The Diary of a Mad Public School Teacher
Page 5
Few elementary teachers say they think they are “very well qualified” to teach science. It’s no wonder that science often gets less time and attention than other subjects.
It is hard to imagine that a teacher who majored in science and who is certified for grades 7–12 cannot teach sixth-grade science, but that a teacher certified for K–8 with one or two science classes can.
According to present Ohio teacher certification standards and requirements, Einstein would not be able to teach physics in Ohio public school classrooms. But he could teach in any private school.
This whole proficiency test conundrum reflects what Mark Twain once said: “There are three kinds of lies—lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
David A. Hancock
Chesterland
Public Schools Mission: Serve All, Not Chosen Few
To the editor:
I must respond to Michael Murray’s letter (The Sun Press, Aug. 14) that states, “CH-UH spends so much because it’s a monopoly.” Schools cannot compete for students in the same way that businesses compete for customers. Vouchers do not mean much to a poor child whose parents are given a tax credit of $1,000 to attend a private school that charges $20,000-plus in tuition.
As the late Al Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said so well, “A real test would be to have volunteers from the non-public schools to take over a number of classes from public schools. Take them as they are—without picking the students they want, or those whose parents are motivated, or those who can afford to pay, and put them under private auspices for a year or two. Then we’ll see if the non-public schools have some magical ingredient for their success, and if they do, whether they’ll share it with the rest of us.”
Meryl Schwartz, president of United Parents’ Association of New York City, stated the issue well: “Public school doors are opened to every child—rich, poor, handicapped, gifted. They are the backbone of our American heritage, composed of all races, creeds, religions.”
Private and parochial schools (which comprise more than 90 percent of all private schools) cannot and do not make that claim, nor do they have to. Their doors can close on any child. Every parent has the right to choose religions or private education for their child—but not the right to use public tax money to subsidize a private choice because she/he opts not to use available public school services.
The Milwaukee voucher program has allowed a small number of poor parents to send their children to private schools, but it has failed to deliver the educational benefits supporters claimed for it. The most important lesson to be learned from Milwaukee’s experiment is not educational but political. It’s a lesson in how the white power structure has used the Milwaukee program to advance an agenda that has little, if anything, to do with the needs of impoverished children.
Let’s put it this way—when we talk about doctors and patients, teachers and students, lawyers and clients, when it comes down to evaluating results, you can’t measure the effects of what we do. Why not? They’re intangible. Oh? Why should I pay you for intangible results? Because I’ve been trained and licensed to practice. Hmmmm … all right. Here’s your money. Where? I don’t see it. Of course not. It’s intangible!
David A. Hancock
Chesterland
Sports Fans Pay, Taxpayers Don’t
To the editor:
Regarding Mary Jane Skala’s Reflections column (The Sun Press, Sept. 16), she stated, “Rothschild said aloud what many taxpayers believe. Higher taxes aside, many voters will fight the levy because they don’t’ believe they’re getting their money’s worth out of our schools.”
Sports fans have no problem spending $200 plus for attending an Indians or Browns game but complain and vote no for a public school levy that costs them $350 a year on average. Question: Are the fans getting their money’s worth? All they are doing is adding to the athletes’ egregious bank accounts.
It has been proposed that one should go to infant school in France, preschool in Italy, primary school in Japan, secondary school in Germany, and college in the United States.
David A. Hancock
Chesterland
The writer is a science teacher at Heights High School.
Bus Parents Too
James P. Orr of Cincinnati, quoted in the Cincinnati Enquirer, said it well: “Busing children all over town to supposedly create racial balance has virtually done away with the traditional neighborhood-school concept. Now, the ‘in’ [sic] thing is to bash the parents of these children for not participating in the activities of their children’s ‘community’ schools.
“Would the people who dreamed up busing please come forward with a transportation plan for the parents?”
David A. Hancock
Chesterland
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
SCHOOLS REFLECT SOCIETY
The best known of the blame-the-school documents is A Nation at Risk, from 1983, and it serves as an exemplar of the genre. That inane booklet listed fourteen indicators of education decline, thirteen directly related to test scores. The other one was indirectly related to test scores—the complaints from business and industry about the great sums they have to spend on remedial training.
These indicators proved, the authors wrote, that we must dedicate ourselves to the reform of our educational system. Yeah, right!
The schools bore the brunt of criticism over the years of a small variation in test-score decline. However, test scores started increasing, reaching record high levels by 1990. Did the schools get credit for the turnaround?
No! The peak tests scores went totally unnoticed.
This is common. Schools were blamed for letting the Russians get into space first when the USSR launched Sputnik I in 1957. No one mentioned the schools in 1969 when the US put humans on the moon and got them back safely. Russian rockets never managed to even get to the moon.
A Nation at Risk blamed schools for our apparent lack of global competitiveness. A decade later, when headlines such as “The US Economy Back on Top” started appearing in newspapers, no one credited the schools. Many said, “Our schools are failing.”
