New Trends in Education That Really Aren't New

Everything new is old again. So is the case in certain American schools, which are overturning sacred modern educational ideology by re-instituting special classes for below-average students. In "Holding Back Young Students: Is Program a Gift or a Stigma?", Winnie Hu briefly reports on this trend and shows how it is igniting a firestorm among educators who have long rejected the traditional idea that students should be, in some cases and in certain subjects, educated according to their intellectual level. Here's the current scene:

With the increasing emphasis on standardized testing over the past decade, large urban school systems have famously declared an end to so-called social promotion among youngsters lacking basic skills. Last year, New York flunked 6 percent of its first graders, and Chicago 7.7 percent.

Now the 8,400-student East Ramapo school district in this verdant stretch west of the Palisades is going further, having revived a controversial retention practice widely denounced in the 1980s to not only hold back nearly 12 percent of its first graders this spring but to segregate them in a separate classroom come fall.

Predictably, Hu blames this situation on the Left Behind Act, favorite whipping boy of many education professionals:

[W]ith the federal No Child Left Behind law and a battery of state mandates increasing pressure on schools to raise test scores, efforts to end the longtime practice of promoting children based on age rather than achievement have taken on new urgency. Districts in Milford, Del., and Lakeland, Fla., are among a handful nationwide that have been experimenting with transition classes in recent years, though both dropped them in the face of parental resistance and, in Florida, concerns among teachers.

Hu provides a very telling quote that reveals why so many contemporary teachers and educators buck against the more traditional system:

“I had a hard time putting just the low-achieving kids together,” said Betty Fitzgerald, principal of Lakeland’s Churchwell Elementary, which ran a separate class for repeating third graders for two years in response to tougher state standards. “It’s like saying, ‘You all are low kids, and you all didn’t pass.’ ”

Here's the central problem, then: self-esteem. It's not so much the bottom line--in this case, what students actually learn--but what students feel that drives the ideology of many contemporary educators and teachers. Now, I'm by no means in a hurry to put students in situations where they feel bad, but my first concern for students is not that they feel good, but that they learn. Funny how our system sometimes loses sight of this aim, which I believe it is intended, funded, and tasked to fulfill.

In the process of education, one often feels bad. I've always felt bad when I didn't do well in school. To this day, I hate getting bad grades. It's unpleasant, furthermore, to have to work hard on difficult subjects. I've currently got a ton of books to read for a PhD class. Is that pleasant in the same way that, say, a basketball game is? No sir. Definitely not. But is the process of reading multiple books on an academic topic hugely helpful to me? Absolutely. Were other self-esteem challenging, character-building educational exercises of similar help to my mind and heart? They certainly were. If difficult educational tasks are navigated with care and support from parents and teachers, great rewards will be reaped by many students (though in today's massive schools, one can understand how teachers and educators would struggle to provide the help many challenged students need--are many of our public schools, perhaps, far too large for their own good?)

Will today's students reap similar benefits, or will they suffer from a system that often seems to care more about their feelings than their minds?

You tell me.

What Kids Are Reading Nowadays, and How it Relates to the Greatest Commandment

Ninth-12th Grade

1. "To Kill a Mockingbird," Harper Lee
2. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows"
3. "Of Mice and Men," John Steinbeck
4. "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone"
5. "A Child Called 'It,' " Dave Pelzer

--Source, Seattle Times

This selection is part of a larger list that you can read at the link above. Here are some reflections found in the article:

"I find it reassuring ... that students are still reading the classics I read as a child," said Roy Truby, a senior vice president for Wisconsin-based Renaissance Learning. But Truby said he would have preferred to see more meaty and varied fare, such as "historical novels and biographical works so integral to understanding our past and contemporary books that help us understand our world."

Michelle Bayuk, marketing director for the New York-based Children's Book Council, agreed. "What's missing from the list are all the wonderful nonfiction, informational, humorous and novelty books as well as graphic novels that kids read and enjoy both inside and outside the classroom."

I would second (or third, maybe) these thoughts. My initial thought about the 9-12 grade list was that it shows that this age group has not lost its taste for fantasy and also for poignant, morally reflective writing. Contrary to what some may say, youth in our age still do have an appetite for study of the deeper realities and questions of life. Though many in the current day saturate themselves with ephemeral entertainments, yet it should be clear that a yearning for instruction in moral living and engagement with transcendent experience have not disappeared from our culture. For the youth who read (admittedly, a decreasing number), wisdom and transcendence are main targets.

