My son came home from school today and said, "Today we learned the US was responsible for starting the Cold War." I asked him to tell me how the US started the Cold War, he said that the USSR was so frightened by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that it prompted them to intensely pursue nuclear weapons. I'm really getting tired of this kind of junk history being taught to my child. It is evident that the only way ideas like this can be passed off as credible is to intentionally omit critical historical context and otherwise twist world events.
The assertion that we started the Cold War by using the Atom Bomb makes many assumptions that discount significant facts. Perhaps my son's teacher naively assumes Stalin had not come in contact with atomic science before he saw it on display or that he would not have been enticed to use it's extraordinary potential for military dominance once he did. Both are ignorant assumptions that place blame on the US simply because we "fired the first shot." This is a tragic simplistic view of the effect World War II, and it's convergence with the known scientific discovery of atomic fission, would ultimately have on world powers.
I am not in favor of the juvenile reasoning used in his class lesson but to illustrate it's deficiencies let's apply this logic to the facts his curriculum omits:
In the first decades of the 20th century, physics was revolutionized with developments in the understanding of the nature of atoms. Hopes were raised among scientists and laymen that the elements around us could contain tremendous amounts of unseen energy, waiting to be harnessed. In a 1924 article, Winston Churchill speculated about the possible military implications: "Might not a bomb no bigger than an orange be found to possess a secret power to destroy a whole block of buildings—nay to concentrate the force of a thousand tons of cordite and blast a township at a stroke?" Perhaps if we apply the logic of my son's school lesson, we could blame the Cold War on the imaginations of Winston Churchill. Or perhaps we can blame H.G. Wells and his 1914 novel that incited the imaginations of nuclear war 50 years before kids would duck under their desks in terror.
The fact that Nuclear fission was a known scientific theory as early as 1898 would alone suggest that Stalin wasn't caught unaware of the potential. The first experiment confirming the atomic bomb theory was conducted in Germany, not the US, by Lise Meitner and Otto Robert Frisch on January 13, 1939. Years before the Manhattan project, nuclear fission was sparking the violent imaginations of Hitler, who had world supremacy on his mind. The collaboration of the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada during World War II, known as the Manhattan Project, was put in place to counter the suspected Nazi German atomic bomb project. Even if such a project did not exist, the cost of assuming Hitler wasn't developing the capacity was too great a gamble to simply wait and see. Applying the logic of my son's school lesson here you might easily conclude Hitler was to blame for sparking the chain of events leading to an arms race and the Cold War, after all, Hitler had the whole world on the defensive.
By the time Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939, beginning World War II, many of Europe's top scientists had fled the imminent conflict. Physicists on both sides were well aware of the possibility of utilizing nuclear fission as a weapon, but no one was quite sure how it could be done. In August 1939, concerned that Germany might have its own project to develop fission-based weapons, Albert Einstein signed a letter to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt warning him of the threat. Applying the logic of my son's school lesson we might conclude Albert Einstein trigger an arms race, or perhaps it was FDR for believing him.
But wait, it was only after the bombing of Pearl Harbor that FDR devoted significant resources to a serious atomic project. Applying the logic of my son's school lesson, we could conclude that Japan is responsible for the Cold War by dragging America into the war. But then again, progressive logic might lead us to conclude that there was no other nation besides the US capable of making a bomb and had it not been for the exceptional intelligence of scientists in America no one would have ever figured it out. Once again applying the logic of my son's school lesson here we might conclude that talented scientists are to blame for the Cold War.
The Soviet project to develop an atomic bomb was launched as a top secret research and development program during World War II, after evidence of German and western nuclear programs was collected by the Soviet atomic spy ring and presented to Stalin. Also adding to Stalin's awareness was Soviet physicist Georgy Flyorov who noticed that in spite of the progress German, British and American physicists had made in research into uranium fission, scientific journals had ceased publishing papers on the topic. Flyorov deduced that this meant such research had been classified, and wrote to Stalin in April 1942. Applying the logic of my son's school lesson here we might conclude that the arms race was caused by America's unwillingness to share atomic advancement with Russia.
