Your assessment is missing a lot of social realities of the time. Child labor laws were not enacted, poverty segregation, and sexism were still rampant. Institutions were educating for the elite and wealthy. As access increased, and diversity grew, education systems had to make it accessible and realistic for the average human being. We also have to mindful of the human being classic education was trying to produce. It was producing an elitist class dissociated from their human instincts and structured to hold up European culture as the civilizing force against an archaic and primitive humanity. This education produced the world we live in today, and clearly much was still missed.
The imperative of understanding the world we live in and its roots is hard placed on an education system. Because it's cerebral, it misses the embodied reality. We need a culturally literate society, but that cannot be mandated with culture. And the coercion, force, and brutality that classical education imposed on young children, does not build whole souls. Unfortunately, neither does modern education. Comparing one with other misses all the cultural advancements we've made, ignores the problems we have still not solved, and promotes eurocentrism, elitism, and intellectualism over a truly well society.
this is a strong counter. the requirements were high - that’s great, who was testing? oh, these rural alabaman kids had higher expectations- how many passed and who was testing? certainly not anyone beneath a particular economic status, i’m sure.
This would be a strong counter if this account of education was only true of the rich. It isn't. The year 8 test shown is good evidence. You'll find a lot more in a book called The Intellectual Life of the British Working Class, which says, for example, that a 1940 survey of students in working-class areas found that 62 percent of boys and 84 percent of girls read poetry outside of school.
More evidence from Tocqueville's Democracy in America, vol. 2 part 1 ch. 13:
'Although America is perhaps the civilized country of our day where people are least occupied with literature ... There is scarcely a pioneer's cabin where one does not encounter some odd volumes of Shakespeare.'
I have another source on Ireland saying that 'generations of visitors to Ireland described ostlers, cowherds, post boys, barefoot servants and other low people displaying classical erudition.' (Kaller, The Last Who Remember)
I notice you assumed that classical education achieved these results with 'coercion, force and brutality'. Is it really so unbelievable that children might have loved learning? Do you really think they read poetry outside school, or read Shakespeare, or knew their classical Latin authors, only because they were forced to?
Why should people be expected to know Latin but not Arabic? Equal numbers of classic works have been written in both. Why should people read Chaucer but not Guanzhong? Why is Brahms more important than Coltrane? The idea that certain cultural knowledge is somehow better than others tired at best and ethnocentric at worst.
That’s not what he was saying, at all. He meant, we have dumbed things down. He was looking at Kentucky, USA, in 1912 and Scotland, UK during the Enlightenment. The same comparisons could be made if you looked at Persian or Arabic-speaking nations, although the educational systems in some of those countries today produce graduates with much greater knowledge of both Eastern and Western traditions than a majority of US grads. (Thinking of people I’ve known from Algeria and Iran) But it all gets complicated by social factors and individual regional patterns.
This is a good point. I will say that at my kids classical education school, my son (who is in MS) has read both the original folk story of Aladdin, as well as Beowulf at age 12. So they are teaching both. History teaching includes learning about the origins and core tenants of Islam and other make world religions. Geography and cultural knowledge includes knowing where major cities, rivers, monuments are in every continent. They do learn Latin. But they learn Latin because it is the basis of scientific nomenclature and is universally understood by all scientists, from China to Belize. It is also the basis for the Romance languages, which includes many more languages than just English.
Okay, I'll tell you why some cultural knowledge is better than others: It's because Western civilization in all its manifestations is based on ancient Greek and Latin literature, philosophy, and government, and it's the greatest and most successful civilization that has ever existed.
Scientific discoveries came in large part from men educated in classical languages. It's Western civilization that has given us the engineering and medical innovations that have made our lives better. And put us on the moon. And it's capitalism that has raised the standard of living above anything ever experienced in the world's history.
As a Greek-American, I'm fond of bouzouki music. But I'd never put it above Brahms. And face it, bongo drums are just bongo drums.
I've read Chinese and Japanese poetry, and The Tale of Genji, and like them very much. True that they were in translation. But I've read Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Dante (among others) in translation too, and there's more to them.
It's fatuous to claim that African culture has benefited mankind in any meaningful way.
‘Scientific discoveries came in large part from men educated in classical languages. It's Western civilization that has given us the engineering and medical innovations that have made our lives better.’
The crankshaft, early flight machines, automatons, algebra & algorithms, windmills, early hospitals, time measurement and counting mechanisms, even coffee all come from Middle Eastern/Western Asia civilisations.
