In a recent column, “Kids want to grow, learn; are we planting seeds of knowledge?” (Sun-News, 28 Aug), Peter Goodman commends the educational approach of the famous or infamous Summerhill School. Its once radical, child-centered approach let students follow their impulses in an educational environment. A quick search of the internet reveals many discussions about the school’s lifestyle and sex scandals, but few about the education which its students acquired, however they acquired it, except to note that, in its 100 or so years, the school has had a few distinguished graduates. The column promotes this approach to education without assessing its consequences.
Summerhill School is not a model for Las Cruces schools. The column assumes that one size fits all, that its approach can operate effectively in different schools and that their differences make no difference. It ignores socio-economic and cultural differences between one English private school for mostly middle-class white students from families with good educations and many New Mexico public schools for largely lower-class minority students from families with poor educations. It ignores the huge role which parental expectations play in educational attainment. In my day, in Shaker Heights, OH, rich, white, college-educated parents expected their children to study hard (dropping out, inconceivable), go to college, and have business or professional careers. Everyone graduated, and 96% went to college, at least a quarter of them to the very best in the country. In Las Cruces, most parents are neither rich nor white, and few themselves have a college education. Yet teachers blame them for not supporting their children’s education; whether parents deserve this blame, their children manage only mediocre results in statewide proficiency tests in basic subjects. Today, 72.4% of graduates go to mostly undistinguished colleges. The indifference of this column to such differences reflects white privilege.
The column cites an implausible instance for persuasive purpose. It reports that the Summerhill’s founder “had one kid who spent all his time in the woods. At 16, he decided he wanted to take the examination required for further schooling. He learned what he needed to learn in six months.” The instance is not only implausible, but also unrealistic; it implies that students can learn what they need to know in very little time. Otherwise, why cite it? The column seems to be serious, but it cannot be taken seriously.
The column omits information or even reference to the American attempt at student-centered education in the 60s and 70s. The Open Classroom was the attempt and a failure. It succeeded only in warping or discounting much traditional education, both curriculum and instruction, which has since contributed to the decline of education in America.
The column also presents no information as evidence for its claim that “Kids arrive excited, energetic, cheerful and curious, then many leave sullen and resentful.” I guess—I do not make unsupported assertions on this point—that some number of students have their curiosity suppressed before they arrive at kindergarten (and that early childhood education will not encourage it). In any event, I would like to have an explanation of this claimed change in feelings, not just the insinuation that it results from some stultifying approach to education.
The column claims that curiosity prompts students to learn naturally and eagerly, at random, without the structure and guidance of conventional approaches to education. For a while, it does, at birth, in infancy, and into childhood. But it is not free from the influence of its cultural and socio-economic environments, which circumscribe it. It is well known that enriched environments stimulate and support curiosity, depleted ones dampen and weaken it. So a laissez-faire approach which allows students, whatever their background, to follow their curiosity within their environment denies them opportunities for curiosity outside it. This laissez-faire approach further disadvantages the already disadvantaged; in diverse student bodies, it reflects white privilege. At some point, earlier and more for disadvantaged students especially, curiosity requires sustenance by supplements, structure, and guidance outward from instinct—in a word, education. Here, the etymology of the word is instructive; it derives from Latin “educare,” or “to lead out” of oneself. The column unwittingly urges the contrary, a sort of educational narcissism with its distortions and deprivations.
The core belief of this column in a child-centered approach to education is neither original nor appropriate. It goes back at least as far as Rousseau’s Emile and is as anti-intellectual as the succeeding Romantic Movement was. Its approach to learning is not an appropriate one for a world-oriented education for work, play, and personal growth.
This column or other recent columns on public education mean well but seem unenlightened by education in education, classroom experience, or expertise from civic involvement in public education. Public education in New Mexico has many problems, all deserving of criticism and all easy to criticize, but nothing commends solutions ill-adapted to students in their cultural or socio-economic environments.
Everyone has gone to school, has an opinion about education, and has a right to that opinion. But, without more knowledge than one’s narrow experience, one is unlikely to have a right or even a cogent opinion. Columnists have opinions and a right to them, but they best serve their readers if they base their opinions less on lifestyle fancies, wishful thinking, conventional wisdom, or ideological agendas, and more on broader perspectives, extensive information, and careful analysis.
UPDATES:
1. Mark Ronchetti has not (yet) answered the two questions which I posed to him about his views on abortion. A candidate for public office who believes in democracy owes it to the public to explain and, if necessary, defend his views. His silence signals contempt for the electorate.
2. Justin Garcia has not reported on the Baca “investigation” since Third Judicial District DA Gerald Byers ducked the decision about prosecution by transferring the case to the NM Attorney General Hector Balderas, soon to leave office. His reporting did not include any explanation for Byers’s decision. My theory: the case was too hot to handle after the disclosure of investigative bias by the joint task force of enforcement agencies; the LCPD ran the panel on the final report, which has not been released. This time, I have left it to Garcia to make an IPRA request.
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