A while back I got a note from my oldest daughter's school that they were all excited about 'the basic school' (as a thing other than a mere book) and asking us parents to attend a few meetings at the school to discuss it. I'm not sure how other parents felt about it, but I kinda got the impression that it was a done deal and they were just inviting us to come find out what new and wonderful thing they were going to inflict on our kids. But I went to one of the meetings (not the first one, and maybe not the second one), but I went to ONE of the meetings to find out what was going on. I think there was only one other parent there. The rest were teachers. (This is from my best recollection because I was taking pain killers to keep my first root canal from making me miserable. Unfortunately, it also made it very difficult for me to concentrate.) However, I think they also have another meeting, later in the day and there might be more parents attending that one.
In any case, I borrowed the book from the school (I had previously tried to purchase it at the Waldenbooks nearest my home with no luck). I read it this past weekend and while there are some parts that I consider wrong (and occasionally condescending towards parents) I also think there's a lot of merit to it - perhaps most of it. It references Adler's The Paideaia Proposal and a number of other authorities with whom I am unfamiliar. While I can't recall anything specific about what I read in Paideaia, I do recall having disagreed with a part of it. I just don't now recall what exactly it was. One part I disagree with (in both books) is the notion that every child has or should have a 'right' to a good education. I think this is a great idea, but I really don't like the decision-by- platitude way of thinking. My problem with this particular platitude is that it seems that in many cases the good students - those who study hard, pay attention, and do their homework - are often given short shrift to enhance those who are mentally lazy and thoroughly undisciplined. "Gee, it's so surprising to discover that the class average goes up when we allow the losers to cajole the smarter kids into doing their work for them!"
There is, btw, a pretty glaring scientific error in the notes section of the book. There is a note about a study that had 'proven' that better libraries make for better education. It sounds exactly like Boyer has confused correlation with causation, even if he is doing it for a good cause, and stating what might appear obvious to most people. There might,for example, be some other thing that is the cause of both of these phenomena. It may not be the case that this faulty logic was used in the study, but it seems to be the argument that Boyer makes in his book. (Btw, I tried to find his email address at the Carnegie Foundation so I could ask him a few questions about his book and discovered that he died back in late 1995.)
I also disagree about the importance of getting all grade school kids hooked up to the Internet and about getting kids 'computing.' I think this is a great thing, but it's not anything close to a priority in my view.
So much for what I find disagreeable. I hope later to write a few words about what I agree with, but it will take much longer than I have available to me at this moment. I will write more later. But I think I'll take at least a few days to assimilate what I've read.
Okay, it's later. I'm still assimilating, but I can go ahead and give a short discussion of the, ahem, 'basic' elements of the approach outlined in the book. Following are the central points of the book, for which Boyer offers numerous supporting anecdotes and a copious notes section.
Boyer says the basic school is 'basic' in several ways: organizationally, educationally, pedagogically, and strategically and then goes on to explain how it is basic in each of these senses.
The Vision for the Basic School is
The school is more than just a place. It's a community. It's a central place in the lives of families. It's a place where people trust each other (my words, not his). It's a place where families are made welcome and where they come to participate in activities with their children. This one I like. I've always felt that universities should be just like this. It never occurred to me that the lower schools could function like this, but it makes sense now that he's mentioned it.
Principals and Teachers are leaders and Parents are Partners. This one annoys me. Boyer states outright the primary importance of parents as the first educators of their children and then dismisses them as mere 'partners.' What does it mean to be a leader? What does it mean to be a partner? In my view the primary responsibility for educating a child should belong to the parents. And I'm deeply suspicious and more than a little resentful of anyone who tries to usurp that role. Galois, Pascal, Cardan, Lobachevsky were ALL tutored at home by a PARENT. Feynman took walks with his father who explained to him his own version of how things work. Einstein's uncle loaned him a geometry book. It's easy to imagine that they might have discussed the ideas in that book a little too. Hypatia's father was, like her, a librarian at Alexandria. Not hard to figure that one out either. Do we see a pattern emerging here? (I vaguely recall Stephen J. Gould writing about a trip with one of his parents to a museum at some early age.) Parents are not partners. We are the leaders and, as good leaders, we delegate part of the job to the teachers - the professionals, and, like good leaders, we keep tabs on the performance of those to whom we have delegated this important duty. At least that's the theory. Since our children are actually the property of the state, it's the state that delegates responsibility/authority to the teachers and not the parents.
We make sure that our kids start school ready to learn. We inspire them, pique their erupting curiosities, serve as examples and mentors to our precious students - our children.
Partners indeed.
Back to another good one, the Centrality of Language. The first and most important thing that a child should learn is Standard American English. But beyond that, mathematics, music, art are all important languages used by humanity to communicate its most vital ideas. Art is a language. Music is a language. This is a very interesting and simple notion and it makes sense to me.