I like Roy Truby's comment most. He sounds like a guy I would have some common ground with. American youth seem to have lost sight of the country's past. As technology and entertainment drive us further away from the instinct to prize us what is past, I am sure that this trend will only continue, and the lessons and events of history will disappear from national consciousness. How important, then, that Christians root their children in the treasures of national and religious history. One of the most damaging things a Christian can do to their understanding of Christianity is to rob it of historical connection. Wisdom is not found only in the Scriptures, but is found also in the story of the Scriptures played out across the ages. To pretend that we have no past, and therefore that we have nothing to learn from history, is to make the most egotistical and egregious of mistakes.

It is also true that one cannot examine the ideas and doctrines of the Christian past without rooting them in their cultural situation. We are not meant to encounter ideas outside of their age, but should instead study those ideas in connection to their day. Doctrines, theologies, and innovations do not rise out of a vacuum, but proceed from a definite course of events that require study to flesh out the idea being considered. History, then, is no mere footnote to philosophy or theology, but is the brother of these disciplines. The best history examines the great theological and philosophical questions of the past; the best philosophy and theology comprehends the historical circumstances that gave birth to these questions, and studies how these questions were applied in the ages of human existence.

What are kids reading, then? Well, it's clear that not many of them are reading any of three aforementioned disciplines. If we're glad that kids are reading, period, we should also avoid the dumbing down of our children's educations. We should bring before our children the great treasures of past ages and train their minds from a young age to study the higher and deeper things of life. Christians who impoverish the minds of their children and allow them to feast on entertainment and pop culture should not be surprised when their children develop an appetite for the same. When, however, we give our children a steady diet of meaty intellectual fare, their minds, like their bodies, will strengthen and grow, and we will have accomplished in some form the God-given responsibility to train them in loving the Lord our God with all of our mind, an oft-overlooked aspect of the first and greatest commandment.

We write all this not because we think that we'll take over America on an intellectual level if we accomplish this task, or because America as a society will radically change if we do so. No, we do so to honor God. It seems that is in such simple choices as what we give our children to read that their character and minds will be profoundly shaped. In heaven, we will not worship God only in the affective dimension, as contemporary songship seems often to imply, but with our minds. A mighty torrent of wisdom will flow into our souls, and we will be awestruck by what we then know and comprehend. Perhaps we can train our children for the next realm, and give them a glimpse of things to come, by feeding them the full riches of literature while we have time in this one.

Segregated Education: The New York Times Considers the Same-Sex Education Issue

I came across an interesting and lengthy piece by Elizabeth Weil in the New York Times which tackles the question of whether single-sex education is a beneficial and justifiable educational option. I worked for eighteen months on research for a book on manhood and thus found the article compelling. I'll give you a few key sections from it.

Here are the results from over 2,000 studies on whether same-sex schooling offers students a better education:

"In 2005, the United States Department of Education, along with the American Institute for Research, tried to weigh in, publishing a meta-analysis comparing single-sex and coed schooling. The authors started out with 2,221 citations on the subject that they then whittled down to 40 usable studies. Yet even those 40 studies did not yield strong results: 41 percent favored single-sex schools, 45 percent found no positive or negative effects for either single-sex or coed schools, 6 percent were mixed (meaning they found positive results for one gender but not the other) and 8 percent favored coed schools. This meta-analysis is part of a larger project by the Department of Education being led by Cornelius Riordan, a Providence College professor. He explained to me that such muddled findings are the norm for education research on school effects."

The students who most benefit from same-sex schools are generally disadvantaged:

"That certainly appears to be the case for single-sex schools. The data do not suggest that they’re clearly better for all kids. Nor do they suggest that they’re worse. The most concrete findings from the research on single-sex schools come from studies of Catholic schools, which have a long history of single-sex education, and suggest that while single-sex schools may not have much of an impact on the educational achievement of white, middle-class boys, they do measurably benefit poor and minority students. According to Riordan, disadvantaged students at single-sex schools have higher scores on standardized math, reading, science and civics tests than their counterparts in coed schools."

Some wonder if the same-sex education project doesn't compromise essential principles of American education:

"Given the myriad ways in which our schools are failing, it may be hard to remember that public schools were intended not only to instruct children in reading and math but also to teach them commonality, tolerance and what it means to be American. “When you segregate, by any means, you lose some of that,” says Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation. “Even if one could prove that sending a kid off to his or her own school based on religion or race or ethnicity or gender did a little bit better job of raising the academic skills for workers in the economy, there’s also the issue of trying to create tolerant citizens in a democracy.”

