Basic Truths in Education

Leon F. McGinnis

As a nation, we have come to believe that education is the engine that drives economic prosperity and national security. American innovations in education, starting with the land grant act, revolutionized agriculture, and provided the intellectual raw material for the "age of technology." America educated the leaders of the technological, political, and, to a large extent, cultural changes that have transformed the world during the twentieth century.

In recent years, however, a pall has settled over our national educational landscape. The news from the education front more often is about failure and danger than success and security. What happened, and how can we turn it around? While there are no simple solutions to complex social problems, there will be no solutions at all unless we confront some basic truths.

Education is not a utility. We all use water, electricity, and sewage services in essentially the same way, which is why they can be provided to us in a common process by a "utility company." But when it comes to learning, we all are unique in our interests, in our abilities, in our learning styles, in our motivations, and in the age at which we are ready to learn particular things. For each of us, the process of learning is a unique experience, perhaps the most unique of human experiences, and it continues throughout our lives. It is a tragic mistake to act as if a "one size fits all" process of education will be effective for all of us. At best it leaves every student more or less ill-served. More diversity in the education marketplace is what we need.

A competent citizen has a portfolio of knowledge. The greater the variety in our personal knowledge portfolios, the more dynamic and robust our society will be. Of course, it is important for us to share some common knowledge, such as the legal and political structure of society, the historical basis for contemporary mores, the ability to communicate and to think critically about what we see and hear, and the ability to function in a technological society. But especially in the era of global competition and global information networks, the notion of a "core curriculum" for all students must be understood to be only a portion of what they learn, and focused on giving them the tools to learn and the basic knowledge required for citizenship. The smaller the core, the better.

Learning can't be coerced. To abuse an old adage, "you can incarcerate students in a school, but you can't make them learn." Humans are not empty vessels waiting for some knowledge provider to fill them up with knowledge. Rather, they are learning machines, waiting to be fueled up, turned on, and given the resources and time needed to assimilate knowledge for themselves. When those learning machines run efficiently, the result is a unique individual with a unique portfolio of knowledge and a lust for learning. The tragedy of too many institutions of "learning" today is that they dismantle or disable these learning machines, or worse, try to force them to learn what they do not want to learn. And we cannot be forced to learn anything.

We learn what interests us. When children are eager to learn, it is virtually impossible to stop them. Watch children learning how to play a video game. When the world around them is much more interesting than what the system tells them to learn in the classroom, why are we surprised at their poor performance in the classroom? We can attempt to motivate children to learn what we think they need to learn, or we can wait for them to show an interest in something--anything--and then use that interest as the "trojan horse" for what we think they need to learn.

There are going to be high achievers and low achievers. Or else there will be only mediocrity. Sadly, our culture seems to disrespect those whose academic abilities are limited, as if only academic ability is worthwhile. Yet we honor the great artists, and we depend upon the tradesmen. At the same time, we devalue high achievement, by trying to tell all students that they are high achievers. Being the best you can be does not mean being just like everyone else.

Technology changes everything, including education. But to focus on computers or the internet is to lose focus. The focus of education always should be the student. If technology leverages the student's interest, motivation, access to information, or ability to learn, then it should be encouraged. But the role of technology in education is to augment and supplement, not to replace or eliminate. We need to be absolutely certain we know how technology is used to enhance our schools.

No human is happy being restrained and controlled. The more we try to control behavior, the more deviant the behavior becomes. Children who are constantly controlled become angry, anti-social, and violent. The highest rates of juvenile crime occur in the hour immediately following the end of the school day. We need schools that provide children the freedom to learn, to make many educational choices for themselves, and to practice self-control.

Schools make bad academic hospitals. Hospitals are institutions where you bring together people in need of medical attention and you "treat them" to correct their conditions. You also isolate them so they don't infect each other. Today, schools are institutions where you bring together people with "knowledge deficiencies" and you "treat them" to correct their deficiencies. Unfortunately, all too often children leave school with greater deficiencies than when they entered, because of the uncontrolled contamination from other "academic patients." If a medical hospital ran this badly, we would close it down as a health hazard.

Teachers are not smarter than everyone else. The best teachers are those who enable their students to learn through motivation, coaching, mentoring, and caring, as much as through instruction. It also helps if the teachers are very knowledgeable in the subject areas they teach. That doesn't mean they are more knowledgeable in all subjects, or that they should be given responsibility for teaching morals, ethics, or citizenship. Unfortunately in today's public schools, teaching often means only instructing. We need teachers who are knowledgeable in the subjects they are instructing, who are excellent mentors, and who are not expected to teach what they have no business teaching.

Politicians and bureaucrats are not smarter than the citizens they work for. Moreover, their jobs require them to find compromises between competing concerns. The larger the group of citizens for whom they work, the more difficult it is to find compromise. In education, as decision making and control are moved further and further from communities where children are in school, the less likely that decisions and controls will adequately respond to the needs and concerns of the community. On the other hand, giving authority to a "higher power" relieves us of the burden of thrashing out compromises with our neighbors. We need smaller schools, and more involvement of parents in the direction of their local schools.

You get what you measure. If what you measure is results on standardized tests, that is what will be taught in school. To think otherwise is to deny basic human nature. But standardized test scores do not necessarily demonstrate the acquisition of useful knowledge. What we need to be measuring is the intellectual and emotional well-being of students. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) we don't know how to measure that on an individual basis. In the good old days, we depended on our own assessment of our children's progress to evaluate the system. We need to recognize that faith in high-stakes tests is misplaced.

When the system consistently produces a bad result, the fault lies not with the people but with the system. To blame teachers, parents or students for the problems of public education is to deny the obvious--the system is the problem. The definition of insanity is doing what you've done before and expecting a different outcome. We have plenty of experience with more standardized tests, new curricula, more teachers, more buildings, more money spent, uniforms, metal detectors, and any number of other "fixes." None has solved the problem. Maybe the system is the problem.

When the State takes responsibility, citizens become irresponsible. The current condition of public education is the result of parents losing their ability to directly influence the content and process of education, and also losing responsibility for the behavior of their own children. With no say regarding textbooks, teachers, or curriculum, and no accountability, many parents simply opt out of the education process altogether. Even worse, by refusing to impose harsh sanctions on "bad actors," the system encourages their irresponsible behavior and destroys the learning opportunity for motivated students. We need to return responsibility and consequences to individual parents and children, and stop punishing everyone for the sins of the few.

Free citizens are permitted to make bad choices. The consequences of bad educational choices may well be a life of hardship. Those who would prevent even one parent or one child from making bad educational choices doom us all to a system of education that is mediocre at best. At worst it creates a sub-culture that is either totally dependent upon the state or criminally anti-social. Rather than preventing bad choices, we should encourage good choices, and make them both obvious and readily available. The key, however, is choices, and personal responsibility.