I was thankful that a parent sent in an article from the paper on Wednesday, February 8th.
In it, the paper lets us know about the ongoing effort of Penn Manor, Hempfield, and Manheim Township to have an Open Campus—sharing resources, teachers, and space. This could be a good idea. We all need to figure out ways to do less with more during tough economic times. (I am going to leave off my earlier take on this story, but cannot pass up the fact that no one has mentioned the teachers unions in connection to this piece. The end goal of this idea is to have fewer teachers by sharing….but nothing yet has been said. Hummmmmmmm…..)
I do not have a problem with the idea. I do, however, have a deep level of chagrin about the reason why this is being contemplated. The paper quotes Brenda Becker (Hempfield School District’s Superintendent) saying (the emphasis is mine):
"We are trying to change the way education is presented," she told board members. The program will attempt to move away "from simple regurgitation of facts and low-level thinking skills," she added.
"Why have kids memorize the presidents in order? Why have kids memorize things they can find on the Internet, or some other source, in relatively little time?" Becker asked.
Being a school that believes (and has seen great results from) teaching the presidents in order and helping kids memorize facts, I feel almost compelled to say how bad an idea this really is. I will limit myself to the top three problems with it:
- It says too much. The fact of the matter is that everything can be looked up relatively quickly. If we followed Mrs. Beckers advice, our students would learn NOTHING or at least nothing concerning history.
- It is a view of education that actually ends in replacing the mind of the student with technology instead of training the mind to love learning, life, and the life of the mind. If education is teaching students how to use technology to find answers, then it is really causing them to become dependents (slaves of sort) wedded to technology. Education should be about much more than this. It should be about freeing the mind to enjoy life. (We can also shudder if we think too much about how truth could be manipulated if the entire world were educated in such a manner.)
- It undervalues to the reason that we learn things like the Presidents order. We do not learn it for analysis, but as a foundation upon which analysis can be commenced. If you know the President and the dates, you can make connections easily. If you want to know what Lincoln’s opinion was of the oncoming industrial economy and if you know that he was affected by Henry Clay who hated John C. Calhoun. You have the beginning of a good argument. If you have to look these folks up (on Wikipedia) or do more research just to figure out who they are and where they stand historically, they you are in trouble. You never know enough to really start to debate…unless you can be given all of your context by an authority. This is not the kind of students we need!
Typically, I think that Ms. Becker has a lot on the ball. Let’s hope I have misunderstood something. The quote was too much to pass by, however.