Just in case you forgot some history, let’s consider test-score declines in context. The decade of 1965–75 opened with the Watts riots in Los Angeles, which were followed by urban violence all over the nation. The free-speech movement exploded onto the streets of Berkeley, California, barely one year after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
This was the decade that gave rise to the aphorism, “If you remember the ’60s, you weren’t there.” It was the time of acid rock, Woodstock and Altamont, the Summer of Love, the Beatles, the Stones, Jefferson Airplane, and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. In 1965 came Timothy Leary’s book and slogan Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out. Not exactly a mantra designed to produce high test scores.
It was a decade when 58,000 Americans lost their lives in Vietnam while Country Joe and the Fish sang, “Ain’t no time to wonder why, whoopee, we’re all going to die.” It witnessed the Kent State and Jackson State shootings, the Chicago police riot, Watergate, and the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X.
All of which is an extended way to point out, once again, that schools don’t exist in a vacuum. Everyone knows this, but many forget it when they start thinking about global competitiveness or the information society or the test scores of other nations.
The principle of data-smog interpretation is “Beware of simple explanations of complex phenomena.” This principle might be considered a corollary of a law formulated some seventy years ago by H. L. Mencken: “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong.”
My thirty-eight years of teaching experience makes me conclude that schools reflect society; society does not reflect schools.
David A. Hancock
Chester
Write on Preschool Levies
As a proud real estate–tax paying resident and citizen of our community for thirty-five years, I was ruminating and lamenting about our No-No-No voters who chose and decided not to financially support our excellent public school system. Leave no child behind—right!
We are leaving many children behind in my opinion. Oh yes, the war on children is going well in our community, which I’ll call “educational terrorism.”
It appears that the no voters are a morose coterie of avarice, pecuniary, parsimonious mercenaries in their attitude in regard to school finance and funding. Obviously, the panacea would be to rescind the quagmire debacle of Ohio HB920.
We do not want Saddam–spider hole school facilities for our children to try and learn in, do we? We need a safe home away from home for our children with adequate equipment, supplies, well-compensated professional educators, etc., in order to educate our children for a diverse world.
An average of $0.32/day? Big deal! I’m sure many of us spend much more on Starbucks (overrated, phony-facade elitism), alcohol, tobacco, junk food, music, sporting events, entertainment, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. Are we getting our money’s worth? I doubt it!
Believe me, we are getting our money’s worth and more in terms of our children’s education.
Are we getting our money’s worth from doctors, lawyers, hospitals, politicians, entertainers, athletes? I doubt it. We are just adding megabucks to their egregious bank accounts.
Remember, if you are not satisfied here, then move to Vegas, Bainbridge, Beachwood, Chagrin Falls, Shaker Heights, etc., and take your child with you. Better yet, go to infant school in France, preschool in Italy, primary school in Japan, secondary school in Germany, and college in the United States.
Let us remember the wit and wisdom of the literary legend Mark Twain: “The greatness of the Nation lies in our Public Schools.” And don’t forget the homeschooling option of isolation.
David A. Hancock
Chesterland
Write On
Editor:
Intolerant and antagonistic are two words to describe Mr. David Hancock’s 4/18 editorial.
Besides being intolerant to any voter who would dare to vote no on a school levy, he makes an antagonistic remark toward homeschoolers. He mistakenly labels homeschooling an option of isolation.
I wonder if Mr. Hancock is aware that most education took place in American homes with either the parents or a tutor (usually a pastor) providing instruction from the time of the Pilgrims in 1620 into the late 1800s.
Those early Americans were such educational extremists! They actually had the gall to use the family Bible to help the youngsters learn to read by mastering the letters and phonics of the scriptures being repeatedly read to them. Alexis de Tocqueville in his travels throughout the colonies and frontier found a Bible to be in nearly every household.
Were these people very literate? The success of homeschooling was the ability of the average citizen to read and understand the Federalist Papers, which was specifically written for the common man but is very rarely comprehended today—we’ve come a long way, haven’t we?
Would you say Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Quincy Adams, or Abraham Lincoln (and others) were isolationists? They were not, but they were homeschooled. All were taught by their father or mother to read.
Ben Franklin (also homeschooled) taught himself so well in science that he was on the cutting edge of many new scientific discoveries. Andrew Carnegie and Thomas Edison were also homeschooled.
John Marshall, soldier, lawyer, diplomat, and also chief justice of the US Supreme Court (by age 45), was homeschooled. Others taught at home were Mark Twain, Agatha Christie, Florence Nightingale, C. S. Lewis, Rembrandt Peale, Claude Monet, etc.
Today, homeschoolers enjoy social action with various age groups through sport clubs (like skiing at Alpine), speech and debate groups, band, etc. Homeschoolers enjoy socialization without bullies, drugs, constantly hearing the F word, and last but not least, they don’t have to worry about someone pulling a gun out and shooting.