Success must be measured, but how? Objectively? There was a case I saw on one of the TV quasi-news programs (60 Minutes or 20/20 or something like that). There's this school district where teachers are required to pass a standardized test to keep their jobs. Some people claim that the test is biased against minorities because there is a much larger percentage of blacks and hispanics, for example, who fail the test than whites, particularly the math portions of the test. One black assistant principal actually got on TV and said something to the effect of "What do I need math for in my job?" THIS is a guy some parents wanted teaching their children? All I can say is that I'm extremely happy that my kids don't go to school in that district or even that state. Turned out the guy had to take the test several times (the number 5 sticks in my mind) and has finally passed it. Oh, it's such terrible and unfair a thing to insist that teachers be qualified to teach and that they set a good example to their wards. But, you know, the math is biased. Sixty four plus sixty four does not equal one hundred twenty eight in non-white cultures, I suppose. Like hades it doesn't. So, while I think that measuring success is a good idea, as well as having national standards, I'm a little leary that something like this would work if there are people who are steadfastly opposed to any sort of objective measurement. No, they'll insist that it all be sorta touchy-feely. "Ms Mayberry, do you think that Johnny knows how to add as well as other 16 year old boys?" "Well, no. But he understands how addition relates to counting money at the market, so I'll pass him."
In fairness, there IS a difference between simply reciting rote facts and understanding, but I think a well-designed test should be able to go a long way towards determining that. I do like the idea of having student portfolios. Very good.
But my nagging doubt is that parents will entrust their children to teachers and teachers will pass them without their having learned anything except "We're all supposed to be nice to each other." This is an important an valuable lesson, but I don't need to send my daughter to school for 13 years for her to learn it.
There must be a climate for learning - lots of good stuff in this section, some of which was novel to me. One important thing is that there needs to be a low student:teacher ratio. I think he said no higher than about 17:1. IMO that's much too high for K-2 grade kids, unless they can count on having parents or other volunteers in the class for most days.
There must be resources to enrich: basic supplies, computers, internet access, phones in the classroom, libraries bursting at the seams with books. I agree with the phones and the basic supplies. Computers are useful if they are integrated into the curriculum properly and not just a buncha things to play games on (some games are educational, others are not). Internet access can be useful, but again, it's not all THAT important to a basic education. This whole episode in the book makes me think this guy is spouting feelgood rhetoric for teachers. "Kids must know how to COMPUTE!" he says in so many words (maybe it was exactly those words). I got news for this dead guy. If kids know how to reason, they can learn everything they need to learn about computers and internets with little effort.
That's not to say that they shouldn't be taught how to compute. It's very good for students to get experience with computers: typing, searching, even programming. But it's not AS important as learning how to reason.
He also cites the correlation between how well students do and the size of their schools' libraries, but the conclusion he draws from that is not statistically justified. He seems unaware that correlation is not causation. (Not that he's stupid or anything. The concept confuses a great many people.)
Support Services for children makes me wonder. Okay, they need a school nurse. They need a school counselor (whoa. if my daughters tell me they want to be nude models when they grow up, i'll be happy for them. but if they decide to be psychologists, i will support them, but i will be sorely disappointed). They need someone to turn to if they are abused, neglected, or what have you at home. This is good. Except I'm extremely bothered by the idea of teachers foisting themselves into people's homes in the guise of doing them a good deed. We live in a society where a woman had her baby legally stolen from her for breastfeeding it, where a man had his child taken away from him for taking a nude picture with the child (not porn, mind you), where another man was put in jail for spanking his 11 year old son with a belt in school, where a woman was charged with child abuse BY A TOTAL STRANGER for slapping her child in a store. No. This is a foot-hold for pseudointellectual weasels to foist themselves into our homes. Going to the web site of the Carnegie Foundation, I found a disappointing tone of condescension. The one page that wasn't condescending was the one that tried to justify the intrusion of the schools into our homes - to balance the needs of the parents with those of the school...of course, the bottom line is that since the rights of the group are more important than individual rights, we all must give up our basic rights to raise our children as we see fit. Now, they can dress it up. They can deny this. They can put whatever face they want to on it. But that IS what it boils down to.
The fact is I don't trust anyone's judgement so well as my own, particularly in an age when scientism reigns in lieu of real science, and pseudointellectualism in lieu of real intellectualism. I reckon most (or at least, many) parents feel the same way.
The four priorities of the basic school are
The Shared Vision of the school is that it is:
The Core Commonalities are those over-arching areas that subsume the traditional subjects and tie them all together:
Boogers...I just realized part of my file got cut off at this point...this is annoying. Let me review a few points. I think these are all very good things from a top down view. It seems to me that Basic School is to Education what TQM is to manufacturing. Good on paper, but the followup in practice is everything. God is in the details, so to speak.
A few interesting things of note is that a few of these ideals have been implemented at my daughters' school -- to good effect. I'm very happy with my kids' education in the public schools so far. There experience is much, much better than my own. But I can't help but think that a great deal of that is 1) The teachers are highly dedicated, 2) The school's principal is highly dynamic, and 3) my wife and I ensure that our kids understand that getting an education (to include working hard in school) is their job and has a very high importance in our famiy life.
They've had a number of interesting activities at the school: science day, seminars for parents of pre-schoolers, that sort of thing. But, again, it's difficult to figure out how much of that is basic school and how much of it is just diligent teachers and principal.
One interesting thing about the way it's explained to parents is that the school (which apparently includes the parents as well as the students and faculty) decides on how much of the basic school to adopt. This I like.
At the level of exposition, I think the ideas are pretty good. I mean, they're expressed as truisms. How can they be wrong? I guess I would have a better idea if I understood more of what these things would mean (not just what they could mean). We're pretty lucky in that the people at our school seem sensible. But I wouldn't recommend this approach to anyone who wasn't equally confident of the people who would implement the programs.