Despite the fact that Stalin launched a full blown atomic bomb project in September 1942, after gathering intelligence on the German nuclear project, progressive historians point to the fact that Stalin made a decision to accelerate his program in the wake of the atomic bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as evidence supporting the idea that America launched the nuclear arms race and the Cold War. Besides other logical explanations for why Stalin's expanding nuclear program might coincide with the bombing of Japan, I suppose you might conclude Stalin was merely protecting himself from Germany and the allied powers, but only if you willfully ignore who Stalin was.p
How about we apply some grown up logic to this curriculum:
My son's class will study the "Cold War" in the next chapter, but today's commentary is not a stray thought from a careless teacher, it is straight out of the text book. I've been reading my son's US history text book, a Pearson published text titled, "The American Journey." This is not the first historical distortion I have encountered in this book, however, it is astonishing that any history text taught widely to US students can so distort the record of the Soviet Union as to shed doubt on the fact that Russia had aims to spread world communism. The text book claims that "Truman and the 'wise men' who made up his Foreign policy circle ignored examples of 1945 Soviet conciliation," which they evidence by the fact that the Soviets "demobilized much of their army," and credited Russia with "allowing a democratic Finland and free elections in Hungry and Czechoslovakia." Further the book charges the boldness of the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plans with putting Russia on "the defensive" and undoing any hope there might have been for peace with Russia. Both assertions are misleading at best but if these inferences are suggesting that the world would have been a more peaceful place without US "boldness," then it is only fair that the curriculum explore the question, "Would world peace have been achieved had the Americans simply left war torn Europe in shambles and retreated to our own shores?"
The astonishing deficiencies in this analysis has at its root an attempt to draw moral equivalency between oppressive regimes, like Russia, and America's influence on the world stage. This faulty foundation saturates this text book from cover to cover. It is outrageous to suggest that Russia's aggression in Eastern block countries was justified self-defense as a reaction to US designs to liberate and establish free societies in Europe. This is a sickening mis-characterization of the nature of communism and Stalin's totalitarian regime and what was in reality the lowering of an Iron Curtain of totalitarian control and deadly oppression over Eastern Europe. Russia's atrocities during World War II, their brutal administration of East Berlin, and their provocations beyond their own boarders were enough to cause series concern to the free world. The Soviets blockaded Berlin, annexed several occupied countries, and converted Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Albania, and Czechoslovakia into Soviet Satallite states with oppressive communists governments.
Despite the 1949 tests of Soviet nuclear bombs, the Communist leader Mao Tse-tung taking power in China, and a fierce war with communist North Korea, the text book claims it was the US that "accelerated a forty-year race with the Soviet Union." The explanation of the causes of the Cold War put the heavier burden for the escalation on the US. The book details Truman’s dislike of Stalin as exaggerated suspicion, blames Truman's pursuit of the hydrogen bomb for locking the US into the Cold War, portrays American fear of communist attack as sensationalized, and faults the US for the mistrust between nations because of their refusal to share nuclear secrets.
The text book makes no attempt to imagine how the world might have looked had it been left to the bold plans of Stalin's worldview? Where are the mentions of the deplorable dictator who personally made death lists and ordered whole groups of his own people to die. After all, Stalin was the dictator who systematically exterminated 30,000 Red Army officers so he could work plans for military conquest unimpeded by Russia's national heroes. He used murder as state policy executing 90% of the Russian Parliament, he sent 14 million to die in slave labor in the Gulags, and his campaign of murder was so endemic that historians struggle to estimate the millions who died at his hands, estimates ranging widely between 30 and 60 million people.
It is a fact that in the rubble of World War II he sought to expand his brutal regime of absolute control and murder, and it is irresponsible for any text book to infer that he did so purely motivated by "self-defense." The Western powers foolishly placed their trust in Russia's goodwill at the 1945 Yalta Conference only to watch in horror as their Polish Allies were executed and the relocation of tens of thousands of Poles, already victimized by Hitler, were forced into slave labor in Stalin's gulags. The British parliament was so ashamed of betraying their Polish allies that they allowed liberal immigration to Polish refugees. Both FDR and Churchill expressed deep regret over their naive trust in this brutal dictator. Stalin was never a man who acted on the honorable virtues of self-defense and his view of world dominance left no room for America's commitment to world liberty.
Weighing all the evidence: The fact that it is not only impossible to hold back scientific progress, but foolish. The fact that there have always been men in this world bent on the evil domination of others. The fact that the world was gripped in the jaws of evil by the rise of the most despicable dictators the world had ever known; dictators who were seeking these weapons, who would eventually acquiring them, and who were entirely capable of using them to oppress the world. Based on the evidence, it is far more accurate to conclude that the Cold War was caused by Communist designs to dominate and control the world, then to place the blame on the shoulders of the US who was working against extraordinary odds to secure liberty in the world. Now that's applying grown up logic based on the facts which seems to have no place in my son's US History curriculum.
