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January-February 2002 - Articles and Columns

My Word! - David H. Albert

Standardistas

"They want to get rid of cilia!" exclaimed Aliyah, a frown deepening across her 13-year-old face as she speed-read the article.

"Cilia, too," I repeated, putting down the sports section.

"Well, cilia are the whole reason for paramecium. How is anyone going to talk with a scientist? What are we going to say -- 'little wavy things?'"

"How about flagella?" I suggested, then remembering -- stupid me -- that those are found among a different class of critters entirely.

"No, they are getting rid of flagella, too!"

Ali was reading a May 2001 article on a new, highly publicized guide Designs for Science Literacy, published and promoted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The recommendations, being sent to every school board, school administrator, and school superintendent in the United States, are designed, according to Andrew Ahlgren, project associate director, "to assist education leaders, teachers, publishers, and developers in assembling instructional materials for kindergarten through twelfth grade that are coherent and relevant." The goal, says Ahlgren, is to change the curriculum so that even basic science education "is challenging and meets global standards."

"No right-angle trigonometry?" She was now really steamed. "How will we build anything? And, look, they removed the periodic table, and acids and bases. How is anyone going to understand acid rain? And no more oxidation, respiration, aerobic or anaerobic..."

"Well, I guess we'll simply have to talk about breathing."

"And they are getting rid of mitochondria. How can you study evolution without mitochondria?"

"Hey, Ali, this is not my idea," I reminded my daughter, intending to cool down the conversation. "Why don't you write them a letter?"

* * * * *

"How is anyone going to talk with a scientist?" was the question that stuck in my craw. I might have added, "How could one understand fully the public controversy about the teaching of evolution, or how could one act as a responsible citizen to curb air pollution?"

The point is, maybe our kids are not supposed to be scientists, or even involved, responsible, thinking citizens. John Taylor Gatto notes that public education is aimed solely at preparing youth for the jobs of tomorrow. And we know where those jobs are. According to Gatto, citing U.S. Department of Labor statistics, the occupation mostly widely held by Americans, as well as the job that has had the largest growth in the past 30 years is -- I kid you not -- Wal-Mart clerk. Second is McDonald's burger flipper. Third is Burger King flipper. And close behind? Schoolteacher.

Now, it should be emphasized, the major requirements for all four of these jobs are the same. The first, and by far the most important, is that one has to show up, preferably on a regular or predictable basis. The second is compliance -- one does what one is told in an expected and predictable manner, without asking too many questions (don't ask where the clothes are made, what's in the burger, or how they came up with that asinine standardized test question!) The third -- really just an extension of the second -- is that one doesn't rebel. Only These job categories currently requires higher education, but I expect that will change. Within five years, I would not be surprised to find community colleges offering associate degrees in burger flipping, er, I mean, "fast-food technology management." And in some states where the teacher shortage is most acute, the higher education requirement for schoolteachers is now being waived. Soon, the two jobs may be interchangeable.

The education standardization movement across America has occurred without any meaningful public discussion of what those standards should be, or what they mean. You can be sure they have nothing to do with excellence, which is why anyone who suggests the obvious is likely to be viciously attacked. And don't dare to ask to see the test questions! Maybe the whole point is that "we" ("Moi?") need Wal-Mart clerks, rather than scientists, computer people, or mathematicians.

Professor Dudley R. Herschbach of Harvard University, 1997 Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry, is a board member of the New Calculus Project, a national effort to re-evaluate the teaching of mathematics. He argues that teaching students more than the four basic mathematical operations is not necessary for most occupations. It is cheaper, after all, he says, for American industries to import mathematicians and scientists from other countries. (The idea that mathematics, or chemistry for that matter, might actually be a beautiful thing seems never to have crossed his Nobel Prize-winning mind, but then he teaches at Harvard, and he probably believes that we mere mortals are not capable of experiencing this beauty, or are worthy of it.)

What this means for public education is that students in schools without access to advanced or "college-level" courses will become second-class citizens. They will lack the common vocabulary that could allow them to become conversant with scientists or scientific issues, or active, informed citizens. We all know where these schools are, and the predominant skin colors, ethnic makeup, and incomes of the families of the kids condemned to them. The public schools will then have accomplished Their major aims: to find "objective" ways to limit the opportunities of those that attend them.

Of course, the officials at the American Association for the Advancement of Science claim that their priority is simply to "improve" science textbooks.

* * * * *

So what does all this mean for homeschoolers? For one thing, it means we have to learn more emphatically to turn our backs on, and our hearts away from, the work of the Standardistas. These standards are developed without any regard to the needs, interests, passions, or aspirations of your own or any other individual child. The Standardistas care more about Wal-Mart than they do about your kids, or mine.

Not all children will want or need to go to college. Not all kids will want to learn trigonometry or read King Lear. Instead of focusing, as the Standardistas do, on our children as a collection of deficits, as empty boxes waiting to be filled, we could do the one thing we know we can do better than the schools ever can, and that is listen to them, and act upon what we hear. And we can teach them -- and model for them -- that the art of learning is a beautiful thing in itself, and one that they can carry with them into a fulfilling adulthood.

Now I'll be the first to admit that I haven't had a paramecium wave a ciliated "hello" to me in over 35 years. Or at least I haven't noticed. It is not one of those beautiful conversations with which I have been blessed. But I've had others, and I sorely wish I had been afforded the opportunity to have them earlier. And this leads me to a clear conclusion, and it is the opposite of that suggested by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Once your child acquires a passion -- whether it is auto mechanics, horses, or high-energy physics -- provide them with the opportunity to acquire all the vocabulary. All of it -- forget "developmental appropriateness" -- all of it. There is no need to wait, and there is a need that you don't!

It will enrich their conversation with the world of auto mechanics, horse breeders and physicists, and will enable them to try on futures for themselves. The problem (actually just The long litany of problems) with modern schooling is that we wait too long to allow our children to have these conversations; so long, in fact, that many of our kids are inured to boredom, and come to view such conversations with haughty disdain (a cover for fearfulness) long before they might have had them, and so they never do.

Do we remember that George Washington (no intellectual giant, whatever his myriad other virtues) first attended school at age 11, and the first subject in mathematics he ever studied was trigonometry, because he wanted to be a surveyor? Do we remember that Benjamin Franklin knew virtually everything there was to know about printing presses by age 12, or that, by the same age, Maria Mitchell -- the first American women astronomer and the first women elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences -- was setting chronometers by the stars for ship captains putting in at Nantucket?

And, by gosh, do you know? They all managed to have "reasonable futures" even without having ever attended Hamburger University.

* * * * *

Check this one out: www.mcdonalds.com/corporate/careers/hambuniv/index.html. They even have 30 full-time hamburger professors!

© 2002 David H. Albert

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January-February 2002 - Articles and Columns

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