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Politics : To be a Liberal,you have to believe that..... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (2601)	9/16/1999 11:45:00 AM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6418

The values on which there is something approaching social consensus are taught in school. From your perspective, perhaps. Not necessarily from mine. Which shows why you are satisfied with the status quo and I'm not. There ae any values taught in school on which I believe there is not even an approximate social consensus. Values in school are taught in two ways. Some are taught directly in the clasroom. Others are taught by the system, structure, and rules, which are value laden. Indeed, by far the most common and effective way of teaching values is by the structures and processes of the school system. We learn more by what we experience than by what we are told. As a teacher and school administrator I have long believed that the first thing a student learns in a school is how to survive in the school. Therefore, you must make the values necessary to survive the values you want them to learn. If, for example, you want to teach that cheating is wrong, you have to establish an environment in which cheating is detected and punished with sufficient frequency and severity that students learn that to do it is to risk their survival in the school. My daughters had a high school science teacher who would routinely hand out an exam (which was supposed to be closed book and working alone) and then leave the room, returning only at the end of the period to collect the exams. Did many the kids cheat? Of course they did. When I discussed this (calmly and rationally, of course!) with the teacher he said that he trusted his students and was sure they wouldn't cheat. Ha. Even when in one classic example six students (not, I am proud to say, my daughters) made the identical wrong series of calculations in a problem and got the identical wrong answer, in a way that could not have been coincidental, he did nothing. What that teacher and school were teaching was the value that cheating is okay and successful. (Not in that one case of the wrong answer, of course, because they got it wrong, even though probably none of them would have gotten it right if they had not cheated, but overall many students passed the course not because they knew the material but because they openly copied from kids who did.) Indeed, the value taught was that NOT cheating was abnormal and wrong -- my daughters were strongly criticized by their peers because they covered their answers and wouldn't pass them around the room. I told them how proud I was of them, but it was hard for them to oppose their peers that way. You want another specific? Teachers in our elementary school system are forbidden to use any corporal punishment whatever on students. When a student deliberately sticks out his foot and trips another student passing his desk, the teacher can't give him a quick swat to the bottom. Teachers are also forbidden from using public disapproval and shame as a corrective -- can't sit them on the traditional dunce stool in the corner, etc. Can't hurt their fragile little egos. They can send them to the main office, which tells them they were naughty and sends them back. First, this is minimal discipline and doesn't serve to prevent future recurrences. (Indeed the same kids are in trouble all their school careers. A pretty clear proof that the discipline system of the school is ineffective.) Second, it takes place in private, out of the presence of the other people affected by the behavior, so the class sees that the only consequence of the misdeed is getting out of class for a while and coming back in smirking and self-satisfied. This teaches very young children the clear value that whatever their families may believe, society and its institutions believe that misdeeds should not have swift and immediate consequences, and that the price for misbehavior is minimal enough to make misbehavior fun and virtually risk free. And then we are surprised when children taught these values come back years later to shoot up classrooms (and drugs). I certainly don't believe in abusing children, or excessive corporal punishment, or hitting in the head, or anything dangerous to them physically. And I recognize that with frequency, corporal punishment diminishes in effectiveness. But my values are that at the right times a good swift swat to the bottom is both needed and appropriate, and indeed its absence is sometimes more an indication of abusive parenting than its presence. (In Washington, our law specifically allows for corporal punishment within specific limits.) And I believe that many in society believe the same. But the teaching establishment teaches values directly contradictary to those I want my children taught. And E (and you?) want to prohibit me seeking to get my values incorporated into the school system.