Contributed by Cal Pappas
NOTE: Part 1 of this article can be found in the March 2022 edition of The People’s Paper
Where we are now and ranked 14-27 in the world (depending on the source) in education:
With all the changes happening in public education, after my retirement in 2006 I moved to Willow and began over thirteen years subbing at Su Valley School in Talkeetna. By the end of my tenure there I knew education could not sink much lower. Su Valley held on to tradition for a decade but progressive administration brought changes.
Scrapped first was behavior and expectations of civility among students. The problem as I see it is school districts keep track of each school’s graduation rate, the number of failing grades and discipline issues in each school. Schools with the highest graduation rates and the lowest rates of poor grades and fewer discipline issues are seen as successful schools. Those schools that do score lower are seen as needing improvement. What is the solution to principals who want to show their school as successful and to superintendents who want the same for their school district? The answer, while disturbing, is both understandable and expected.
I was visiting a classroom next to the one I was subbing in. The teacher asked a student to put his cell phone away and the student ignored the teacher. On the fourth request the kid looked at the teacher and said, “F—k off.” The teacher let the kid continue to play on his phone. Why? He was instructed by the principal not to send discipline issues to the office (where they are recorded and tabulated).
I saw a student sitting in the hall doing his work. I asked him why he was not in class and he replied he swore at the teacher. When I told him he was better than that he replied, “Yeah, but nothing will happen anyway.”
At lunch and even class time I see students playing violent computer games rather than study. Beheadings, disembowelments, how many bad guys get killed, etc., are the the thrill on the school’s computers.
When I proctored a college entrance exam the instructions required students to complete the first page of personal information in cursive. Not one student write in cursive, and the students did not even know what cursive was! Schools today do not teach penmanship and very little emphasis is placed on spelling. Computers will do it all.
A teacher was failing two students. Their grade average was almost zero for doing absolutely nothing in class. The principal pressured him to do anything to bring the boy’s average to a C. Another teacher who was close to retirement mentioned to me the new political correctness was not worth the headache. “I just won’t grade below a C” he said.
One young and fairly new teacher mentioned to me how disappointing the educational system was. “It doesn’t matter how well I know my subject or even how well I teach. All that matters here is looking good.” While I knew the answer I asked what the meaning was. “You know, look good. No grades below a C and the kids don’t get in trouble for their actions.”
And then was the boy who called his teacher a “f—king c—t” in class, His punishment? To sit for the remainder of the day in the office.
As an interesting side bar, I mentioned the above instances (and many others) to teachers I meet in several southern African countries as I go there almost yearly to vacation and hunt. In fact, I speak to schools about life in Alaska as the Alaska reality shows fascinates everyone! When I ask the consequences to the students there who cuss at a teacher, who refuse to work, who refuse to put away their cell phones I am first met with a look of disbelief. “I can’t tell you what would happen because not only that it would never happen here but we can’t even fathom that it ever would.”
I tutored a young lady via the internet through her four years of high school in Zimbabwe. In that, the most corrupt country on the planet that is tied with Haiti in nearly every indicator of modern civilization, her lessons were far more advanced and demanding than any I taught or subbed for in my career. Education is taken seriously there as it is the only chance to rise above the abject poverty that is everywhere. Very few kids drop out or are expelled. Those that do are seen daily at stop lights, filthy and dressed in rags, begging for pennies.
What the future holds:
American high schools used to teach Latin and Greek. Now colleges teach remedial English. Take it from someone who spent 40 years in public education. The destruction of western civilization begins with western education. We are not losing the war. We have already lost.
Can it be fixed?
Yes! Dress codes, removal of cell phones and computer games from the classroom, severe consequences for misbehavior or foul language, kids must earn their diploma rather than be given one, grade point averages based on academic classes only—not to include teacher aide and other giveaway A grades, an attendance system based on the expectations in the real world of work, and return teachers to teaching rather than the kids using Google Classroom daily (where often games are played behind the laptop). Will this happen?
But, the realistic answer is “No.” Too many progressive freedoms are now the rule. Our destiny is to be behind third world countries such as Zimbabwe in education.
Everything written above has been personally witnessed my the writer.
Cal Pappas
AA, BEdu, MA, MS
26 years certificated public school teacher
14 years certificated substitute teacher