What do we want schools to do?
Dissatisfaction with schools – primary schools, secondary schools, colleges and universities – is rife in America. The covid-19 pandemic has opened parents’ eyes to what is being taught in the classroom, because at-home instruction means parents are having to monitor classes – or even, teach classes – more than ever before. And much of what is taught in schools is, well, claptrap. Or offensive to the moral consensus of all but hard-line progressives.
At the same time, the difficulty of teaching and the value of education is also, I think, being affirmed. Parents having to wrestle with participating in their children’s education directly ought to make them appreciate the teacher’s role more than ever, even as it sharpens their sense of disappointment or outrage with those whose role that has been.
It’s time to re-think schooling in America. So, what do we want schools to do? The answer that has evolved over the last several generations, is – everything. We want schools to heal the wounded, make up for all kinds of social deficits, understand every child’s pain, help every child succeed, right every social wrong. We want them to feed our kids, provide medical care to those who don’t have access to it, babysit our kids until we got off work, and offer therapy. We want schools that help the most left-behind, even as we want schools that challenge the brightest and most advanced. We want extracurriculars out the wazoo (even more than we want academic classes, unless those classes give out trophies we can brag about). We want Science!™ but we want theater, too. And we want the government to pay for it all. Oh, and we want our kids to get good grades, whether or not they put in any effort.
All this is too much. If we are to improve schooling in America, we need a common understanding of what schools can do – should do – and what they can’t – and shouldn’t. So where does one start? I suggest starting with the original vision of schooling in America that evolved before there were even public schools as we think of them today. We begin with the Northwest Ordinance (and Land Ordinance) of 1787, which set aside one section in every township to provide for a school.
The framers of that landmark legislation – the most significant achievement of the United States Congress under the Articles of Confederation – lived in a world where there were multiple models of education. There were some public schools in the Northeast, some private schools in the middle of the country, and a passel of tutors for rich children in the South. A lot of basic education was acquired in the home, often by the family reading together the only universally shared text, the Bible. When the Confederation Congress undertook to provide for public schooling, nobody had an agreed-upon vision of how that was to be delivered. But the way they talked about education shows that the leaders of American society in that day had two primary curricular goals in mind.
The first was that they wanted an educated populace in order to prevent uneducated people from being a burden upon society. There was very little in the way of government benefits provided back then. The assumption was that everyone should earn one’s own living, and to do that everybody needed certain things: command of the (English) language, both written and spoken; enough math to engage in trade and manage one’s domestic affairs; enough science in order to take advantage of new discoveries and inventions. Children learned how to manage their domestic lives by helping out in their homes growing up. They learned about work by helping with their parents’ work or by working for others. In any case, the first curricular goal was to teach children the knowledge and skills necessary to function as working adults in a do-it-for-yourself America. America today is quite different in many ways from the early United States; however, preparing children for adulthood – meaning, especially, economic adulthood – should still be one of the primary tasks of public schools.
The second curricular goal of early America was to teach people how to be citizens of our exceptional country – exceptional especially in its governing structure. In order to take part in, and preserve, the constitutional order of the United States, we needed citizens and voters who understood our institutions. This required three different kinds of things to be taught: civics; culture; morality. Civics instruction centered on how our government works and what the citizen can do to participate in it. A participatory democracy requires voters who understand process, as well as issues. Cultural instruction means not only teaching history, but passing on the monuments of art and literature and philosophy that have shaped us as a people – knowing where we come from. Morality was perhaps the most important of all, for as our framers understood and said in various ways, only a moral people can work our system without wrecking it. That said, schooling only reflected current morality in the society; direct instruction in that morality was largely the province of the home and organized religion.
To put it simply, the original goal of schools in America was to make people functional adults and functional citizens. Higher education was provided for those people who intended to practice learned professions, of which originally there were two: the law and the clergy. Medicine was added later. And as science advanced, the teaching of science and the organization of research became a prominent academic area. Yes, there were those who went to college, even in colonial days, in order to become part of the nation’s elite – to acquire polish, to meet the right people, etc. But most people – even among the wealthy and in government – didn’t go to college. Their book learning was over by the time they were in their teens, but their education in life and their training in their specialist fields went on in other venues. (Interestingly, the Military Academy at West Point wasn’t founded in order to teach army officers how to command troops, but because we needed engineers – it was a trade school of a rather peculiar sort.)
I look at all the things we think are essential today – sports, band, buses, huge campuses, counselors, administrators and staff, feeding programs – and, while not criticizing the value of any of those things directly, wonder what they have to do with the essential purpose of providing an education to our children. It seems to me that we need to work on turning out functional adults and functional citizens again. If other things have to go by the wayside in order to do that, then let them go. You’ve got to the keep the Main Thing the main thing, or you’ll lose your essential purpose in a welter of distractions.
