The Hyperion Chronicles

The Hyperion Chronicles

“I believe Children are the future…unless we stop them now!”

#320 Edumacation and the “Lesser Evil” Fallacy

My friends, I write to you today heartened, encouraged, and dare-I-say-it: ebullient. The Hyperion for President campaign gains ground every day. People are having their thoughts provoked, sharing with friends, spreading the news; and one by one, they are committing to vote for me.

I want to be a candidate people want to vote for, because while I am in favor of a law that would require every citizen to vote, I do not think you have to vote for someone. Given the choice between

A) George W. Bush

B) John F. Kerry

C) Hugging and Kissing some Poisonous Snakes

I would choose C. People who don’t vote just for apathy’s sake probably deserve what they get. However, I cannot blame people sick of the political rhetoric, the lies, and the criminal amount of time and money wasted in Washington, who don’t vote on principle (the principle of disgust). (In fact, I would say it is far worse to vote for candidates you’ve never heard of and know nothing about. Straight party ticket-voters, I’m looking in your direction.¹)

I don’t want to hear the pernicious canard that people who don’t vote can’t complain. Give them a candidate who inspires them, who they can believe in, and they will vote in droves. (Just in case you weren’t sure, that’s me.)

This brings up another fallacy, that voting for someone unlikely to win is throwing away your vote. The logic goes: Candidate A or Candidate B is going to win, so even if you don’t like either, you should pick the lesser of two evils.

This is wrong on so many levels. For one, it will hurt your soul. Doing the wrong thing for the right reason is never right.

Secondly, my campaign is not a flash-in-the-pan kind of thing: It’s a Movement. We’re starting something here that will eventually change the world, and we want you to be a part of it. If nothing else, when I rule the planet you can tell people you voted for me way back when. If you are planning on voting for me or decide to on November 2, let us know. Come the day, I won’t forget my people.

Changing gears, I want to talk about education. There are many out there working in the public school system who are dedicated, altruistic and hard working. This is not a shot at any of them.

But people, we need to get serious: the public school system in America is a joke. It’s broken, and ain’t going to fix itself. (Don’t laugh Canadian Readers. I’ve been up here long enough to see that if anything, you’re worse.)

The percentage of kids who graduate today without the most basic of life skills is staggering. Because of grade inflation and a general white-flag-attitude from teachers, the problem has been largely hidden from the country. I don’t have hard numbers (they’re too scared to poll on this), but a pretty good estimate is that 25-30% of graduating seniors are functionally illiterate. They may be able to read the words, but in a practical sense, they don’t know what the words mean.

Kids are getting into college unprepared, and consequently the university system is suffering. They find they have to teach remedial courses to a large percentage of their students rather than pressing forward. Graduate schools will not lower their standards, which results in fewer and fewer American students getting in, as they just can’t make the cut.

Let’s acknowledge that this is not all the fault of the schools. The breakdown of the Family has led to many children not equipped at home to deal with their own lives, let alone algebra and Shakespeare. (These problems need solving too, but that is for another column.)

Let us also stipulate that part of the problem was inevitable when the government declared that all children must go to school. 200 and 100 years ago, the vast majority of kids didn’t go to much school if any. Even as recently as WWII finishing primary schooling was not the norm.

But here we are and the system sucks and I don’t care whose feathers I ruffle (Teachers’ Unions, I’m looking in your direction), I want to fix this.

The answer is not to throw more money at it. We spend too much money on education now as it is, because so much is wasted. I don’t mind spending money, but I’d do it in a whole different way.

There are reasons doctors and lawyers and other top-tier people tend to be more highly educated, more intelligent, and more motivated than normal. For some, their work is their passion, and that’s great, but almost nobody works for free, and you get what you pay for.

Let me put it another way: you cannot just become a lawyer, doctor, NASA Engineer, or any of a hundred jobs out there that pay well. There are steps to take, hoops to jump through, so they get the best people they can.

I’m not putting down the amount of education teachers have, but it should be much harder to be a teacher. It should be very competitive, with the same group of highly motivated well-educated ambitious go-getters vying to get those coveted teaching jobs. However, this isn’t just going to happen out of the goodness of society’s collective hearts. You gotta dangle that carrot.

I have no problem with a teacher starting at 80-100 thousand dollars a year, and going up from there. You offer that kind of money, and watch your application pool go through the roof. This is the single greatest thing we can do to improve schools; get the best people.

Of course, that would mean judging the teachers in a more rigorous way. Here is where the Teacher’s Unions make me homicidally angry. They oppose any kind of objective test to rate competency. Can you imagine letting a cop keep wearing a gun if he couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn? Or letting a firefighter charge into a burning building if he hurt his back so badly that he couldn’t carry a box of Ho-Hos, let alone a child? If you think about it, are teachers any less important?

This generally doesn’t happen in the business world. If you can’t sell the product, they will find someone who can. Lose all your trials and eventually clients will quit coming. And there are only so many times a heart surgeon can say, “Oops…my Bad!”

But the Unions don’t want teachers tested. The reason is a dirty little secret: they know most of them wouldn’t pass. Sample tests have been done nation-wide and only 25% of the teachers made the grade.

Some teachers might feel I am trashing their brethren, but most dedicated teachers have worked with some of these deadbeats for years and say, “It’s about time!”

How do we evaluate these teachers’ success? Pure knowledge can’t just be it. Some of the smartest people in the world can’t communicate worth anything. So, how do we do it? Just like in business, it’s about production.