Gunpowder, refined paper making and the compass are Chinese inventions.
From India, the notion of Zero, decimal systems, early form of plastic surgery (sushruta), flush toilets and sewage systems etc.
And capitalism, well, profoundly flawed, creates deep inequality, serves the interests of a minority, destroys the environment, and prioritises profit over basic human decency.
I will grant you that other civilizations made discoveries. After that, what?
As for this, "And capitalism, well, profoundly flawed, creates deep inequality, serves the interests of a minority, destroys the environment, and prioritises profit over basic human decency," it shows a mindset and not a grasp of facts. Too bad for you.
Actually, I will amend that and add, it is deeply offensive as well as quite ignorant. Of course, I have a mindset, one that is informed by facts as by opinions of many others better read than I. Too bad for you, that you seem to have no arguments other than a personal attack.
"After that what?" after that there was colonialism and destruction of social systems that hinged on these discoveries. And after that colonisers tried to sell us our own discoveries for 63800% of the initial price. (That percentage is an exaggeration)
You do realize that WASPs that built this whole system both saw the ancient Greeks & Romans as their cultural ancestors but looked down on their contemporary descendants as degenerate and racially inferior...they tried keeping them out of their colonies. Italians/Sicilians were lynched and in the South many of them went to Black schools. They were not seen as white, same deal with Greeks. (I'm not saying that the guy writing the essay believes any of that, just pointing out the ideology you are supporting views you as inferior)
As someone once pointed out, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. (It's attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, but I've seen no evidence of it.)
That WASPs looked down on Greeks and Italians is not new news to me. It really doesn't matter. The children of Greek immigrants almost always do very well, and they are over represented in medical fields. Good enough.
We don't need to put down other cultures to appreciate our own. Don't we want to know, and want our kids/students to know, the writings that shaped our language and culture?
If I met an Iranian who had never read Rumi, I would think 'that's a shame' in a way I wouldn't if he hadn't read Shakespeare.
It's good to understand and value other cultures. But getting to know your own gives more benefit and joy, just as knowing your own wife gives more benefit and joy than knowing her sister.
Think you hit the nail on the head with much of this.
The root of the problem is clearly not a lack of resources - in fact, we have more educational tools at our fingertips than ever before in history - but rather an underlying cultural shift in motivation.
In the present age, education is commonly thought of as a mere gating criteria, where you need just enough of it to be (or even just to appear) economically functional.
I'd like to think of it more as a means of cultivating the mind and soul for a purpose much greater than ourselves (but sometimes for no premeditated purpose at all).
I find the odd bit about our educational system is how fundamentally arbitrary it is. You have to stifle thoughts left and right. You get a warning should you not stick to the preset answers at the preset times. It is upon facing these times that I haven’t the slightest idea if further education will follow the same pattern. Logically, it shouldn’t. Practically, I fear it may.
Broke: Lamenting the decline of education based on excerpts of standardized tests for rural Alabaman children in the 1910's, while also engaging in glorification of both Eurocentrism & the rantings of a raging Atheist about people not reading King James Bibles for funsies anymore.
Woke: Realizing that the aforementioned tests & texts were used for nothing more than creating deliberate barriers to students of color & the poor, with none of the information contained within actually being applicable to one's existence outside of occasional philosophical masturbation.
Self-Actualization: The understanding that a truly literate being, is one that understands that they don't understand everything, and is willing to gain said understanding outside of arbitrary constructs like standardized testing & racist literacy exams, simply for the enjoyment of learning.
Okay, what was a passing score on that exam? What was the pass rate? Was this the end of these kids education (hint: bullitt county got it's first high school in 1912), high school attendance rates in 1940 (the earliest year we have good data) were about 33% for whites.
And is it really harder than current standards?
The 8th grade math standards of today:
Grade 8 Overview
The Number System
Know that there are numbers that are not rational, and approximate them by rational numbers.
Expressions and Equations
Work with radicals and integer exponents.
Understand the connections between proportional relationships, lines, and linear equations.
Analyze and solve linear equations and pairs of simultaneous linear equations.
Functions
Define, evaluate, and compare functions.
Use functions to model relationships between quantities.
Geometry
Understand congruence and similarity using physical models, transparencies, or geometry software.
Understand and apply the Pythagorean Theorem.
Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving volume of cylinders, cones and spheres.
Statistics and Probability
Investigate patterns of association in bivariate data.
Mathematical Practices
Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
Model with mathematics.
Use appropriate tools strategically.
Attend to precision.
Look for and make use of structure.
Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.
Way more, vastly more comprehensive than the material on that exam. Writing decimals is a grade 5 skill in the current standards. As is real world problems involving volume, and unit conversions. Most of the arithmetic section would be 6th grade or earlier skills.
The science standards are so much more exhaustive I can't even compare them meaningfully. Not only do they require greater conceptual understanding, they cover so much more material.
The total volume of scientific discoveries since 1912 probably exceeds the total volume of every preserved writing of the ancient world, surely if we're going to decide on a common shared core of knowledge it maybe needs to remove some of the classics for things learned since then, or did human knowledge really peak with the King James Bible?
Language that has balance and cadence finds its roots in the King James Bible.
I made sure my students read books that were hefty, would challenge them just enough, and had passages worth discussing. When a school administrator made me teach a Y-A book because "everyone" was reading it, and I asked my students how they were liking it, they all replied, "It's pretty thin; there's nothing to it. Why are we reading it?"
Culture is now global. Youre not only learning about what historically encompassed Western culture. Students in 1912 were not reading African authors, or Asian ones, or parking complex histories of colonialization. These are now deep and important parts of understanding the world we live in and perhaps take the place of other things, including an emphasis on the culture of the West/global north.
We do need to emphasize the humanities more. However, we can only read and learn so much, and there has been a lot of really important literature that allows for greater understanding of the modern world.
Also, an eye for an eye predates the Bible and comes from the Code of Hammurabi (1700 BCE), which I read in my 8th grade English class. Perhaps know where the sayings youre quoting come from while lecturing others on not knowing where sayings come from.
Christ on a cracker, what a bunch of duplicitous legerdemain. First of all, conflating literacy with education is downright villainous. But the real topper was throwing in quotes from Aristotle and Aurelius et al that have LITERALLY nothing to do with education (or reading). Fucking hell, you arrogant prick
The article is an implicit condemnation of the subject it purports to promote. In spite of the benefits of literacy, Kentucky banned interracial marriage, instituted segregation in its schools (likely including the one where this test was administered) and public transportation, even at drinking fountains!
Literacy in the case of Kentucky does not lead to a more humane, loving, just or equitable society.
They learned the 3 Rs, but missed the essentials.
Nostalgia for the "good old days" has its limits.
I'm glad my children were born now and not in Jim Crow Kentucky.
Thank you for this essay, I agree 100% with your analysis as it applies not only to the US. I am Italian, migrated with my parents to Germany at the age of 6. My father was housekeeper in an US military base. My education is a mess. I got my high school diploma while I was already married at 23. I speak three languages but would fail any exam on all of them. In German and Italian school 55 years ago we had Latin, in Italian high school I had philosophy. I have never been a proficient student, but I read a lot, children books, yes, those you mentioned and many more from Italian and German tradition. At 69 I wish I would know more, I just began to read some Greek philosophy history. I live in China now and in a rural area at that. They keep their traditions, they know their philosopher, they know their history, they even have books with the history of their clans dating back nearly 1000 years that are passed down generation after generation. They know their roots, you can engage conversations that go beyond small talk. And they have been able to do that even if only 30 years ago, half of the people could not write or read, and were living in poverty. Before moving to Mainland China I have been living in Hong Kong 15 years. I thought that Hong Kong would be a natural melting pot where different cultures would meet, engage and evolve. I found that most of the local population has no idea of western and Chinese culture, basically they have no education, they are blind and deaf. They have been subjected to colonial brainwash. My wife 20 years ago was not reading, I began to read books to her, now I cannot keep up, she is devouring books, western and Chinese alike. To know your own roots, own culture is not only important to understand yourself and your origin, it is also fundamental to understand others, alien cultures, it opens up your mind. By being exposed to so many different social environments, I have developed critical thinking, actually I have learned to think, not just to follow, I have learned to ask questions and to find answers. I haven learned to respect and to argue, sometimes I have to revise some of my thoughts, other times I can confirm them, I keep on learning and discover. So thank you again for your thoughts, I have failed half of that early century rural examination. I would like just to add that knowledge is universal. Do not use your knowledge and roots to close yourself in your own yard, while you should know every inch of it remember there is a world outside, culture is not static it evolves. The old Greeks were masters in that, debate is necessary. So when you look outside do it with an open mind and an open heart, despite difficulties, beliefs and misunderstanding, you will be surprised by the amount of convergences that other cultures can offer.