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Friday, March 7, 2014
Is Public School a Healthy Place to Socialize a Child? (Part 3)
I believe that children are highly impacted by the socialization they receive at home but to pretend that the values parents work hard to inculcate at home, can’t be significantly undermined by a degrading social environment at school, is a dangerous type of denial.
Examples are so numerous and sickening it is impossible to share them all, here is a short list: A recent controversy was sparked over an ‘oral sex’ and ‘anal sex’ poster that was supposedly part of an ‘abstinence-based’ sex-ed lesson. A drama teacher had his students perform a play in which one of the characters falls in love with a goat. The play includes sexually explicit content and vulgar sexual terms." Third graders were given a lesson on adultery that included specific questions designed to make the child curious about what adultery. A federally funded sex education program being piloted in Hawaiian promotes homosexuality to middle school students and presents “medically inaccurate” information, redefining the anus as a “genital.” A Michigan father was angry when he discovered a biology assignment that normalizes "sleeping around." A middle school teacher and part-time actor showed his students a risqué video of himself “partially clothed and in bed with a woman.
In part one of this series, I discussed the sexual abuse that is becoming a serious threat in our public school systems, affecting 10% of students. In part two I discussed the increase in negative peer interactions due to a disintegrating of family culture. This would be enough to undermine trust in the idea that public school is a healthy place to socialize a child, but this third subject is the primary cause for concern in my book. There is a growing inability of school administrators to set and model exemplary conduct standards and to make competent and moral judgments over content and discipline.
While deviant student behavior it is not entirely the fault of schools, the school system plays a powerful role in enforcement of standards of conduct for students and staff. There is a wide spread rationalization among parents and educators as to what defines appropriate behavior when related to those things that lead to sexualization of youth; such as basic modesty, speech, media, dance, and music. In most cases the standards are well defined in student handbooks but go unenforced. The neglect of enforcement of exemplary standards by school administrators is sending the message, “do as I say, not as I do.” This neglect is exposing the entire student body to risky behaviors.
While deviant student behavior it is not entirely the fault of schools, the school system plays a powerful role in enforcement of standards of conduct for students and staff. There is a wide spread rationalization among parents and educators as to what defines appropriate behavior when related to those things that lead to sexualization of youth; such as basic modesty, speech, media, dance, and music. In most cases the standards are well defined in student handbooks but go unenforced. The neglect of enforcement of exemplary standards by school administrators is sending the message, “do as I say, not as I do.” This neglect is exposing the entire student body to risky behaviors.
Examples are so numerous and sickening it is impossible to share them all, here is a short list: A recent controversy was sparked over an ‘oral sex’ and ‘anal sex’ poster that was supposedly part of an ‘abstinence-based’ sex-ed lesson. A drama teacher had his students perform a play in which one of the characters falls in love with a goat. The play includes sexually explicit content and vulgar sexual terms." Third graders were given a lesson on adultery that included specific questions designed to make the child curious about what adultery. A federally funded sex education program being piloted in Hawaiian promotes homosexuality to middle school students and presents “medically inaccurate” information, redefining the anus as a “genital.” A Michigan father was angry when he discovered a biology assignment that normalizes "sleeping around." A middle school teacher and part-time actor showed his students a risqué video of himself “partially clothed and in bed with a woman.
School handbooks instruct students to wear appropriate clothing, to speak in clean language, to be respectful and then the school administrators expose our kids to crass sexual content. They expect young men to show respect to young women and are then lax in enforcing dress codes which results in these young men being surrounded daily by bare breasted cleavage and extremely short shorts. A very tall handsome and honorable 16 year old son of one of my friends once expressed his frustration with the revealing clothing girls at his school wore, he said that he often avoided looking down as he walked through the hall because it was impossible to avoid looking straight down their shirts. His shorter buddy joked that he’d like to have that problem.
While administrators are reportedly cracking down on t-shirts with political and even patriotic messages, they are ignoring low cut see through blouses and shorts so short that they reveal the butt cheek when sitting. Students at school dances show off more and more skin as they dance in sexually suggestive ways and administrators are increasingly losing their will to clean it up. Meanwhile teachers and administrators find time find to enforce the really important stuff, like this story from Lucy Elementary School near Memphis, Tenn.: an assignment required each student to pick an idol and write an essay about him or her. A 10-year-old girl chose God as her idol, but the teacher found this unacceptable and demanded that the girl write about someone else. So I guess God’s out as a role model but our kids should find value in morally bankrupt art and language content.
