In reaction to a piece on which I’d posted earlier, Matthew Yglesias makes a good point—focusing on reading and mathematics in particular is fundamental to teaching kids to be good citizens:
The piece kind of rubbed me the wrong way, even though I wholeheartedly agree that partisan politicians should not censor which aspects of American history teachers are allowed to talk about. But I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was bothering me until I saw a later Ray tweet on a separate subject, learning loss during the pandemic.
Dying also causes "learning loss" and is much harder to reverse.
— Victor Ray (@victorerikray) September 1, 2022
It is, obviously, true that it is bad when children die. At the same time, we know that very, very few children have died from Covid-19. I don’t want to re-run the whole argument about school closures, just to observe that I think these two Ray takes are coming from the same place of underrating the importance of basic “three Rs†education. Citizenship is important, and it is one of the functions of the school system, but the best (and most realistic) way for K-12 schools to foster effective citizenship is to teach kids foundational literacy and math skills. Incorporating works about history or politics into the curriculum is a great idea insofar as it helps keep students engaged, but it’s best to make those core skills the North Star and try to avoid hubris and tons of polarized fights about tangential issues.
He goes on to support his case pretty well.
I do think I need to repeat the point I’ve made before. I’m a skeptic about “engaging” students in the manner he suggests. When I was in college it was known as “relevancy”. Acculturation is foundational, literally, for the public school system and that has never been truer than now. The U. S. population is presently about 16% Hispanic, mostly Mexican-Americans and, due to patterns of residence and the way our public schools are organized, if most of a school’s population is Mexican-American, should the school therefore be teaching Mexican history?
I would say “no”. It should be teaching English. It should be teaching American and English history. Those subjects should be taught in the interest of acculturation which would better prepare these young people for success in the broader society rather than to take their places in a ghetto.
You can only cover so much territory in a school day which means you must make choices. Therefore, although as enrichment materials adding things not directly related to English language and literacy and American and English history is fine but they cannot become the focus of education. That’s how we’ve gotten into the mess we’re in and why Asian-American students do so well. Their families insist that they maintain focus.
“.. if most of a school’s population is Mexican-American, should the school therefore be teaching Mexican history?”
Of course not. Cities have for many, many decades had their Chinatowns or Italian/Polish etc neighborhoods, but Chinese, Italian etc history did not dominate the school curricula. This is a more recent phenomenon brought on by the far left as part of a balkanize-then-appeal-to-grievance strategy. Failure to encourage, perhaps demand, acculturation is a profound failure of immigration policy.
Not sure why he wasted time on Ray’s stupid comment. Child covid deaths are vanishingly small. And further, this was really about the teacher’s desires, the kids be damned. The serious harm done to kids will last for decades. And it simply was not necessary.
IMHO there has not been a single major public policy initiative (with the possible exception of The Great Society) in my lifetime that has been such a failure and caused so much collateral damage as covid.
Someone is teaching a whole year of Mexican history? Who? I can see covering a month or so like English history was covered but who is doing an entire year?
Steve
Allow me to explain to you how a reductio ad absurdum argument works. MY argues for including materials to “engage” students that are not directly related to the subject material which should be taught. He proposes no limiting factor for those materials. I point out that there is only so much time in a day and that in the limit case all time is spent “engaging” students but none on the material that should be taught.
The solution to that is not to attack that limit case as a strawman (which is what you are doing) but to propose a limiting factor. In the absence of a limiting factor it is highly likely that the course material will be shortchanged in the interest of “engaging” students at least in some cases. It is in fact what we’re seeing in the low reading comprehension or math literacy that MY documents.
Furthermore I also point out that students may be “engaged” effectively without shortchanging the subject material.
My kids have been in schools in three states, and each one taught state and regional history as part of the curriculum. Here in Colorado, Mexico, the history of Spanish settlement and the various conflicts with Native Americans were all a big part of that. In Ohio, there was very little of that, and there was a much bigger focus on the Civil War.
Andy- Which is how I think it should work. Spanish/Mexican history is pretty relevant to the formation of our Southwestern states. Even if you dont live in the Southwest some of the interactions between the US and Mexico are relevant and at least some kind of survey of the relevant Mexican history would be merited.
An entire year devoted to learning the history of Mexico just for the sake of knowing the history of Mexico? That I dont see unless it is an elective so I would not support that. But as far as I know, no one is actually doing that. People keep setting up these straw man claims and they need to be knocked down, or provide evidence they exist.
Steve
Are we teaching US history, or Colorado history? Setting aside small amounts of time, regionally, is standard practice. But it must be done reservedly. Its not being done reservedly.
This: ” I point out that there is only so much time in a day…” applies.
To further make the point that it is activism, not regional accommodation, that has become the rule of the day, look at the overweighted teaching of sex ed, LGBQT theory, trans field trips etc etc. Johnny can’t read or add and subtract, but he has time for this? Bull.
For years, steve, your standard MO has been to minimize as the excuse for errant behavior. I point out that its really camel’s nose under the tent stuff. I’ve been right. You have not.
If every last second of the school day was allocated to traditional core skills, with complete elimination of the distractions or garbage introduced into the school day over the last 10 years by the left, I defy anyone to make the case that our kids and our country would be less well off.
And speaking of education and core values, in this case Constitutional.
For all you stare decisis fans –
https://jonathanturley.org/2022/09/12/badly-misses-the-point-post-columnist-hits-roberts-after-his-defense-of-the-courts-integrity/
A point I made here right after Dobbs.
The military is having a difficult time recruiting high school graduates because of their lack of skills. They are having to bring these high school graduates up to par, academically, teaching them what they weren’t taught in school, in order to be fit for service. So much for a good public education program.
It’s been long enough since I was in school that my memories are faded. We moved around a lot, so I did elementary school in Houston public schools (K-3) and US military base schools in Missouri (4) and Germany (5-6); Jr high in Germany (7) and El Paso (8); and high school in El Paso (9) and Alabama (9-12). We had year-long classes in Texas history and Alabama history. I don’t recall much in the way of Germany history in the base schools, although we did have German language classes.
When I was in 8th grade (and dinosaurs ruled the earth) we received one semester of Missouri history and Missouri civics. It was required by the state and I think something similar is required by many states. It didn’t substitute for U. S. history; it was in addition to it.
I don’t think that’s what’s being discussed as “engaging” students but even if it is I’d like to know the limiting factor. As I noted above the limiting factor in our case was one hour per school day for a semester. I don’t recall what it displaced.
“For years, steve, your standard MO has been to minimize as the excuse for errant behavior.”
Yours, and the entire right wing, is a hyperbolic response usually based on distortion or lies. Note that I asked who was teaching Mexican history. No response. Who is teaching it over an extended period of time. No response. You, like most conservatives have no interest in principles or the merits of an argument.
The military doesnt really recruit people with skills (unless you think reading and writing are skills) at the enlisted level. Its mostly designed to pick up people right after high school. The issue is that kids dont want to join the military if they have other options. By 2007 the percentage of enlistees with a high school diploma had dropped to 70% and the percentage deemed high quality (high school diploma plus at least 50th percentile on aptitude tests) was below 50%. The never ending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan probably had something to do with that. (Note that until very recently large numbers of people were excluded from the military because they had tattoos.)
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2008/01/the-u-s-army-lowers-recruitment-standards-again.html
Steve