My educational upbringing, like my religious education, was something of a hodgepodge. I attended an all black public elementary school in the 60s that had a fairly exceptional record. Its principal, Mrs. Edna Cohen, was a leading light in the community whose portrait still hangs in the Wilfandel Club House in the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles.
For my middle grades, I attended Holy Name of Jesus School, an all-black parochial school that spanned the first through eighth grades. Its principal, Sister Mary Leone Rock, lived up to her name, an irascible disciplinarian who brooked absolutely no dissent.
Finally, I attended an all boy's prep school run by Jesuits. Its principal Father Charles Gagan was a serious and probitive man, the kind that laughed at jokes over most of our heads. He fostered a sense of leadership and character building that was essential to the character of the school.
We all know the cliche that public school teachers send their own children to private school. My question today is what is the accepted superior form of education reserved for the most privileged in our society and how does it differ in form, content and style from the 'industrial' kind of routine most of us get in American public schools?
In my experience there are two primary differences that I noticed between the two Catholic Schools and other education. Clearly in my prep school, the teachers seemed to be much more the intellectual, even moreso than several of my college professors. Secondly, there was a higher set of expectations in prep school. It was made clear that doing well there was doing well, period. There wasn't a sense of relativism, rather there was a palpable sense that performance here translated into more than just attaboys. It was expressed in the way those teachers respected students.
At the parochial school, there was a harsh sense of control rigorously enforced by corporal punishment, dress codes and daily regimen. And the sense of control went beyond the borders of the school. We were told not to eat at a particular hotdog stand on our way home, for example. There was no question that the school put pressure on parents. It was very Catholic.
For a brief moment I attended a public middle school as well. There, I got the sense that there was no question but that the kids were in charge. All of the teachers were disrespected and considered stupid losers conscripted to be babysitters while we ran scams under their noses. The popular students were essentially invincible. It must be said that most of these kids had rich and upper middle class parents.
Finally, I was also a part of a gifted children's program in elementary school. It was lightly disciplined and run at the 6th Avenue School by Miss Bosquito. What was particularly unique about that program, aside from the subjects which were always interesting (oceanography & geometry) was that there was a point system. There was no grade, per se, but there were many different ways to score points, and you were encouraged to get points in competition with the other students.
I have met many blackfolks of Caribbean descent who attended English style schools in their Commonwealth states who consider American public education to be a joke.
I think that in our accomodation of multiple classes and a broad spectrum of cultural 'norms' we have reduced public education to the lowest common denominator. Here in California we are entangled with lawsuits involving our unwillingness to flunk people. This is the destructive end of an ass-backwards multiculturalism. This is not the multiculturalism of educated men and women who read the histories of other nations, but the shallow political correctness that perversely subjugates American standards to any ethnically attibutable proclivity. And so by respecting everything, we stand for nothing and thus disable any discipline or theme we might have as a central organizing principle for a principal to establish. Our public schools are failing directly as a consequence of Cobb's Rule #1: A little bit of everything adds up to a whole lot of nothing.
Our public university system on the other hand maintains reputable standards. In the two tiers, I will speak only breifly about the lower tier, Cal State which are primary undergraduate teaching colleges rather than research oriented universities. The deficiencies at the public secondary schools are being made up for by stretching four year programs into five year programs with a bonehead level for those students making up for deficits. The college retains a higher level of instructors than the public schools - it's the first place many students get a decent math teacher.
But even as I attended Cal State many years after graduation from my prep school, I recognized a culture marked by a complete lack of discipline and principle and instructors I considered inferior to those I already had.
Something has to change.
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