My first public activism and the beginning of my involvement in education politics was as the organizer of a parent's society in my Nebraska school district (where the culture is far less degraded than here in Maryland). Feeling strongly that our district wasn't doing enough to set and enforce higher behavioral standards for students and teachers alike, our goal was to promote policies in our school district that preserved a wholesome environment to foster quality educational and social experiences for our children. We wanted school district administrators and teachers to be committed to preserving our children’s innocence and dignity by effectively implementing exemplary standards.
My first public activism and the beginning of my involvement in education politics was as the organizer of a parent's society in my Nebraska school district (where the culture is far less degraded than here in Maryland). Feeling strongly that our district wasn't doing enough to set and enforce higher behavioral standards for students and teachers alike, our goal was to promote policies in our school district that preserved a wholesome environment to foster quality educational and social experiences for our children. We wanted school district administrators and teachers to be committed to preserving our children’s innocence and dignity by effectively implementing exemplary standards.
The concern that kicked our efforts into gear was a high school football mock striptease act done with administration support in a mandatory student pep-rally. The football players came into the gym bundled up in winter clothes and striped (imitating strippers) to rowdy music until they were in their boxer shorts with their chests painted in school spirit colors. One young man who was there was brave enough to tell his mother how uncomfortable he was, he observed a young woman in front of him blush with embarrassment as one of the players moved close to her during the dance and thrust his hips in her face repeatedly. The student body roared with applause at the whole screen as admins and teachers approvingly looked on. In fact, the act was repeated many times over that year at booster events.
Increasingly administrators and teachers are making content choices that embrace a degraded culture and even run contrary to most student codes of conduct. For example, a recent high school play at my son’s school featured scenes that made comical reference to pornography and masturbation, made light of marital infidelity, and made sex before marriage the norm. Time and again I have watched as music directors and theater departments at high schools across the US pass up the vast quantity of quality wholesome musical and theatrical content in lieu of content that portrays immoral and risky sexual behavior and demean wholesome family relationships.
Parents who are bothered by these trends know just how common it is. A friend of mine felt the need to complain when the music teacher at his daughter’s school made an unbecoming song choice of "Don't tell mama" a song sung by Cabaret girls. Show choir students were encouraged to play the part of "bar hussies “and sing a risqué song while flaunting their stuff.
Increasingly administrators and teachers are making content choices that embrace a degraded culture and even run contrary to most student codes of conduct. For example, a recent high school play at my son’s school featured scenes that made comical reference to pornography and masturbation, made light of marital infidelity, and made sex before marriage the norm. Time and again I have watched as music directors and theater departments at high schools across the US pass up the vast quantity of quality wholesome musical and theatrical content in lieu of content that portrays immoral and risky sexual behavior and demean wholesome family relationships.
Parents who are bothered by these trends know just how common it is. A friend of mine felt the need to complain when the music teacher at his daughter’s school made an unbecoming song choice of "Don't tell mama" a song sung by Cabaret girls. Show choir students were encouraged to play the part of "bar hussies “and sing a risqué song while flaunting their stuff.
A high school near my home chose "Rent" as their high school musical which delves into drug abuse and portrays homosexuality. When parents complained about this choice the response from administrators was that it was not a good for students to be exposed to "real life". I hear this a lot, I also get this one; "it's no worse then the culture at large." A poor argument in my opinion it simply excuses poor behavior in our schools because the behavior in the culture is so bad. How do they think it gets that way, this is the next generation we are socializing after all.
In Nebraska, even the school board president's complaints about the choice held no sway over administrators. He said, “When we start asking them to depict in character a lifestyle in New York ... that deals in drugs, that deals in same-sex relations, that deals in provocative dress, I don't know that high school is the appropriate forum for that.” For my part, these things are not the kind of "real life" I am trying to build for my children, these things have no part in my "real life," and they certainly aren't the values and norms I want my children to build their future on.
This stuff starts innocently enough which prompts parents to ignore the problems. A parent contacted me one day disturbed by the choice of choreography in her child's choir concert. The middle school music teacher had the children wag their bottoms at the audience at the conclusion of a musical number. It was made worse by the fact that parents in the audience hooped and hollered, giving the students cat calls. The parent was disturbed that other parents in the room could not perceive the problem with teaching the students to use their bodies to get that kind of attention. Another parent had to complain when she discovered a teacher was using the "flip the bird" obscenity to teach students to hold their pencils correctly, a lesson plan that was repeated the following year despite the complaints of parents.
