{"id":1187,"date":"2014-02-26T12:00:05","date_gmt":"2014-02-26T06:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/?p=1187"},"modified":"2014-02-26T13:20:30","modified_gmt":"2014-02-26T07:20:30","slug":"the-soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/?p=1187","title":{"rendered":"The soft bigotry of low expectations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Admittedly it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been more than a decade since I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been inside a public school classroom \u00e2\u20ac\u201d not as a guest or guest speaker \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but as the holder of the grade book.<\/p>\n

True, after retirement, I taught a smattering of classes at Luna Community College and the United World College, but that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t qualify me as one with all the answers. I wonder how much has changed since I taught high school, for example, and even more specifically, what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s changed since the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc40s and \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc50, when my presence (and that of others) probably made the nuns at Immaculate Conception School clutch their rosaries tighter in anticipation of retirement.<\/p>\n

What caught my attention on this topic was an article written a few months ago by a Kevin Donnelly, director of the Education Standards Institute in Perth, Australia.<\/p>\n

Donnelly\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s premise is simply that students today are laden with so much praise that when they enter the real world, brushes with failure disillusion them. Donnelly writes that at St. Hilda\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Anglican School for Girls, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the self-esteem, care, share, grow movement in education has had its day and . . . students must be taught how to cope with failure.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s brilliant! Why hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t anyone else thought of (or at least articulated) that? The writer argues that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153too much praise means children have an inflated and unrealistic sense of their own ability. After never experiencing failure at school or being told that near enough is good enough, many students, on entering the real world, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have the resilience and strength to cope.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

When did this everybody-gets-a-trophy-just-for-showing-up philosophy grasp our American educational system, making the academic voyage unrealistically smooth?<\/p>\n

Did we at I.C School get patted, petted, praised and promoted merely because we happened to turn in our homework on time? No, the aftermath of failing to do the minimum often resulted in our being pinched, put-down, pulverized and penalized.<\/p>\n

Realize, please that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not trying to equate public and private schools today with those of the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc40s and \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc50s. Rather, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m expressing what I recall as realistic expectations among the teaching staff and the consequences for failing to get the picture.<\/p>\n

And though writing lines \u00c2\u00ad\u00e2\u20ac\u201d that tedious procedure that requires 100 copyings of words we missed on a test \u00c2\u00ad\u00e2\u20ac\u201d re-writing whole articles out of encyclopedias, and penning letters of apology to the manager of Newberry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s (ask me about that some time), such routines aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t meant to suggest a form of education that we used to read about in Dickens novels in junior high.<\/p>\n

No, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t imply we were abused or unnecessarily belittled in those days. However, few people could have expected Mom and Dad to coddle them, back them up, and the next day \u00e2\u20ac\u0153put that mean teacher in his (or her) place.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Kids have it easy today. Helicopters abound. On the playground at Cuba High School, where my wife and I both taught in the past, I noticed a teacher giving a well-deserved reprimand to a boy who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been bullying a female classmate.<\/p>\n

The boy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mother, who just happened to be married to a school board member, ran out to the playground with the celerity that would have made the track team proud. The teacher aide-mother was ready to belt the teacher who dared discipline her \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcJito, before other staff intervened, with the strong lesson that whatever the teacher on duty said to the boy was justified.<\/p>\n

The boy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mother didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t drop the matter right away; instead, she made sure each member of the board learned about her version.<\/p>\n

And on Facebook, someone posted a cartoon (of yesteryear\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vintage) showing parents railing their child in front of his teacher. The father asks his son, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153And how do you explain these miserable grades?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The second panel, representing education today, features the parents, the child and the teacher, and the speaker and the words are the same. The only difference is that the father is directing the venom toward the teacher, as if the teacher needed to do the shaping up.<\/p>\n

At the risk of being repetitious, let me emphasize that misbehavior on our part, in our youth, invariably led to two punishments: one at school, and something more severe at home. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Wait till your father gets home\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was indeed fear-inducing.<\/p>\n

And it meant something.<\/p>\n

Donnelly\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s article concludes with, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153In schools, teachers need to be hard-headed and make sure that students and parents are given a realistic and honest assessment of strengths, weaknesses and level of ability.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

It would be great if somehow this country returned to a time of realistic expectations among our students.<\/p>\n

I wonder how many of our students fail to achieve those goals because of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153soft bigotry of low expectations.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u201a\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u201a\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n

Heard on radio Monday: Irregardless (twice).<\/p>\n

Irregardless goes under the heading of NSW: No such word. The root word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153regardless\u00e2\u20ac\u009d already indicates a negative, as in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153regardless of what he says, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe him.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And those who place \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ir\u00e2\u20ac\u009d at the beginning are flirting with a double negative. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like saying \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Not regardless.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

To this, the resident wordsmith, whom you may call Tio Frillo, asks, Where does that silly prefix come from? There are a few words with similar beginnings, like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153irrespective,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153irresponsible\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153irreverent.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Sorry, but irregardless doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t qualify . . . irregardless of how many times we hear it on radio.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u201a\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u201a\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n

My long-time friend Judee Williams sent me a dozen atrocious puns. To temper the groan factor, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m releasing them only a few at a time. And remember: A sincere groan is the only appropriate response to a wretched pun.<\/p>\n