This traces back to Horace Mann’s importation of Prussian educational practices, which mandated classical education for the elite and, yes, just enough reading and math to make good employees for the rest. And obedience. Always obedience.
No other workforce is more entitled than public school teachers. Teachers at the high school I graduated from had the gall to demand more pay a few months ago while ranking #229 in the state, with a reading proficiency rating of 38%. Public school teachers get paid far too much and it’s high time we trim the fat. That includes kicking out students who don’t want to learn. No Child Left Behind was a nice idea, but it has been detrimental to our education system.
It should be low. It requires very little intellectual skill. Child education is essentially a solved problem: developmentally-appropriate, content rich cirricula; maximize use of tracking and spaced repetition; punish, even expel, badly behaved students consistently.
We resist this due to political concerns of the teachers and administrators of our education system.
Oh yes, because the best way to increase literacy rates in this country is by paying underpaid teachers less! Are you aware of the fact that we are in such a large teacher shortage that many of my classes at my public high school will have fifty students in it next year? Fifty students to one teacher. Your comment makes it painfully obvious that you have not stepped foot in a public school in the past twenty years, nor interacted with anyone who has. Please tell me exactly how paying teachers less and sticking fifty kids into a classroom will magically improve literacy rates. I'd love to hear your ideas.
I’m actually so grateful that my comment distances me from public schools. That means I can read and string together coherent sentences. Thanks for the compliment. Keep making excuses for why your students are retarded. I’m sure it has nothing to do with you being terrible at your job.
I'm not a teacher. You are arguing with a seventeen year-old girl online and losing. Also, I'm public school educated and my sentences are perfectly coherent. Thank you so much for comparing me to my fabulous (and underappreciated) teachers. I can assure you that me and my fellow students are far from intellectually disabled, but please resort to name-calling when your argument doesn't hold up. It makes you look really smart and well-spoken!! Have a nice day sir.
Oh that really explains why your comment was so brain dead. I’m not arguing with anyone, sweetheart. I’m just taking 5 seconds out of my day to tell someone they’re retarded while enjoying a beer. Cheers.
In order for intellectuals and potentially amazing teachers to have the drive to enter education, a pay rise is necessary within this society. Underpaying teachers for their hard work to cater to an underperforming system isn't going to be a step towards fixing the issue. Enjoy your beer, but maybe people aren't retarded but simply don't have the access to the holistic education which would allow them to reach a higher level of literacy.
The median salary for teachers in my district is $88,000/yr which is actually $10,000 higher than teachers statewide and slightly higher than my state’s median household income. They’re getting paid more than most to work 9 months out of the year, and are still one of the worst performing districts in the state. You’re talking out of your ass.
It’s interesting to me that I can answer the questions on the 1912 exam, understand political philosophy, and have read the King James Bible, among the other books mentioned.
I am a public school graduate.
But one thing differs between me and other students: my mother instilled in me the habit of reading and finding answers to my own questions.
Well stated and I agree it is like an unstated holistic undstanding of things of the past to KNOW where one is now and in the future.....to speak in euphemisms and concepts in a few simple words without requiring further elucidation.....I am a High school drop out at the 10th grade, went back again and got kicked out....THANK GOD!.....it unbound my curiosity by having to deal with life, it also freed me having a bunch of BS stuffed into my head.....I know a lot about a LOT, an expert in several other areas.Never witnessed anything fix itself.....only Humans can if they want to.......
Wow, some people really didn’t seem to like this… apperantly if *they* feel they are literate, it doesn’t matter that nearly half of Americans literally can’t read their children a bedtime story. The idea of snobbish modern superiority is so engrained in some, it lashes out at anything challenging it without prejudice.
I’m still reading the article but on of the striking things to me is how practical most of this is. “Use a map”, “spell words, and define English” “calculate what this would cost” “name government workers in your area”
The practical knowledge of the past has been replaced with abstracts. Humans are inherently lazy. When it is no longer required to stay warm, we forget how to build a fire. Which is fine… until the heat goes out.