Social media has enabled this poor judgment to come to light on a scale that shouldn't be ignored. What school administrators continue to portray as isolated incidents many parents are coming to realize are common place. Inappropriate content sometimes comes to the classroom from curriculum published far from it, but this is no excuse. Socialization is a natural part of education, it is the way in which a society disseminates the norms, customs, and ideologies that are the means by which social and cultural continuity are attained. What norms and ideologies are educators disseminating to children today? The problems discussed in this series are not getting better, they are getting worse, and I believe it calls into serious doubt the idea that public school is a healthy place to socialize a child.
This stuff starts innocently enough which prompts parents to ignore the problems. A parent contacted me one day disturbed by the choice of choreography in her child's choir concert. The middle school music teacher had the children wag their bottoms at the audience at the conclusion of a musical number. It was made worse by the fact that parents in the audience hooped and hollered, giving the students cat calls. The parent was disturbed that other parents in the room could not perceive the problem with teaching the students to use their bodies to get that kind of attention. Another parent had to complain when she discovered a teacher was using the "flip the bird" obscenity to teach students to hold their pencils correctly, a lesson plan that was repeated the following year despite the complaints of parents.
Social media has enabled this poor judgment to come to light on a scale that shouldn't be ignored. What school administrators continue to portray as isolated incidents many parents are coming to realize are common place. Inappropriate content sometimes comes to the classroom from curriculum published far from it, but this is no excuse. Socialization is a natural part of education, it is the way in which a society disseminates the norms, customs, and ideologies that are the means by which social and cultural continuity are attained. What norms and ideologies are educators disseminating to children today? The problems discussed in this series are not getting better, they are getting worse, and I believe it calls into serious doubt the idea that public school is a healthy place to socialize a child.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Is Public School a Healthy Place to Socialize a Child? (Part 2)
In addition to comments about "sheltering" their children, homeschoolers all to often get comments from people concerned their children aren't being properly socialized. In part one of this series I talked about the worst of the sexual abuse that is becoming a serious threat in our public school systems, a threat that 10% of students fall victim to. However, while most parents are concerned when they hear stories of sexual abuse, they tend to believe it is isolated and that their child is safe. In this part two we will explore how peer interactions at school contribute to the way children are socialized in public school.
In response to part one in this serious, I received some feedback from parents who questioned the premise that public school is the place where a child is socialized. One mother commenting that public school "isn't a means for socialization, that it should be for educational purposes only." So, before I get started with my part two discussion of this topic, let me take a moment and defend my premise that children are socialized at school. First, I believe that children are highly impacted by the socialization they receive at home, but I also believe that education plays a significant role in this process and that it's impossible, not to mention irresponsible, to expect that it won't. For thousands of years education was not seen only as the acquisition of a narrow set of skills but rather a life long process leading to the development of a mature mind and a moral character.
Thomas Jefferson described the purpose of education as one beyond acquiring the basic skills of reading, writing, arithmetic..." and the outlines of geography and history." He explained that the purpose in acquiring skills and knowledge is to improve "by reading" a persons "morals and faculties; To understand his duties to his neighbors and country; To know his rights... and in general to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed." This sounds a lot like socialization to me.
So what is socialization? It is "a term that is used to refer to the lifelong process of inheriting and disseminating norms, customs, and ideologies; providing an individual with the skills and habits necessary for participating within his or her own society. Socialization is thus the means by which social and cultural continuity are attained." Even if you take away the true nature of education, of which socialization is a part, the reality is that schools do view socialization as part of their mission and they are heavily involved in providing it; whether or not we like the way the go about it. Even if we were somehow successful at separating socialization and education in modern schools, not that I believe that is the answer, an education that is merely the training of skill sets would be terribly deficient and would ultimately result in a type of socialization by default; meaning "a child left to [his peers] bringeth [his nation] to shame."
In an ideal world our society would be a place where wholesome social values inculcated at home are nurtured and expanded during a child's education at school. With that critical continuity weakened an increasing number of parents are choosing to educate at home, as to be able to provide a complete education, one that contains healthy socialization. However, these homeschool parents are constantly challenged by friends and strangers who express concern that homeschooled children are not being properly socialized. In this part two perhaps we can shed some light on why more parents have doubts about whether public school is still the best place for a child to establish thinking about 'cultural norms, ideologies, and habits'"?
Just as most parents believe their children are not at risk for sexual abuse at school, most likely parents believe that negative social interactions at school will have a negligible effect on their child. However, I believe the risks are stacking up against that belief.
