LOOKING INSIDE" ARCADIAA HIGH SCHOOL FOR THE REAL 21ST CENTURY and LOOKING INSIDE "The Curriculum"
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FROM CHAPTER 1
If you could stand in the middle of our country and be heard from coast to coast, you could shout loudly that public education is in serious trouble and would probably hear not a single voice wafting back to contradict you. On that point there is agreement even among people who normally do not agree. Not only parents and teachers in schools but executives in corporate boardrooms and employees around the coffee urn and politicians in elected legislatures and personalities in the public media agree: public education in our country is in serious trouble.
It is also generally agreed that the most troubled schools are the high schools, filled with young adults who, while not necessarily wise or mature, are still able, legally or illegally, to engage in the same activities as do adults, legally or illegally. It is no secret that high schools are beset with campus crime, are combating floundering test scores, have drug dealers in their midst, and are fighting a losing battle against drop-outs.
Even more corrosive and widespread is the dull-eyed determination of those jumping through the hoops for no reason other than to graduate. In an article explaining the popularity of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, the Oregonian stated, “Every kid feels as if his or her high school is built on the mouth of hell.” (12/29/97).
“What do you like best about school?” asked the survey, run by the author over a five-year period for about seven hundred 9th-12th graders. “Seeing my friends!” was the heavy favorite, with 83%. Classes, that occupy most of the day, limped in a poor next-to-last, with 8%.
Why do you take drugs in school? asked the questionnaire administered by the Substance Abuse Education Unit (South Carolina Department of Education) to students statewide. One of the most frequent answers: to get through the next class.
“Talk to me about your classes,” urged Dr. Charlie G. Williams, for twelve years State Superintendent of South Carolina. He asked that question at every annual meeting of his Superintendent's Student Council, twenty-one students chosen from the best and the brightest from around the state. Even the very persuasive, six-foot-six Dr. Williams was unable to keep the conversation on a topic that apparently elicited absolutely no interest, and that, to repeat, was among the best and the brightest, the academically and socially very successful.
If the best and the brightest find nothing of interest in their classes, what about all those others plodding along? Fewer and fewer each year, say the dropout statistics. Learning less and less say frustrated employers. Finding unattractive means of self expression, say the drug and crime and suicide statistics. More than a school system is at risk.
It is not as if no one has noticed the problem or attempted to address it. Quite the contrary. Education is awash in proposed solutions. Probably no field has been so trampled by so many bandwagons, each driven by spirited teams of good intentions. They rattle by, toot their horns, beat their drums. People jump on and then topple off as the bandwagon vanishes down the road either into oblivion or into the Great Educational Re-Cycler that will send it around again with a new name.
Like the snake oil salesmen of old, these bandwagons offer tonics and elixirs and buzzwords as catchy as any popular aspirin. But somehow, in spite of the best of intentions, education has not gotten fixed. Quite the contrary. It grows worse.
Why don't the bandwagons bring any solutions? Because, like aspirins, they attack the symptoms, not the causes of our educational disarray. One does not need to be an educator clanking prestigious degrees in one's wake to realize why these bandwagons are not working. All it takes is a few moment's reflection, a cold sober look at the realities of high school and students today, and a skill that most of us have-- common sense. So let's take that cold sober look.
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