Dumbing Down Education

The American education system that I have lived with (though I often wished one of us would die) for all my life has inspired my bitter diatribes for 15 years of K-12 and beyond, and does not look to be stopping anytime soon. No, I don't think that school is too hard. I am in a good college, doing very well, and maintaining a scholarship. I'm white and wealthy, so I don't think that education is prejudiced against me. I don't think that teachers need to be more understanding in grading, or that scholastic requirements need to be eased. My problem with school is exactly the opposite: School is getting to easy.

I remember, very vaguely, the days when students were told when they did things wrong in easy-to-understand words, spoken in firm tones, highlighted in red ink. I think I was in 2nd grade. Now, it seems that "fail" is a four-letter word, banned in classrooms across the country. Students must be made to feel that they are not failing; they are simply not succeeding as much as they could be, and after all, they are so special and gifted that grades do not do them justice. It is one thing to tell this to sensitive parents who need all the encouragement they can. It is an entirely different thing to keep telling this to the students themselves.

There are some facts that whoever is running America's educational system seem unaware of, such as: Not everyone can graduate in the top 10% of their class. Half of all students are below average. Sometimes, failing happens in the real world, and the point of school (at least this is what everyone keeps telling me) is to get us ready for the real world.

Now, do not get me mixed up with the radicals calling for an end to special-needs classes, scholarships based on criteria such as race or gender, or Santa Clause. I'm a whole different kind of radical. And I realize that I sound a bit like Darwin (that heretic!). Like a coyote complaining that cute, fluffy bunnies being kept in safe cages is unfair, because if I'm bigger, faster, and have pointier teeth I should be allowed to eat them.

I am not saying that survival of the fittest, with the teacher playing God or referee, is any way to run a classroom. I just want school to be a little more realistic. It has gotten better in college, but by now some irreversible damage has been done to the students' psyches. A lot of students are surviving college through feeding off of their feeling of entitlement. My generation has been raised on the idea that late work is merely docked a few points, tests will be curved, and no grade is final. Everything can and will be sugarcoated.

The worst part is that this system of education is not helping anyone. The students to "benefit" from these slackening guidelines will one day run up against as assignment (be it in school, work, or home) that cannot be readjusted to politically correct levels. Teachers are not free to run their classrooms the way they want, because there is always some student, parent, or administrator that is concerned that the teacher is doing the students' self-esteem harm. Students who are not benefiting from all this, yes I consider myself one of these, are merely frustrated beyond belief.

I do not remember the first time I complained to anyone who would listen about school, but I remember the last time. Not that I'm going to talk about that. As long as I am at BYU, it is the Lord's University, Amen. Instead, I'll write about high school graduation. Please, someone correct me if I have been mistaken my whole life, but I think that "valedictorian" is supposed to apply to the best student of the year. Maybe two students. Not 12. Especially not in a graduating class of 350 students in an arts 'n' crafts high school where kids are mostly concerned with singing or dancing or playing the tuba. And it wasn't even 12 kids who all took advantage of the same ridiculously low expectations the administration set for becoming a valedictorian. They ranged from kids who had, indeed, gotten straight A's while taking 4 or more AP (really hard) classes to kids who had gotten B's while taking 2 AP classes, then simply re-taking classes to get A's. What kind of message is that sending people? And that's not even as bad as the class that graduated two years before, where there were 14 valedictorians, and there would have been 15 if one of them hadn't been caught drinking on school property.

Ok, I know I sound petty. (Yeah, I was one of the 12 valedictorians.) With all the terrible things going on in the world, I am bitter about my graduating class being too full of high-achievers? And who am I to generalize this experience to everyone in the country, anyway? Well, I am not anyone, yet. That is one reason I'm writing this blog. I want to change from some random person with a bias to an informed random person with a bias.