The American Spectator : It's Cool to Learn

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It's Cool to Learn

By Jay D. Homnick on 6.11.10 @ 6:07AM

Why is the last day of school no longer the happiest day of year?

The other day our lovely suburban neighborhood was saturated with police presence. No wailing sirens or skidding stops, but cars rolling up and down all the streets which form the perimeter around the public high school building. It was a special event, setting off fear in the hearts of officialdom that it might be exploited for vandalism and other public disturbances. Apparently long experience had informed their behavior. You never know what fuse might be ignited at such a time. In the end nothing happened and the flammable moment fizzled.

What was the occasion? It was the last day of school.

The police may be forgiven their presumption. Most of them grew up like me, at a time when attending school was a despised activity. We went because we had to and the notion it might be enjoyed was remote from our consciousness. School was a place of pressures, of niggling obligations, of confinement in cramped spaces, of neutered individuality, of people making themselves big by making you small, of boring information delivered by boring people. Teachers sat at the head of the class looking every bit as miserable as we felt. When the last day game we ran riotously through the schoolyard yelling: "No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks!" And we meant every word of it.

One friend of mine since childhood, now the principal of a large school, told me in all earnestness that from first through twelfth grade he looked at his watch every five minutes on average.

All this brings us to a fascinating observation, one which I am convinced is true. It has become a shibboleth in conservative circles to grumble about decline in education. They tell us that in Togo they know more math and in Malta more science, in Brunei we are eclipsed in language while in Ghana they outdo us in history. Here too, we hear, once stood rickety schoolhouses cobbled from planks but brimful of learning. Once folks knew the sonnets of the Bard, now we are lucky if they know Mary Had a Little Lamb, and then only if the lamb is housed in humane conditions. To which I say bunk. Today's kids know as much as we did, and they have the advantage of doing so happily.

When I attended in the 1960s the same sort of Jewish parochial school my kids do today -- Jewish studies from 8 to 11:30, lunch, secular studies from 12:30 to 4 -- the teachers were permitted to spank. Even those who spared the rod were caustic in verbally flailing the weak. We lived on the defensive, moaning when the vitriol struck us, cringing when it targeted our friends. Those educators presumably meant well, but this was their sense of how wisdom is imparted: in an adversarial context, by subjugating the will of the recipient.

Today all that is gone, at least in this country, merely an unpleasant memory. Teachers speak pleasantly, give children positive reinforcement, do a lot of politically correct mumbo-jumbo about how everyone is a winner, and allow rules to assume a frightening degree of elasticity. They send mixed messages by instituting competitions and then giving an award to most everyone. You have to stand on your own two feet, they say, unless you can only spare one and a half, or one, or a half, or none at all. And yet despite a total lack of spine and an overabundance of heart, these children know every bit as much as we did, and they do it while loving school.

In the Jewish tradition, Jews were criticized for leaving the Mount Sinai area too eagerly after eleven months of non-stop study. They left, says the Midrash, like a child "escaping from the schoolhouse." My kids simply do not understand the metaphor. They love school and like to linger on the grounds for a while afterwards.

It seems like teaching youngsters is easier than we thought. They are sponges for knowledge and do not require all that much prodding. All they ask in return is to be greeted with a smile, to feel their efforts are acknowledged, and that the people working with them really care. So I swallow the arrant leftist codswallop they dribble into the classroom in return for their good cheer (unlike leftist professors who spout those ideas with bile) and I straighten out the nonsense at home. Happy days are here… not again.

About the Author

Jay D. Homnick, commentator and humorist, is a frequent contributor to The American Spectator. He also writes for Human Events. Here he performs his original composition, "Buy You (Bayou) a Drink".

Letter to the Editor View all comments (22) | Leave a comment

usb phone| 6.11.10 @ 6:32AM

sofa? good post..

Alan Brooks| 6.11.10 @ 11:03PM

"Once folks knew the sonnets of the Bard, now we are lucky if they know Mary Had a Little Lamb, and then only if the lamb is housed in humane conditions."

And you know (this is a family site) what is done with the sheep.