Now, before you have nine kinds of cows, I know testing students is controversial, and I agree that most standardized tests are moronic. Plus, when tests count so much, some teachers spread all their time teaching the students to pass the tests instead of actual knowledge.

However, we have to measure it somehow. It seems to me that a test could be developed to more accurately measure knowledge rather than “the ability to take tests,” as well as looking at competency over an extended period of time rather than one panicked morning.

Just as important: the end-results wouldn’t matter as much as the percentage of improvement. I’d want a baseline reading in the beginning, and measure where the students went from there. I would also offer more potential money for teachers willing to go to schools with historically low-achieving and hard-to-teach students, and willing to take problem cases. The challenge would be greater, but so would the reward.

Getting better teachers is not the whole plan. I would completely change the way school is run. Kindergarten would be Base Camp, with a focus on three essentials: reading skills, socialization, and identifying any possible learning disabilities. Towards that end, classes would be switched up frequently. The goal would be to expose kids to as many situations and people as possible, so they get used to it, and see what might work (for what’s coming).

Starting in 1^st grade, students would have the same primary teacher for the next three years. Her job would be to teach them the basics: reading, writing and math. No child would get out of the 3^rd grade without the ability to demonstrate competency in these three areas. We’ve gotten terrified of stigmatizing children, so they are passed on year-to-year; somebody else’s problem, and we’re left with high schoolers who can’t read the diploma they didn’t earn. To pass a child who has not learned to do these things does the child no favors. In fact, I consider it assault, and would treat it as such.

Let’s get back to the class. The primary teacher would have assistants, akin to residents in hospitals. They would be going through the end of their training to become teachers, a year with each Master teacher for 2-3 years.

If you’re going to teach a language, kids learn them better when they are young. I would like to see kids know the basics of Latin and Greek, which would help them in later schooling. The other subjects—Art, Health, Science, History, etc.—should always dovetail into the core mandate, and should be subordinate to the basics. Skipping a unit of second-grade Health won’t kill anybody; and there’s no point if they can’t read the material.

Upon (successfully) reaching the 4^th grade, the 3-year process starts over again with another primary teacher and assistants. Oh, what a difference those first three years will now make! You give a fantastic teacher a room full of kids who can read and write and do math and the world is their oyster. Things progress as before, with the secondary subjects coming into greater focus.

One other thing: I would mandate Logic and Beginner’s Philosophy be taught here. The inability to use logic in today’s youth is almost as appalling to me as the dearth of reading and writing skills out there.

In 7^th grade, we could no longer have a 3-year teacher for all subjects. I would like to see a student have the same Math or English teacher for all three years, but quite honestly, I haven’t worked out the logistics of that yet.

The “Home Room” teacher would be with the students for all three years, and his primary job would be to keep track of the students’ well-being, as this is the time when emotional problems are likely to develop. I see this as a period that could serve as a combination study-hall/relationship building/therapy session. The other main job of this three-year teacher would be to help students figure out which academic path they want to take.

That’s because by 10^th-12^th grade, there’s no more time to mess around with B.S. classes. In my system, the core academic skills have been mastered and social skills too. It’s time to get serious. There would still be classes that everyone must take: Math, Science, English, History, Logic/Philosophy, Typing, and Health. For the others, a student could choose. Some choices would be electives, to see what they might like. (How do you know if you like to act, cook, or build a clock until you try?) Other choices, though, would involve more rigorous academics vs. applicable trade skills.

If students know they want the full college path, they take every tough college prep course available. If they already know they want to do something more concrete, they get started on classes on that direction. They end result will be students actually prepared for college. Those not going that way will still come out of high school so well educated that employers will be jumping to hire them.

Notice how nowhere in the plan is there a call for massive amounts of computers and high-tech gadgetry. This is because they have become a crutch in many places. I’m not a neo-Luddite, but a few computers in the library will serve fine for the early years, and the high school classrooms only need computers where that’s appropriate. Moreover, there will be NO calculators until at least Calculus. It’s ridiculous how today’s generation has virtually zero math skills.

Obviously, we can only start this with new students; the current system will have to integrate as best we can. Current teachers could apply for new positions without malice or advantage to what they were before. In many ways, some current teachers might have a hard time adjusting from the ways things were. The best teachers, though, would jump at the chance to be rewarded according to their abilities in a system that was working with them instead of against.

I know this isn't the answer to every problem our schools face. I don’t have the room to go into everything, and some matters fall under a different heading. However, this would be a world-altering start. Any society that had the vision and will to put this in place would ensure its survival and success for generations to come.

Join me Friday when we follow where your money is—and should be—going and find out what Hyperion has behind Door #2.

Until then, tell your friends, tell your neighbors, and vote for me.

Hyperion

October 20, 2004

Notes
¹ Seriously: there is a Republican in Tennessee running on a Segregation platform. There is a Democrat in Northern California who says that all students should be given pot so they’re not tempted. The days of voting for a Party because you trust them to agree with you are over. If you’ve ever voted for someone based on their cool name or random guessing, you’re worse than the people who don’t vote.

Motto and Title Explanation
The Motto is something Homer says when applying to be a guard at a Juvenile Prison. Homer also says “Edumacation.”

Credits
Thanks to Koz and Tootsie for Editing
Thanks to Braj and Taisie
Thanks to my sister for buying a pirate-wench name