RAIL

Since the publication of Academically Adrift in 2011, it has been a commonplace that educators in the US are failing to prepare students to think critically. The inevitable question of who to blame for this, sadly, seems almost tailor-made to pit K-12 educators against their counterparts in higher ed. Being in the latter category, a refrain I frequently hear from colleagues in the US is that students are turning up at their institutions every year who are less prepared for college-level work than their predecessors of a few years prior. While many (I would even go so far as to say most if not all) of us do not blame K-12 teachers, whom we know are subject to a great more interference in their professional lives than many of us could ever stomach, we do blame the political dysfunction that causes their woes. Increasingly it threatens higher ed too.

“The Student in His Study,” by Jan Davidszoon de Heem, 1628

On that subject here’s a piece from Valerie Strauss’s Answer Sheet blog at the Washington Post that deserves a lot more attention than it’s had to this point.  It was written by one Kenneth Bernstein, apparently upon reflection at the time of his retirement as a High School AP government teacher. In this piece Bernstein gives clear voice to the feeling that many professional teachers have that the priorities of the national education agenda in the US are seriously, dangerously out of alignment with the standing mission of K-12 education to produce functional young adults with sufficient critical thinking skills to make them capable of entering either the work force or higher ed. Quoting from a must-read blog post by 2009 National Teacher of the Year, Anthony Mullen, he also captures well the absurdity of an educational system that puts the fate of its charges in the hands of people with neither classroom experience nor any substantive background in education:

“What do you think?” the senator asked.Where do I begin? I spent the last thirty minutes listening to a group of arrogant and condescending non educators disrespect my colleagues and profession. I listened to a group of disingenuous people whose own self-interests guide their policies rather than the interests of children. I listened to a cabal of people who sit on national education committees that will have a profound impact on classroom teaching practices. And I heard nothing of value.

“I’m thinking about the current health care debate, “I said. “And I am wondering if I will be asked to sit on a national committee charged with the task of creating a core curriculum of medical procedures to be used in hospital emergency rooms.”

The strange little man cocks his head and, suddenly, the fly on the wall has everyone’s attention.

“I realize that most people would think I am unqualified to sit on such a committee because I am not a doctor, I have never worked in an emergency room, and I have never treated a single patient. So what? Today I have listened to people who are not teachers, have never worked in a classroom, and have never taught a single student tell me how to teach.”

The relevance of Mullen’s sentiment for those of us engaged in higher education should be obvious. After all,  education policy wonks and partisans from both the right and the left, clearly have changes to higher ed on their list of things to do.

What to do if you’re a professor who cares more about the academic integrity of your teaching and research than about games of chess being played by politicos? Here’s Bernstein’s suggestion:

If you, as a higher education professional, are concerned about the quality of students arriving at your institution, you have a responsibility to step up and speak out. You need to inform those creating the policies about the damage they are doing to our young people, and how they are undermining those institutions in which you labor to make a difference in the minds and the lives of the young people you teach as well as in the fields in which you do your research.

You can read the whole post here.

For my part, the takeaway seems to be that treating education–either at the K-12 or the higher ed level–as a political football serves our students, our professions, and our nations poorly. It’s something we should think very carefully about, both in terms of remedies and in terms of roles we ourselves might play in creating the situation.  If we care about turning out students who can think critically, then we have to think critically about the intersection between politics, education, and though I haven’t mentioned it, business as well in our societies. If we decide not to do this, then recent history shows that others will certainly be willing to do it for us. (And how well has that worked out?)

Perhaps its time that we played a more active role in this discussion–not as political combatants, but as professionals engaged in a practice whose very integrity is at stake.