Richard Baker| 6.11.10 @ 7:26AM

Obviously, the author has not been in the classroom as a teacher lately. Math, Science, English, Literature, and most other subjects find most of the schoolkids abysmally lacking in even the most basic knowledge when they come from the public schools. The reality is not good.

Curly Smith| 6.11.10 @ 8:44AM

I think the author is saying that public schooling has always been boring but that students were once required to just suck it up and do the work. Students were required to make their best effort as there were consequences for not paying attention and not learning. Now, there are no consequences, students may do as they please... and it pleases them to enact "Lord of the Flies" each and every day.

Schools used to at least try to be institutions of learning, now they're largely day care facilities. You can put some blame on the parents but public schools are, by and large, what the public schools wanted to be, they evolved to their current state through a series of deliberate decisions.

OCCAM'S TOOL| 6.15.10 @ 10:11PM

Dear Richard:

This is a private, religious, JEWISH school. Pay attention to the set-up. The intellectual competition would smear you off the walls, pal. The cultural bent towards learning is the reason Jews have won 168+ Nobels, and counting.

By the way, Jay, don't you remember licking the honey off the slate to indicate that learning was sweet? I remember the story, and I'm pushing 50. I never found the schoolrooms in my classes (Hebrew school or public school) particularly demeaning from the teacher's perspective---my fellow students were horse's rear-ends, though.

Now, public school, I don't know now. I know that my public high school was in the top 1% I think when I went there, and is still in the top 6 percent (Maine Township High School East, Park Ridge, IL---look it up yourself).

Mike| 6.11.10 @ 8:33AM

My 3rd grader absolutely loves her teacher. And though I grouse about the horrid fuzzy math, my kids seem to do pretty well.

For what it's worth, I don't remember hating school all that much. Oh, but last day!

Harry the Horrible| 6.11.10 @ 9:16AM

I used to get in trouble at school - for reading too much, reading in class, for being late to class (I was in the library and had lost track of time) and other such issues...

Fortunately, my wife had similar issues in school, and was a an assistant librarian, too!

Stephen Zierak| 6.11.10 @ 11:16AM

This writer is clearly out of his mind. Education at all levels has been dumbed down. The system is in free fall. Just another example of the really stellar outcomes we get from involvement of ever more remote levels of government in any local enterprise. If we want to return to educational excellence (rather than educational flim flammery), we will totally privatize the sytem and leave the funding to the parents.

B. H.| 6.11.10 @ 2:16PM

Oh contrare, I am no fan of the idealogy of public schools or the "right" to an education, but public schools have only been "dumbed down" for the dumb.In other words since public schools have to take all comers, and many of these comers have average IQs in the mid eighties, they have to dumb down academic material to teach any of it.We constantly hear of our deplorable scores compared to the rest of the world, but that is lying with satistics. America is not a nation, but a series of different ethnic nations with different average IQs for each. If you do the research , you will find that our majority population is 2nd & 3rd in the world in reading in math & our minorities are at the bottom, while many times attending the same schools with the same teachers. High end classes are still high end, low end will always be, & can do no better than be, low end. Grow up & quit buying all we are equal propaganda.

Evanston2| 6.13.10 @ 9:56PM

It's "au contraire" mon frere.

Gr0w1er| 6.11.10 @ 12:40PM

Alice Cooper, where are you when we need you the most??

Taxpayer| 6.11.10 @ 2:04PM

I loved school and cried at the end of each school year.

Summer was awful because my sis and I were the only kids in the neighborhood who had to go to a sitter all day (this was in the 1960s), and she ignored us to a pulp. Needless to say, both my sister and I have chosen to be stay-at-home moms.

Richard Baker| 6.11.10 @ 5:38PM

Curly:
Part of the problem is the loss of innocence which kids once possessed. The Baby Boomer parents weren't much interested in raising their kids and our society is much the worse. When I taught, I once asked my kids the following. Regarding the Boomer parents, "Take care of my responsibilities, raise my kids, so I can play." I asked all my kids one year how many agreed with this. Most of the 30+ kids in each class raised their hands. My parent-teacher meetings usually consisted of the hellion's parents expressing surprise at this behavior and what was I doing to cause this? What a joke the entire public school system is. Close it and give the parents the tax money to find a private/parochial school to get an education.