At the same time, the difficulty of teaching and the value of education is also, I think, being affirmed. Parents having to wrestle with participating in their children’s education directly ought to make them appreciate the teacher’s role more than ever, even as it sharpens their sense of disappointment or outrage with those whose role that has been.
It’s time to re-think schooling in America. So, what do we want schools to do? The answer that has evolved over the last several generations, is – everything. We want schools to heal the wounded, make up for all kinds of social deficits, understand every child’s pain, help every child succeed, right every social wrong. We want them to feed our kids, provide medical care to those who don’t have access to it, babysit our kids until we got off work, and offer therapy. We want schools that help the most left-behind, even as we want schools that challenge the brightest and most advanced. We want extracurriculars out the wazoo (even more than we want academic classes, unless those classes give out trophies we can brag about). We want Science!™ but we want theater, too. And we want the government to pay for it all. Oh, and we want our kids to get good grades, whether or not they put in any effort.
All this is too much. If we are to improve schooling in America, we need a common understanding of what schools can do – should do – and what they can’t – and shouldn’t. So where does one start? I suggest starting with the original vision of schooling in America that evolved before there were even public schools as we think of them today. We begin with the Northwest Ordinance (and Land Ordinance) of 1787, which set aside one section in every township to provide for a school.
The framers of that landmark legislation – the most significant achievement of the United States Congress under the Articles of Confederation – lived in a world where there were multiple models of education. There were some public schools in the Northeast, some private schools in the middle of the country, and a passel of tutors for rich children in the South. A lot of basic education was acquired in the home, often by the family reading together the only universally shared text, the Bible. When the Confederation Congress undertook to provide for public schooling, nobody had an agreed-upon vision of how that was to be delivered. But the way they talked about education shows that the leaders of American society in that day had two primary curricular goals in mind.
The first was that they wanted an educated populace in order to prevent uneducated people from being a burden upon society. There was very little in the way of government benefits provided back then. The assumption was that everyone should earn one’s own living, and to do that everybody needed certain things: command of the (English) language, both written and spoken; enough math to engage in trade and manage one’s domestic affairs; enough science in order to take advantage of new discoveries and inventions. Children learned how to manage their domestic lives by helping out in their homes growing up. They learned about work by helping with their parents’ work or by working for others. In any case, the first curricular goal was to teach children the knowledge and skills necessary to function as working adults in a do-it-for-yourself America. America today is quite different in many ways from the early United States; however, preparing children for adulthood – meaning, especially, economic adulthood – should still be one of the primary tasks of public schools.
The second curricular goal of early America was to teach people how to be citizens of our exceptional country – exceptional especially in its governing structure. In order to take part in, and preserve, the constitutional order of the United States, we needed citizens and voters who understood our institutions. This required three different kinds of things to be taught: civics; culture; morality. Civics instruction centered on how our government works and what the citizen can do to participate in it. A participatory democracy requires voters who understand process, as well as issues. Cultural instruction means not only teaching history, but passing on the monuments of art and literature and philosophy that have shaped us as a people – knowing where we come from. Morality was perhaps the most important of all, for as our framers understood and said in various ways, only a moral people can work our system without wrecking it. That said, schooling only reflected current morality in the society; direct instruction in that morality was largely the province of the home and organized religion.
To put it simply, the original goal of schools in America was to make people functional adults and functional citizens. Higher education was provided for those people who intended to practice learned professions, of which originally there were two: the law and the clergy. Medicine was added later. And as science advanced, the teaching of science and the organization of research became a prominent academic area. Yes, there were those who went to college, even in colonial days, in order to become part of the nation’s elite – to acquire polish, to meet the right people, etc. But most people – even among the wealthy and in government – didn’t go to college. Their book learning was over by the time they were in their teens, but their education in life and their training in their specialist fields went on in other venues. (Interestingly, the Military Academy at West Point wasn’t founded in order to teach army officers how to command troops, but because we needed engineers – it was a trade school of a rather peculiar sort.)
I look at all the things we think are essential today – sports, band, buses, huge campuses, counselors, administrators and staff, feeding programs – and, while not criticizing the value of any of those things directly, wonder what they have to do with the essential purpose of providing an education to our children. It seems to me that we need to work on turning out functional adults and functional citizens again. If other things have to go by the wayside in order to do that, then let them go. You’ve got to the keep the Main Thing the main thing, or you’ll lose your essential purpose in a welter of distractions.