Another important item to remember is that a homeschool family pays their taxes in full but doesn’t utilize the facilities they help finance.
C. Grougan
Chesterland
Noblest of Professions
Now that I know C. Grougan is Cathy, it all makes sense as an XX chromosome, estrogen-based letter. I am an XY chromosome, testosterone-based letter, usually.
I’m going to stop the homeschooling debate. Ms. Grougan may call me anytime for more enlightening discussions.
I would like to respond to her perceptions about teacher education as a career and not a job.
I have been very fortunate, grateful, and thankful about receiving many cards and letters from several of my twelve thousand students who thanked me for being an inspiring, iconoclastic, heretic teacher. It reminds me of Henry Adams, who said, “A teacher affects eternity: You can never tell where his/her influence stops.”
Several former students are doctors, nurses, teachers, professors. I even had a former student for surgery. It wasn’t brain surgery. I have had several former students in my college classes. What a joy!
Teaching is the noblest of all professions. There are good and bad teachers, doctors, lawyers, nurses, etc.
The teaching profession may have the perception of being ideal. Listen to Roy Orbison’s song “In the Real World.” For enlightenment, our egos’ greatest disappointment, visit a school all day. Anyone who would like to discuss school, teaching, and education, please call me. I might even invite you to lunch. You may need Zantac, Head On, and Extra Strength Tylenol, though. Or listen to my radio program on WJCU 88.7 FM, The Diary of a Mad Professor.
I have had several of my nursing students tell me about their catatonic, unreasonable, robotic schedules that may elicit somnambulism, narcolepsy, and chronic fatigue syndrome. Simply hire more professionals, a panacea for quality care. It should prevent lethal medical mistakes. I’m sure Dr. House would approve.
Since I seem to be developing Broca’s aphasia, I would like to end this harangue, diatribe, or pontification with the following: maybe it’s my schizoid personality disorder or hypomania from my amygdala acting up or sophistry.
I’m retired—a first-year baby boomer who just loves to listen to the song by the Mamas and the Papas, “Go Where You Wanna Go, Do What You Wanna Do.” Time to go to lunch, have a couple margaritas, take a nature walk through the woods on a sunny afternoon (Robert Frost influence), have a cigar, read, take a nap, listen to some music, ride my bike, schedule my next monthly vacation (Connie Francis song influence, v-a-c-a-t-i-o-n every day of the year) trying to discover nirvana. It sure isn’t Chesterland.
In conclusion, “I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion” (Thoreau). “All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind” (Aristotle). “Everything has been figured out except how to live” (Jean-Paul Sarte).
As Gary Larson of The Far Side said, “Adios Amebas!” And avoid being a beast of burden and trying to saw sawdust. In order to accomplish this, read The Joy of Not Working: A Book for the Retired, Unemployed, and Overworked by Ernie Zelinski. Notice the initials are EZ!
David A. Hancock
Chester
WRITE ON
HOMESCHOOLING ADVANTAGES
Editor,
I want to compliment C. Grougan for an insightful response to my “No-No-No” letter to the editor. I was also delighted that I am aware of your historical references.
I would encourage all parents of preschool children to read The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real-Life Education by Grace Llewellyn, especially if you believe in homeschooling K–5.
Personally, after 38 years and 20,000 students as a public school teacher-educator 7–12 a
nd counselor, I wish more parents would have homeschooled their children! Then I would not have been exposed to more obstinate, cantankerous recalcitrants that elicited Head On headaches!
Some parents do not trust the public schools to help educate their little geniuses. Maybe they are thinking of Winston Churchill (“I am always ready to learn, but I do not always like being taught”) or Mark Twain (“I never let schooling interfere with my education”) or Margaret Mead (“My grandmother wanted me to have an education, so she kept me out of school.”).
I saw a cartoon with two college-admission counselors meeting with a student and reviewing his college application, which was very impressive: high school valedictorian, student council president, captain of every sport your school offered, four undefeated seasons in every sport, prom king, voted most likely to succeed and most popular, perfect attendance record … and their caption? “Advantages of the Homeschooled.”
In today’s diverse culture, I am still convinced that 100 percent academic homeschooling is isolation. However, all parents should be homeschooling their children in morals and other things that enhance their academic and interpersonal intelligence. Summer vacation is the perfect time to enhance learning.
That’s one thing that I always enjoyed about teaching. It wasn’t a job, it was a career, plus the school calendar of 180 days, which entitled me to 180 days of vacation/year! I receive 91 percent of my top salary for retirement (which started at age 56) plus benefits. Ah! The joy of being a teacher! We deserve it!
And one more thing, I’m happy that my parents did not choose to homeschool me academically. However, they did homeschool me in morals, values, ethics, Eagle Scouts, travel experiences, etc. They believed what Mark Twain said: “The greatness of the nation is in public schools.”