Nate| 6.12.10 @ 6:44PM

What a refreshing article to read at Am. Spec. It's great to read something that doesn't just mouth the same weary cliches -- particularly on this very important, complicated topic.

Kevin Riley O'Keeffe| 6.13.10 @ 4:41AM

Public schools are ever worse than they were when I went (1970s & 80s). If kids today don't look forward with relish to the last day of school, its only because their spirit has been broken by the brain washers who run them these days.

maverick muse| 6.13.10 @ 8:23AM

Jay D. Homnick
Tralala. You speak of your own children's experience in the same upper class private school setting that you had yourself. Braggart.

Go to the public schools to preach your sponge sonnet if you dare.

Jim| 6.14.10 @ 1:08PM

Public schools vary greatly in quality, as do (surprise, surprise!) private schools. We had our two girls in a private RELIGIOUS school, and the teaching was abysmal. One teacher wrote on our youngest daughter's progress report, "Laura is very hipper...." I pondered for some time what "hipper" meant, and then realized that the "teacher" was trying to say, "hyper"! Even if she couldn't do "hyper," you would think she would know that two internal consonants don't make a long sound! And the school was straight out of the movie, "Heathers" for rotten girls.

Mike Schwendeman| 6.14.10 @ 3:49PM

I have had to teach young people when they get to college and later in police academy. They are no less smart than before, but they not only do they know far less, they are quite content with the fact that they are clueless, if not proud of it. They feel good about themselves just because they are alive, not because of anything they actually accomplished. There are exceptions, but they are all too few.

Mike Schwendeman| 6.14.10 @ 3:54PM

I know, I know, there are too many "they"s in the second sentence. Hoist on my own petard. To borrow another phrase, physician, heal thyself.

Tina Bellar| 6.18.10 @ 2:11PM

Almost two weeks after my own "last day of school" in my final year teaching 8th graders math & algebra, and knowing that next year teaching 6th graders may be my real last, as I can actually retire, I read Jay's article and all comments with a series of heavy sighs. Almost everyone was correct, in one way or another.
My own Catholic education in So Cal was wonderful, as I look back. Yet I was far more interested in the cute boys than the Advanced Placement English assignments. And the last day of school was totally awesome as we readied ourselves for tanning and surfers and beach trips.
Having said that, and having taught in Central Florida for over 20 years, I just finished the toughest year of my life. Over all, the children were ruder and cared less for learning than ever. But most of them had IPhones and expensive shoes to match every belt, since polos and khaki or demins are their uniform.
Just 4 weeks ago, a parent of one of the worst miscreants did actually accuse a teammate of mine of being the reason for the boy's constant daily outbursts. Then, when she heard the rest of us repeat identical complaints about her son, she finally began to nail him. We actually heard her say, "We had a deal. I promised you I wouldn't tell your dad you flunked last year if you would behave this year." As she continued to rail at him, we looked at each other having verified the enabling that I had originally predicted. One moment she told us she had "zero tolerance" for his bad attitude, but by the end of the conference she claimed, "I'm the softie, his dad has zero tolerance." This is the quintessential enabling parent. Protective of the student, and accusatory to the teachers.
But I taught some awesome children too. They made As or Bs and kicked butt on the Alg I Honors final exam, they boldly professed their faith in a Savior, they laughed at my jokes and treated me with great respect and provided loving kindness after my husband passed away in the night. They made my last year in 8th grade as wonderful as the others made it trying. The problem seems to be that the number of lazy and rude students is rising sharply at my school, and the number of hard working learners is shrinking.
I heard the same story schoolwide. It is frightening. Parents are doing less to raise their kids, for various reasons, valid and not. Teachers are expecting to do more, becoming parents to students when they have no experience as parents themselves. Many oldtimers are retiring because we are burning out more quickly now. The future isn't looking any better, either.
So, if you are a parent, keep your eyes on your kids, their friends, their teachers, and God. If you are a teacher, God bless you. However, I am getting out soon. If you are a grandparent like me, help your kids to help your grandkids. Talk about math and God, history and God, literature and God, science and God. Cover those bases to help the students and the teachers, and maybe more of our students will begin love learning again.