Have You Ever John Cromshow “An Educational Gift for Christmas” The story at yahoo disappeared as fast as Santa and his reindeer dashing through the sky on Christmas Eve. No worries. “An Open Letter to America from a Public School Teacher” by Michael Mau, is still available at: mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-open-letter-to-america-from-a-public-school-teacher--2 Mau’s letter is so important that it deserves more than 15 milliseconds of fame. Here’s why. He writes about problems teachers have been struggling with for years. Too few listened. The issues remain standardized testing, top-down curriculum, elimination of the arts in school, and the loss of creative thinking. A cookie-cutter mentality extends from the Department of Education to School Boards around the country. But rather than admit it, those in the educational hierarchy claim just the opposite. The rhetoric of “high expectations” combined with “individualized instruction” is good enough to snooker most of the media. Let’s not forget the lynchpin in this equation, “It’s the teacher’s fault.” Demonizing public education and teachers’ unions paves the way (with gold, I might add) allowing for-profit charters to take over. There is no substitute for Michael Mau’s words, which get his points across with amusing satire: “I had this ridiculous idea that art and music and drama and activity breaks would help my students grow…To think, I once had my English class produce a full-length play with original music and student-designed sets…many of them still e-mail me and tell me that was the highlight of their high school experience…” Mau concludes with a tongue-in-cheek analysis, “After all, what did they really learn? How to access their imagination? Developing original thoughts? Teamwork? I may as well have taught them how to file for unemployment.” Sham hope is on the way. “With a nationalized curriculum, so much of the guesswork will be taken out…education is all about job security and competing in a global marketplace…Why else would we send our kids to school? This is a standardized multiple-choice world. I know that now.” Doing their part, parents, teachers and others don’t have to follow the Pied Piper into the land of mindlessness. They can speak out for the students’ sake. Now that Christmas is upon us I’ve been getting educational gifts for children. One gift was for my Kindergarten teacher friend. Shell enjoy reading “Beautiful Bible Stories” to her grandchildren. For her two-year old grandson, I bought a set of nesting, stacking blocks with letters, numbers and colors. When a friend in Wrightwood told me she was going to visit her family in Texas, I recommended “Too Many Tamales” by Gary Soto. Reading to children deserves more attention. In fact, why not start by rewriting some popular holiday songs? We could begin with, “All I want for Christmas are a few good books.” That’s another story. Have you ever given an educational gift for Christmas? Please e-mail me jcromshow@yahoo.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 00:11:52 +0000
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