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EATON: High school IS boring

Monday, September 29, 2003

By Fran Eaton (fran@illinoisleader.com)

OPINION -- Last week, Chicagos Mayor Daley declared High school is
boring,to the delight of the media (who enjoys catching the mayor in his
plentiful embarrassing statements and then sharing them with the world)
and to the chagrin of Chicago high school teachers and administrators.

When the story was forwarded to me, I read it and chuckled.

In an immediate flashback to my own high school experience, I recalled
those days when I worried more about what I would be doing after school
than what I did during school hours. Going to high school was like being
imprisoned. Life, for me, began in earnest after I graduated.

At the same time the mayor of a city struggling to keep its students in
school declared publicly his disdain for high school, a Manhattan
Institute study indicated that only 70% of all students in America's public high
school class of 2001 graduated and 32% of those who received a diploma were
qualified to attend a four-year college. That's right -- only one out of
three graduates are ready to attend college after four years of public high
school.

The figures were even worse for minorities. The study found that only 51%
of all black students and 52% of Hispanic students graduate from high
school and only 20% of black and 16% of Hispanic students leave high
school prepared for college.

Did you hear and see the alarms sound throughout the state and nation when
this news came out? I didnt. The fact is, as a nation, weve heard these
depressing statistics so often that they no longer appall us as they once
did. In the meantime, our next generation is sorely in need of an education
they have not yet received, despite billions and billions of hard-earned
taxpayer dollars that have been thrown into a black hole called public
education.

Having attended a middle class public high school in the suburbs of St.
Louis, I can identify with students today who complain about how they seem
to waste their time in high school. Frankly, I agree. In many cases, I
think they are wasting their time.

Education is equipping a child with the tools and skills they will need
for a lifetime of learning. Attending school is not an end in itself. Indeed,
to the contrary, it may very well be that the four long years of high
school can actually work against young people learning the skill of
educating themselves. Spoon-fed teaching is never as exciting or beneficial
as discovering new ideas for ones own self.

One hundred years ago, adulthood started in what we now call mid-teens.
Families expected their young adult members to carry heavy loads of
responsibility. Out of necessity, childhood was transitional, not the
permanent lifestyle it has become for many. While fully equipped to read
the classics such as Homer's Iliad or Shakespeare's Hamlet with ease,
mid-1800's youth achieved a balance of hands-on toiling with schoolingor
bookwork.The literacy rate in America was close to one hundred percent at
that time.

Today, high school and many colleges effectively delay a young persons
normal transition into adulthood. The longer young people can remain in a
childish mode and expect to be spoon-fed, rather than learn to find for
themselves the answers to lifes questions, the more our culture will be
forced to tolerate immature, spoiled adults permeating our society.

Artificially restraining young people in institutions for the purpose of
controlling their experiences and behavior delays the reality of learning
to make responsible choices. The current system hurts young people while
stifling the maturation process, and it leaves a vacuum of those who are
willing to train for leadership, cheating our nation as a whole.

We, in modern American society, have the education process backwards. We
think that as children get older and their education level increases, only
those who are professional educators are qualified to teach or mentor
them.

This type of thinking causes many parents to either stop educating their
children at home during the last years of schooling in favor of more
educated professional instructors, or they refuse to attempt home
educating at all because they believe they cant tackle the process with high school
age students.

The fact is that most teacher interaction with students should take place
in the earliest stages of their education process. It takes a great deal
of skill and patience to teach a youngster solid foundational skills in
reading, writing and math. Once those skills are deeply impressed and
easily processed in the mind of a child, the teachers effort and input
should decrease. In a Utopian education system, a teachers job is the
easiest during the last few years of formal education.

The student -- if equipped properly in the early academic stages -- is, by
the middle teen years, teaching himself and using the skills and tools
provided in the early stages of schooling. He is then able to use those
tools to seek answers to his questions. He is able to increase his
knowledge by finding resources to help him obtain the information needed
to pursue his goals.

Radical concept? Maybe, but the process works and has worked for
generations.


When parents call me for counsel on what to do with their children who
want to make the transition between home school and a traditional high school,
I ask them why they are wasting their childrens precious years? I encourage
these parents to think outside the box and find other ways to move their
children along in their intellectual and social development, rather than
send the children to an outdated institution, among foolish age peers,
once again stifling the natural maturation process.

If the high schoolers in your home choose to further their formal
education, why not take classes at local colleges to accumulate college
credits during the traditional high school years rather than tread water
in the public school system? As they find their way into the adult world, as
parents, you are still a major influence in their lives and able to guide
them as they make life's crucial decisions.

While still pushing your high school aged students to nurture their love
for classic literature, balance their time in books by having your teens
volunteer at a local veterinary clinic, a church, hospital or other place
where they can expand their life experience and interests. At the same
time, they will learn to relate to other ages, backgrounds and worldviews,
enriching their lives and opening their eyes to the world about them.

The point is, rather than delay a young persons transition into adulthood,
why not accelerate the process? It seems terribly foolish for parents to
subsidize their teenagers discovery years in expensive colleges to the
tune of thousands of dollars a year while their studentsfind themselves. There
needs to be a better way to produce responsible, decisive young leaders.

This whole concept of high school demands serious examination. It is
possible that Piaget was just a little off in his educational theory that
has led to todays culture of immature and irresponsible Peter Pans who
desperately hold onto childish fantasies rather than face the harsh
realities of life.

Its time to encourage our young people to grow up and become more
responsible rather than delay the inevitable dreaded adulthood. Its time
that we rethink both our troubled culture and our failing education
system.

The two are obviously connected.

But maybe all these changes would allow just too much freedom for our
nations youth. And with such freedom, would come great responsibility.

One thing about it, though - such an education system certainly wouldnt be
boring.

_____________

What are your thoughts concerning the ideas in this commentary? Write a
letter to the editor at letters@illinoisleader.com, and include your name
and town.

Fran Eaton
Fran Eaton and her husband Joe taught their three children at home for
fourteen years. Fran served as the Director of Communications for a state
home school lobbying organization for seven years before becoming Eagle
Forum of Illinois' State President. She is now Illinois Leader's managing
editor.