisingly, as Thompson notes, students don’t value education because their parents really don’t.
As a retired teacher, I know that at my high school most students could get as good an education as they chose to. Too many of them just wanted to slide through--with the consent or indifference of their parents. I hear our leaders pay lip service to the values of academic studies, but they often fail to put their money--or their trophies--where their mouths are.
Sports and extracurricular stars get far more popularity, trophies, media coverage, and public recognition than academic achievers.
Thompson correctly notes that an important spur to better schools is to change the way people in society think about learning. I agree, but it’s no easy job.
Most teachers try to teach useful knowledge and values (and the Legislature has just mandated a new one: teach sexual abstinence). Meanwhile, the media glamorize role models engaging in sex, violence, instant gratification, and constant fun, fun, fun. Maybe media shows should carry warning labels: Too much exposure may distort values and be dangerous to youngsters’ healthy growth.
On one point, Thompson far overstated the case when he said, “The education system in the United States is failing.” Schools are ailing, but not failing. They are not perfect, but parts of them are excellent. Any school system that produces a writer like Thompson can’t be all bad. And he is not that unique.
Education has had to develop hosts of new programs to meet the needs of a technological society and clients who 50 years ago would have dropped out, flunked out, or been thrown out. Many such programs are experimental; as yet, they work only for some students, some of the time.
And adding a whole new costly and irrational element on many campuses is the drug problem.
Still, educators come from all over the world, including Japan, to study American schools and take home many good ideas.
There’s bad news in schools, but there’s lots of good news, too. We just hear less about it.
THOMAS RISCHE
Torrance