First off, too many kids today aren't being socialized by vigilant parents. In general, children spend more time with their teachers and peers than their parents. Public school days and years are getting longer, parents are working more, children are eating more of their meals at school and day care. After school kids are either in constant structured activities (sports, dance, music, etc.) or mostly unsupervised in front of media during spare time. Thus the role of parenting is shifting to the shoulders of teachers, however ineffective that is, and that shift has degraded the quality of peer interactions children have at school. This effects all children whether or not their parents are active in their lives.
Secondly, those parents who work hard to create wholesome social environments for their children at home often feel their efforts constantly thwarted by the messages their kids are bombarded with at school and in the media. I believe that most parents are trying very hard to inculcate proper values in their children, and while many are successful, it is taking greater and greater effort to overcome the social environment at school as it disintegrates.
The types of negative social interactions children are exposed to are increasing in number and severity. Of particular concern are the increasing incidents of violence, inappropriate sexual conduct among children at school, crude language, sassy back talk, serious disruptive behavior, and overall disrespect of teachers. All of these are examples of peer related influences. I hear mothers often express their concerns about their kids peers at school. Unlike at home or in the community, a child does not choose the kids in their class, and often has no choice of who they sit next to in class or at lunch. So naturally parents wonder, what is the character of the kids my child is forced to associate with?
In a most extreme case that rocked parents nationwide, two Kindergarteners found by their teacher having sex in a school bathroom. I read several social media threads on this story and in general parents defended the teacher who was threatened with loosing her job, realizing immediately that the behavior is more the fault of the parents of these children who were obviously acting out what they were exposed to at home. But here is the problem, as our society looses what were once shared values of morality, trust breaks down. Children are highly influenced by their peers and it is much harder to be certain that those influences will not present danger.
Parents who talk to their kids, particularly middle and high school aged children, know that sexual conduct is increasing among students; from crude sexual speech to sexting and sexually active youth. It is becoming more widely discussed in the media that sexting trends among students are on the rise and at younger ages. An acquaintance of mine uncovered a wide spread sexting scandal at her sons high school, when she found tweets of naked pictures of students on her son's twitter feed. The students were taking naked pictures of themselves on school grounds and tweeting them out to a school wide hash tag. Hundreds of students had viewed the pictures. Even when it doesn't go this far, the sexualization of children is on display in the way students dress and talk, dance and grope; and there sometimes it seems school administrators aren't motivated to clean it up (but that's a discussion for part three in this series).
In response to part one in this serious, I received some feedback from parents who questioned the premise that public school is the place where a child is socialized. One mother commenting that public school "isn't a means for socialization, that it should be for educational purposes only." So, before I get started with my part two discussion of this topic, let me take a moment and defend my premise that children are socialized at school. First, I believe that children are highly impacted by the socialization they receive at home, but I also believe that education plays a significant role in this process and that it's impossible, not to mention irresponsible, to expect that it won't. For thousands of years education was not seen only as the acquisition of a narrow set of skills but rather a life long process leading to the development of a mature mind and a moral character.
Thomas Jefferson described the purpose of education as one beyond acquiring the basic skills of reading, writing, arithmetic..." and the outlines of geography and history." He explained that the purpose in acquiring skills and knowledge is to improve "by reading" a persons "morals and faculties; To understand his duties to his neighbors and country; To know his rights... and in general to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed." This sounds a lot like socialization to me.
So what is socialization? It is "a term that is used to refer to the lifelong process of inheriting and disseminating norms, customs, and ideologies; providing an individual with the skills and habits necessary for participating within his or her own society. Socialization is thus the means by which social and cultural continuity are attained." Even if you take away the true nature of education, of which socialization is a part, the reality is that schools do view socialization as part of their mission and they are heavily involved in providing it; whether or not we like the way the go about it. Even if we were somehow successful at separating socialization and education in modern schools, not that I believe that is the answer, an education that is merely the training of skill sets would be terribly deficient and would ultimately result in a type of socialization by default; meaning "a child left to [his peers] bringeth [his nation] to shame."
In an ideal world our society would be a place where wholesome social values inculcated at home are nurtured and expanded during a child's education at school. With that critical continuity weakened an increasing number of parents are choosing to educate at home, as to be able to provide a complete education, one that contains healthy socialization. However, these homeschool parents are constantly challenged by friends and strangers who express concern that homeschooled children are not being properly socialized. In this part two perhaps we can shed some light on why more parents have doubts about whether public school is still the best place for a child to establish thinking about 'cultural norms, ideologies, and habits'"?
