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North America is Destroying its Future, One Child at a Time

North America, the way things appear to be going, will be left in the dust of the asian powerhouses by the 22nd Century. This will happen for reasons entirely of our own doing. North American prosperity at home & significance on the world stage is being undone one child at a time.

A solid education is the basis for future prosperity. Good health is the foundation for sharp, able minds that can learn, grow, and innovate. I have already posted about the poor health-legacy that we are leaving our kids, so let me now talk a little about the unraveling of our education system – a system which, even in its current state, lags behind that of our international competitors.

Writers, even years ago, compared the education given to North American kids against that given to asian kids, and found the North American system deficient. Yes, the top universities in America, in particular, are powerhouses of research and development, but primary & secondary education lagged far behind. Why?

1. Teachers have been stripped of authority
2. Mediocrity is the de facto goal, not excellence
3. Homework is not valued, even by parents
4. Learning is dicontinuous

Teachers cannot teach if they cannot enforce discipline in the classroom.  Kids cannot learn if they are allowed to listen to music, play video games, text message, or to indulge in any other distractions so that they do not have to pay attention to the teacher. I was appalled to hear from my teacher friend that she and her colleagues are not allowed to take the MP3 players, PSPs, or cellphones away from students. They are not allowed to do anything but give an evil eye and repeat, ad nauseum and without any power whatsoever, “Stop that, and pay attention!”

Kids aren’t dumb. They know when someone is merely all-talk and no-action. The current climate – and we can only blame ourselves, the general population amongst which the parents of schoolchildren come from – has stripped teachers of discretionary authority in the classroom. They are, in essence, 3-dimensional video recordings, not people, not teachers. 

Distracted kids cannot learn. Simple as that. By stripping away teachers’ authority to maintain discipline in their classrooms, we have taken away their ability to remove distractions from the classroom.

No Child Left Behind sounds nice, but it’s a load of crap. We live in an age of political correctness gone amok, where doing things for-show is often more important than doing things for-results. Kids need good self-esteem, yes, but telling them they’re doing great when they aren’t, or pulling everyone back so that the tail-enders don’t feel diminished is putting things ass-backwards.

Kids should feel good about themselves for what they have accomplished – and kids can accomplish a lot if you guide, encourage, discipline, and teach them. They should not feel good for simply sitting there and breathing.

Do you remember report cards? They tell parents how their kids are doing in school. How well are they doing compared to the expected standards? How well are they doing compared to their peers? A, B, C, D, or dare I say it, F, meant something. Now Ontario is changing to something akin to “Doing well, doing alright, could be better”. The idea is to move away from ranking kids, or making them feel like they need to be pushing harder, or making parents or teachers feel like they could be doing something better to help, teach, and guide the kids.

It’s easy to make sure every kid feels like they’re an ace. Dumb everything down, pull every kid down to the lowest common denominator. Then, you can be sure you will have schools that, as the infamous saying goes, “every kid is above average”.

Homework is an absolutely necessary part of education. In part, it is important because of the explicit lesson that the kids are learning from homework: arithmetic, grammar, reading comprehension, analytical skills. But the other part, the implicit lesson, is just as important: perseverance, discipline, the rewards of hard work, self-reliance, teamwork, and very simply, the ability to learn better.

I was shocked at a Christmas lunch with a number of managers from work when the discussion touched upon homework for kids, and one manager said aloud, “I don’t think kids should have homework. We don’t take work home after 5, so why should they take home work after class ends?” I didn’t know what to say to that. I thought at worst he was a singular aberration. Unfortunately, other managers in the group nodded their heads in agreement. Holy cow, I found myself in the midst of managers who are themselves educated and should know better!

Kids have a lot to learn. In just about 12 years, from age 6 to 18, kids have to learn and internalize an incredible amount of information and knowledge. There’s no way around it. Literacy is not optional. Facility with numbers is not optional. Knowledge of history, geography, and science is not optional. An appreciation for arts, culture, and language is not optional. The ability to intelligently assess, analyze, and synthesize is not optional. These are all varied and complex areas that kids must learn about from scratch, or else they will not be able to compete & thrive in the modern world. That is a lot to ask of a child to learn, and not a lot of time to do it.

Not everything can be taught in the classroom. This is the case even with university students and students in professional schools. At least as much is learned by a student on his or her own, as is learned in the classroom environment. Just as with an athlete, the coach or teacher only guides. It is still up to the individual to take it further, and to continue to learn and practice on their own.

Most disturbingly is the lesson given to kids who are not given homework or are not required to do it. They are told that they only have to do the bare minimum – show up, sit in the chair, and be alive. They miss out on the lesson that hard work creates rewards, and that there are some things that can only be accomplished through hard work.

Finally, learning must be continuous or else one loses momentum each time it stops. Imagine an Olympic athlete training for 9 months, and then doing absolutely no training for the next 3 months. What would happen when they resume training? They’d suck. Big time. They’d have to take the first month or two when they return just to get back to where they were when they took a break.  Maybe more than just 2 months. That means they’ve lost at least 5 months of development compared to someone else who continued to train.

This is what happens when we give our kids 3-month summer vacations every year. Is it any wonder that those kids at home or abroad who continue to learn year-round excel compared to their peers who do not?

Do you remember what happened when you came back to school after summer vacation? Your handwriting sucked. Writing with a pen or pencil on a sheet of paper felt strange. Something similar happens to kids’ other mental facilities through disuse. Those kids who are fortunate enough to be sent to summer programs of various kinds to keep learning would have kept the momentum of learning & development going. Those kids who were allowed to veg in front of the TV, play video games, and just go out to the mall or the park every day, would need to build up momentum once again.

We are not conditioning our kids for excellence. Though we mean well – we want kids to be happy, to enjoy life, and to have good self-esteem – we aren’t preparing them well for the future that lies ahead. There is competition in the workplace. There is competition in the economy. There is competition between national economies. Though competition is no longer a matter of life & limb, for most of us, it is still there.

There is a saying that he who is taught in the strictest school shall win. It is not the strictness that is important – that is only a means, and can be enforced in enlightened ways, not through corporal punishment. What is important is the development of the pupils – our children, our future – so that they can excel and win, and in so doing, create prosperity, happiness, and well-deserved self-esteem for themselves.