Years ago my fellow teachers and I saw it coming.
It began slowly and picked up steam.
It began for me on my middle school campus with the gradual phasing out of shop classes beginning with the printing shop, then the metal shop, soon to be followed by the architecture/building class, and then, finally, the wood shop.
The claim was that if we encouraged students to go into the trades, we were sending the message that they were not smart enough to attend college. Never mind that some students had great abilities in carpentry, and draftsmanship, they were to be prodded toward college in which they had no interest and discouraged from pursuing the areas in which they could excel.
Apparently it was better to have a poorly performing and frustrated college student than to have a happy and productive tradesperson.
This attitude spread to academics where no child should fail under any circumstance, and every accommodation needed to be made to have them pass all their courses even if that removed their responsibility to develop good study habits and apply themselves. The teachers were required to come up with creative ways that could allow a student to pass a course even without mastering the minimum of the subject matter.
Whereas in the past, failing a test might motivate a student to study harder or pass in better work, the thought of those not in the classroom was that a failing grade would cause a student to simply give up and accept failure, although studies showed the former to be the reality while nothing supported the latter. Yes, there were isolated examples, but they did not make the rule.
So slowly learning less, but appearing to be successful, began the process of dumbing down America.
A student did not have to study for a test or complete an assignment because it became the responsibility of the teacher to find a way the student could get a good grade even if that meant the student’s make up tests and alternate assignments got so watered down, no effort or study was needed to get a decent grade.
The students learned the game and many played it well.
When it came to rewarding success, degrees of recognition began to disappear as well, as those who excelled in academics, sports, and extra-curricular activities would get their reward, while those who simply showed up would get rewarded for just doing that.
The thought was that if some students did not get an award while others did, those who did not get one might simply give up. The idea that seeing peers get rewarded for their efforts might motivate others to work harder lost out to this new theory
This not only diminished the efforts of those who worked to excel – why should they work hard if less effort got the same reward ?- it gave no increased motivation to others.
By the time I was ready to retire years later, and after having seen the negative effects of this false self-esteem building grow, I saw a good sample of the results.
I was transferred to a new high school and was assigned to teach senior Honors English.
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The reality that immediately began to reveal itself was that the student bore the label “Honors” because it looked good on their transcripts, transcripts that would reveal over time that their grades were questionable, and their attendance had been and would continue to be modified by someone in the office to give the appearance that even students who hardly attended school were present more often than they actually were.
These doctored grades and attendance figures made the students attractive to colleges to which they would eventually apply, and gave the impression that the methodologies used at the school produced high student achievement, and this led to a high graduation rate and the number of those going on to college.
Sadly, having been convinced that the little work they had done previously had produced the best results, any attempt to increase their need to study and work harder produced rebellion among the students who thought the minimal effort and work they intended to produce would continue to have remarkable results.
This was reinforced by those whose reputation as administrators was enhanced by the high grades, graduation rates, and college acceptances
Few of the students could write a decent sentence, and fewer could put what sentences they could write into a coherent and college worthy essay.
By the end of many of the students’ first semester in college it became obvious, not only to their professors and fellow college freshmen students, but also to themselves, that they were not, in truth, prepared.
They had been led to feel good about themselves, and those who should have been more concerned about their futures were praised for the success of their methodologies until some students sued the school district and the principal for having made them feel good while actually not having had them earn what it was they were to have felt good about.
After one student was told by the principal that she did not have to take her senior English class, she found after graduation that she had high grades and perfect attendance on her transcript in the class she had never attended.
The students won their case, the district was put on notice, and the principal was ousted, losing his teaching certification in the process. But the damage had been done as that class had walked the stage and were handed worthless diplomas that it would take many years of night classes to rectify.
But until that moment, the world for them was as it should have been, and anyone who attempted to correct that impression was considered the enemy, and any effort made to right the wrong before they entered a world in which they could not succeed as unprepared as they were, was seen as an attempt to diminish their worth. This had also happened in their Math and Social Studies classes.
And, the students who had been misled about the actual nature of their success, or lack of it, were actually complicit in fighting their own education.
And until they were called on it, the school district, when hearing of the increasing number of students failing out of college, could express a faux pity for the students with such promise who were not living up their potential, a potential the district had actually denied them.
This approach of having the world conform to the hopes and desires of those who should actually learn the reality of things no matter how uncomfortable has entered the world of politics, as, during this present election season, and especially during the primaries, those getting involved in the process for the first time assumed things were a certain way, and were not disabused of this false impression by those whose responsibility it was to properly educate them, but who preferred to lead them on for their own advantage.
Those who had attempted to explain things during the primaries, and who may now see the need to remediate the improper education will be seen as the enemy and will be resisted by those who are quite comfortable with how they think things should be.
And when they act to defend their wrongful education and take actions that will actually go against their own best interests, they will be brought up short, like the students who had been betrayed and recognized that betrayal when it was too late.