Just as most parents believe their children are not at risk for sexual abuse at school, most likely parents believe that negative social interactions at school will have a negligible effect on their child. However, I believe the risks are stacking up against that belief.
First off, too many kids today aren't being socialized by vigilant parents. In general, children spend more time with their teachers and peers than their parents. Public school days and years are getting longer, parents are working more, children are eating more of their meals at school and day care. After school kids are either in constant structured activities (sports, dance, music, etc.) or mostly unsupervised in front of media during spare time. Thus the role of parenting is shifting to the shoulders of teachers, however ineffective that is, and that shift has degraded the quality of peer interactions children have at school. This effects all children whether or not their parents are active in their lives.
Secondly, those parents who work hard to create wholesome social environments for their children at home often feel their efforts constantly thwarted by the messages their kids are bombarded with at school and in the media. I believe that most parents are trying very hard to inculcate proper values in their children, and while many are successful, it is taking greater and greater effort to overcome the social environment at school as it disintegrates.
The types of negative social interactions children are exposed to are increasing in number and severity. Of particular concern are the increasing incidents of violence, inappropriate sexual conduct among children at school, crude language, sassy back talk, serious disruptive behavior, and overall disrespect of teachers. All of these are examples of peer related influences. I hear mothers often express their concerns about their kids peers at school. Unlike at home or in the community, a child does not choose the kids in their class, and often has no choice of who they sit next to in class or at lunch. So naturally parents wonder, what is the character of the kids my child is forced to associate with?In a most extreme case that rocked parents nationwide, two Kindergarteners found by their teacher having sex in a school bathroom. I read several social media threads on this story and in general parents defended the teacher who was threatened with loosing her job, realizing immediately that the behavior is more the fault of the parents of these children who were obviously acting out what they were exposed to at home. But here is the problem, as our society looses what were once shared values of morality, trust breaks down. Children are highly influenced by their peers and it is much harder to be certain that those influences will not present danger.
Parents who talk to their kids, particularly middle and high school aged children, know that sexual conduct is increasing among students; from crude sexual speech to sexting and sexually active youth. It is becoming more widely discussed in the media that sexting trends among students are on the rise and at younger ages. An acquaintance of mine uncovered a wide spread sexting scandal at her sons high school, when she found tweets of naked pictures of students on her son's twitter feed. The students were taking naked pictures of themselves on school grounds and tweeting them out to a school wide hash tag. Hundreds of students had viewed the pictures. Even when it doesn't go this far, the sexualization of children is on display in the way students dress and talk, dance and grope; and there sometimes it seems school administrators aren't motivated to clean it up (but that's a discussion for part three in this series).
Another peer social trend that is causing parents great concern, is the increase in bulling and violent attacks among students. One alarming trend that illustrates this are the numerous stories and videos of bulling and criminal behavior on school buses? Dozens of incident reports were released by local news in my state, reports that tell stories of sex, violence and drugs on Maryland school buses in suburban districts, and not just with older kids, one report documents an incident where an elementary school student hit another kid and threatened to shoot her with his dad's gun.
The student behavior on school buses has become truly scary and is an important illustration of student character overall, because character is what comes out when a child feels no one is watching. The Washington Post reported how "school bus drivers described students fighting and kicking each other or throwing bottles, coins and pencils at them. At times, students pitch food, paper and objects out the window at people walking or driving by... drivers said they have found weapons, such as bullets and switchblades, left behind after students get off buses." School bus drivers in Texas protested because student conduct on buses was so bad, they demanded they be shown respect. A utter lack of respect and open rebellion is another part of how kids today are socialized by their peers.
Some of the worst stories that have received national attention and should be a wake up call for how the social environment at schools is deteriorating. It's not isolated to inner city school districts either, an Ohio third grader was violently beaten by 17-year old student on a rural bus. A 10 year old rural Virginia boy was viciously bullied and the video caught physical and verbal abuse that went on for 40 minutes. A bus driver who witnessed a brutal attack of a boy on his bus said he suffers from nightmares after not being able to stop the attack. Before you say, well just don't let your kids ride the bus, might I point out that whether or not your child rides the bus, they may very well be sitting next to one of these violent perps in class?
Violence in the halls at school is also a problem that is escalating in our society. An estimated 16 percent of all high school students in this country have been in one or more physical fights on school property in the course of a year. The worst cases are when it turns deadly, as it has in what seems like a rash of school shootings by mostly disturbed young boys. Overall, school shootings are still rare but they are hitting closer and closer to home for an increasing number of people.
