Many years ago, I entered the first grade at the school across the street from my house. Kindergarten was not available yet, and the school was part of a centralized system in rural New York. I was in a room with the first, second and third grades with a total of about 20 kids. It was a time during World War II, and the teacher’s husband was in the army. Mrs. Ellis taught all three grades, and we were able to hear all the lessons given to the other grades. By the third grade, we had already been through the material two times.
Because of the war, there were many shortages of some foods and gasoline. Ration stamps were required to purchase these items. But, with a large garden and living in a farming region, food became less of an issue. My mother washed clothes with a wringer washer and hung them to dry on a clothesline in the backyard. While it was a time of sacrifice for many, I did not know any difference. School was fun but did require some attention and work. Reading, writing and arithmetic were the main topics, and most of us did quite well with a few exceptions. A couple of kids had trouble with some of the coursework. When the next year rolled around, they were still in first grade and a year behind.
As the years went by, and I was promoted to the next grade, more and more of my friends were held back to repeat a grade. You see, you had to pass the grade to be promoted. If your reading skills or math work was not at the level required for that grade, you had to repeat it. When I was in my junior year, I had a problem with literature. I could read it, but I could not understand why I had to waste my time doing so. I flunked English that year and had to repeat it during my senior year. It was embarrassing, but I did it and graduated with my class. Many of those who had been held back graduated with the next class, but a few had dropped out of school when they reached the age of 16. Some of their stories appear later.
Without college loans available, it took me a little longer to get through the State University of New York and Syracuse University. It was hard work and, for me, drudgery as I never cared for the academic life and going to school from the time I entered high school. I kept going because I knew it was necessary for my future. As it happened, I would not have been anywhere near the goals I had set for myself without that education and have no clue where I might have ended up. The education was a key to new opportunities, and I explored all that I could.
The title of this blog is “Education or Not,” and while I had some choices when I was young there are many more available now. I had to achieve promotion to the next grade, and I could not get away with not doing my homework and participating in class. Today each student can decide whether or not they wish to learn or just be pushed along and shoved out the door with a diploma. Those who do learn and get an education end up taking care of those who don’t. Close to 30% of high school graduates are functionally illiterate and will end up either in jail or on some form of government assistance. Those who drop out of school are doomed to the same fate of jail or welfare. Education is still a choice that is made by the student, but it is being made at an age that they are not able to make those choices for themselves. The schools have taken the easy way out and stopped teaching the difficult students. I can only speculate why.
My mom’s washing machine required a lot of work, and now we have automatics that let us load them and when done we transfer the clothes to the dryer. The mixing spoon has been replaced with the electric mixer, and I can still remember our first toaster to illuminate holding bread over a flame. Most of the drudgery of keeping and maintaining a home has been automated with much of the labor removed. The garage door opens itself, and we do not have to put wood or coal on the fire to keep warm. While most everything that we own or use has been changed to make it better or easier to use, education has not gotten any easier. Learning is still hard work. There is no way to stuff knowledge into young people other than make them aware, remember, use and finally understand the subjects being taught.
The educators have tried all kinds of things to ease the painful and tedious learning that each of us has to do to be able to read and write a language and to use numbers to solve our daily problems of buying, selling and doing business. The “new math” and new reading models have been introduced, and just a few years ago the educators gave up on writing and stopped teaching cursive in school. Typing in a computer without even a typing class was sufficient to get through high school. I’m sorry, but it isn’t working, and we are turning out many uneducated kids who have given up their chance at some type of success because we allowed them to make a choice when they were in the first three grades of school. We pushed them through and out the door with no tools to compete in the modern world. They end up relying on government, jails, drugs and alcohol to take their success's place. Somehow this has to stop. We are told that it hurts a child to be held back and that we embarrass them when we refuse to promote them when there has been no improvement, but there are no concerns when they are pushed into the world with no skills to handle their future.
One measure could solve many of our children’s problems including school psychological events such as the shooting of classmates and teachers. Don’t let any child pass the third grade until they can read, write and do basic arithmetic. Let them repeat the first and second grades until it is apparent that their learning disability is real and they need more specialized help. Stop throwing our children away and give them the education and discipline they need to compete in this world. Oh yes, the friends who dropped out when I was in school ended up with their own successes. While they did not graduate from high school, they did learn to read, write and do basic math. One of them owns a vehicle parts business and has been very successful while another owns and operates an excavating business. They both learned enough math to write a purchase order and an invoice. We are missing out on these types of successes today because we are too lazy to really educate our children.
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