I won't comment at length on the piece. There are far too many questions to consider for a blog of this length (and depth). I will say quickly that it is clear that Weil is skeptical (highly) about the effects of same-sex education. The piece is written from that slant. I would also say that it is not immediately clear to me that it has been proved that same-sex education is in fact better for boys and girls than coed education. The first quotation illustrates the difficult time researchers have had attempting to figure this question out. However, I can also say that I myself do not subscribe to a worldview in which my beliefs must be based in verifiable science. That is to say, I do not use the scientific method to determine what I believe. I do not need a study to make me believe everything I hold to be true. Some things I believe have been backed up by science and some have not. This does not cause me to lose much sleep because I know that science is itself imperfect, that research findings are no sure thing and are constantly disputed, and that even with its power to empirically substantiate or disprove science is not equipped to answer the larger metaphysical questions of life. While I am interested, then, in what studies have to say about varying forms of education, I do not feel the need to rely on them to make my own educational decisions.

Furthermore, it is interesting that even as Weil makes a case in this article for the lack of positive proof for theories of same-sex education, she manages to provide at least some empirical verification for this educational model. Did you catch that? Look at the first quotation--41 percent of studies favored the single-sex model while only 8 percent (!) favored the coed model. Yes, there is a large percentage of data that offers neither a negative or positive judgment on educational models, but we should not allow Weil to skim over the fact that the single-sex model achieved five times the level of educational satisfaction--or whatever the term is--that coed education did. Even as Weil's skill with the pen and ability to present two sides of a story seems to prove her side of the case, the data she cites point in exactly the opposite direction, though it requires further clarification.

It is interesting as well to note one liberal writer's political philosophy butt up against her philosophy of gender. Did you see that one? The third paragraph, that which closes the article, pushes us to remember that education is, after all, about teaching things like tolerance, and thus the implicit point made is that coed education is best. And yet just a few paragraphs earlier Weil has said, with uncharacteristic clarity, that single-sex education most benefits disadvantaged youth from minority backgrounds. This is a fascinating quagmire. A liberal view of social justice runs headlong into a liberal view of education, and the result is strewn all across one's web page. Where is Weil's heart for the disadvantaged? If single-sex education benefits the American disadvantaged, the group whose cause papers like the New York Times seek to champion, why would single-sex education not be embraced? Because of this: gender ideology runs very deep in Weil and in our society. Nothing is so sacred, it seems, as holding on to a view of gender--and, accordingly, of a coed classroom--that preserves feminist ideology. One is sad for the disadvantaged contingent who stand to benefit from single-sex classrooms. They are poised to reap great help from their schools, but may never receive it because of ideology that refuses the truth even when it stares it in the face.

Christians have a stake in this debate. The issues are many and difficult. Of course, many among us would question the underlying assumption of Weil's article, that the state should educate our children. Christians will go different routes on this question, but it can be hoped that we will train our children in such a way that they are allowed to succeed. For us, ideology will not--must not--trump truth. Though I cannot point definitively to a study that proves it, it seems clear to me that boys and girls will benefit hugely from being in environments that allow their particular traits to run free. I don't know about you, but I don't need a scientific study to tell me that, on average, boys are far more active than girls in school and require a good deal more attention than girls. I don't know why this is; I didn't make things this way. But my lack of knowledge does not refute my personal experience and the experience of countless others who educate and raise children according to biblical principles and a basic commitment to common sense. I don't by any means think that a coed classroom is evil, and I do not seek to demonize it, but neither do I think for a moment that the educational experience is not greatly improved by classrooms in which boys and girls do not worry about one another, make statements according to how the opposite sex will respond, and bother one another, all products of a coed classroom.

In a world that allows flawed ideology to drive its educational institutions, we Christians must educate our children well and commonsensically. More than this, though, we must stand beside our children and train them up in the faith, whether they are home-schooled or educated outside of the home. Whether they are in a coed classroom, a home-school basement, or a number of other environs, we must ensure that we do not cede theological, philosophical, and intellectual instruction of our children to the lost among us. The ideological battles over education discussed in this article may seem esoteric, but they have a clear and powerful impact on those who must bear their consequences: children.