In my life school shootings have hit close to home twice. Once when I was in high school and my sisters friend was shot in the head by a ricochet bullet after a student staring firing a gun at lunch. The second was a schools shooting that took the life of two school administrators at the high school a block from my house. Both of these schools were small town mid-western schools.
These are just some of the stories that make news but I believe there is plenty of reason to be concerned at the general increase in crude and offensive language, disrespect of teachers, general lack of discipline, immodest dress, sexting, and shocking juvenile PDA that is on display in schools throughout the country. All of these things are on the rise, even in "suburban districts," and all of these things are happening at younger and younger ages. Whether or not your child has not been involved in these acts of violence or sexual conduct, they are in danger of being exposed to it, if they haven't already, and exposure has a desensitizing impact on the moral compass of children and youth. So it should be no surprise that so many parents are asking themselves, "Is public school a healthier place to socialize a child?"
The student behavior on school buses has become truly scary and is an important illustration of student character overall, because character is what comes out when a child feels no one is watching. The Washington Post reported how "school bus drivers described students fighting and kicking each other or throwing bottles, coins and pencils at them. At times, students pitch food, paper and objects out the window at people walking or driving by... drivers said they have found weapons, such as bullets and switchblades, left behind after students get off buses." School bus drivers in Texas protested because student conduct on buses was so bad, they demanded they be shown respect. A utter lack of respect and open rebellion is another part of how kids today are socialized by their peers.
Some of the worst stories that have received national attention and should be a wake up call for how the social environment at schools is deteriorating. It's not isolated to inner city school districts either, an Ohio third grader was violently beaten by 17-year old student on a rural bus. A 10 year old rural Virginia boy was viciously bullied and the video caught physical and verbal abuse that went on for 40 minutes. A bus driver who witnessed a brutal attack of a boy on his bus said he suffers from nightmares after not being able to stop the attack. Before you say, well just don't let your kids ride the bus, might I point out that whether or not your child rides the bus, they may very well be sitting next to one of these violent perps in class?
Violence in the halls at school is also a problem that is escalating in our society. An estimated 16 percent of all high school students in this country have been in one or more physical fights on school property in the course of a year. The worst cases are when it turns deadly, as it has in what seems like a rash of school shootings by mostly disturbed young boys. Overall, school shootings are still rare but they are hitting closer and closer to home for an increasing number of people.In my life school shootings have hit close to home twice. Once when I was in high school and my sisters friend was shot in the head by a ricochet bullet after a student staring firing a gun at lunch. The second was a schools shooting that took the life of two school administrators at the high school a block from my house. Both of these schools were small town mid-western schools.
The vicious bullying that has gotten nation wide attention is another concern for most parents. This issue was propelled to national awareness because of astonishing cases like the one that ended when a 12 year old took her own life to end the torture her peers leashed out on her. Parents worry that their child might be next to fall victim to the kind of vicious bullying that can have life long repercussions. Most of us had an encounter with a "mean girl" in school, but now bullying is hitting a new level, in one case a 17-year old girl secretly posted a nude photo of a 15-year-old girl to an Instagram site without her knowledge. Of course these are the worst examples, but sit down in any moms group and strike up a conversation about bullying and you will get an earful. My own son's fifth grade year was made unbearable because of a bully who made it their mission to isolate and ostracize him socially.
These are just some of the stories that make news but I believe there is plenty of reason to be concerned at the general increase in crude and offensive language, disrespect of teachers, general lack of discipline, immodest dress, sexting, and shocking juvenile PDA that is on display in schools throughout the country. All of these things are on the rise, even in "suburban districts," and all of these things are happening at younger and younger ages. Whether or not your child has not been involved in these acts of violence or sexual conduct, they are in danger of being exposed to it, if they haven't already, and exposure has a desensitizing impact on the moral compass of children and youth. So it should be no surprise that so many parents are asking themselves, "Is public school a healthier place to socialize a child?"
Violence:
- Bus Driver suffers from nightmares after not being able to stop a vicious beating caught on his school bus
- School bus drivers in Texas protest because student conduct on buses was so bad, they demanded they be shown respect
- Las Vegas middle school girl viciously attacked at her bus stop
- Ohio third grader violently beat by 17-year old student on a rural bus
- 10 year old Virginia boy was viciously bullied and the video caught physical and verbal abuse that went on for 40 minutes
- Indiana teens were arrested when a cell phone caught a violent bus beating and the video was posted on Facebook
- Many more such reports have ended up in the national press, but we know these only represent a small fraction of incidents yearly
- Middle school boy opens fire on classmates, injuring two
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