I'd wager to say this is not really a problem in the long run. You speak of Harvard in the 1800's requiring Latin, I'd point to the opium and gambling dens that were taking shape along with other vices. The nature of man in this fallen world is to arrive at what they're meant to be. This includes cultures and civilizations. There are those who are born into "high culture" that fall to vice and those born to the dregs that come out as wise men. You cannot lay blame on any failure of a culture to any singular when it's just the fallen state of man that drives this.
Consider all the things a single man must know in today's day and age compared to before: Technology, social etiquette, the tasks of the day, how to logistically make it to and from destinations in good time, politics, leisure, all surrounded by wants and desires that have grown as knowledge has increased. The literacy of man has not diminished, it has been spread among a million different things that we now must navigate in the daily life of our age.
But, there is an even more insidious thought in that the 20th Century study of the mind yielded understanding of how to influence and shape human behavior while industrial advances made production of goods prevalent to the point where it's easier to buy a new one than repair an old one. The virtues of today are not the virtues of yesterday and I guarantee that the virtues of tomorrow will not be the virtues of today. People are bombarded with information that is deliberately tuned to be more receptive to their minds.
There is a common culture currently being formed in the digital space and even that changes much faster to the internet culture that first emerged in the early 2000's. It's rudimentary with sayings like "X is cooked" being a euphemism for either exhaustion, defeat, or any completeness in a negative sense. There's also the one doing the cooking as accomplishing a great thing. They've replaced archetypes of man with psychological diagnoses like narcissists, attachment styles, or Meyer-Briggs classifications.
And there are yet still geographical and dialect differences in these sayings and other cultural idioms. There is a culture there, but it's unlike anything we've seen before and can be more directly influenced paradoxically both by individuals and groups with the funding to broaden exposure to an idea and making it "viral".
All in all, I agree with your overall conclusion and do lament some of the changes to this world. There is, however, a problem that must be solved. I'm disconnected to most of my peers by nature of refusing more and more to engage with this digital culture. It's being part of a vastly shrinking minority, and while I can say I've been able to drag some people out of it their technological dopamine hooks run deep. I do not foresee this type of culture here becoming greater than that emerging culture without reaching them.
This reminds me of a recent discussion with a young PhD psychologist where I mentioned one of her patients was getting the "scarlet letter" from the school administration and getting a blank look. Guess kids don't read Hawthorne anymore.
If you think it's important for people to know what "the scarlet letter" means then teach them that. But don't force them to read the whole bloody boring novel; that'll just teach even enthusiastic readers that "literature" is something to be avoided at all costs.
Tastes differ, it certainly wasn't as bad as what's being pushed now. Point being, we are losing a common set of ideas and references- in one generation.
Your assessment is missing a lot of social realities of the time. Child labor laws were not enacted, poverty segregation, and sexism were still rampant. Institutions were educating for the elite and wealthy. As access increased, and diversity grew, education systems had to make it accessible and realistic for the average human being. We also have to mindful of the human being classic education was trying to produce. It was producing an elitist class dissociated from their human instincts and structured to hold up European culture as the civilizing force against an archaic and primitive humanity. This education produced the world we live in today, and clearly much was still missed.
The imperative of understanding the world we live in and its roots is hard placed on an education system. Because it's cerebral, it misses the embodied reality. We need a culturally literate society, but that cannot be mandated with culture. And the coercion, force, and brutality that classical education imposed on young children, does not build whole souls. Unfortunately, neither does modern education. Comparing one with other misses all the cultural advancements we've made, ignores the problems we have still not solved, and promotes eurocentrism, elitism, and intellectualism over a truly well society.
this is a strong counter. the requirements were high - that’s great, who was testing? oh, these rural alabaman kids had higher expectations- how many passed and who was testing? certainly not anyone beneath a particular economic status, i’m sure.
This would be a strong counter if this account of education was only true of the rich. It isn't. The year 8 test shown is good evidence. You'll find a lot more in a book called The Intellectual Life of the British Working Class, which says, for example, that a 1940 survey of students in working-class areas found that 62 percent of boys and 84 percent of girls read poetry outside of school.
More evidence from Tocqueville's Democracy in America, vol. 2 part 1 ch. 13:
'Although America is perhaps the civilized country of our day where people are least occupied with literature ... There is scarcely a pioneer's cabin where one does not encounter some odd volumes of Shakespeare.'
I have another source on Ireland saying that 'generations of visitors to Ireland described ostlers, cowherds, post boys, barefoot servants and other low people displaying classical erudition.' (Kaller, The Last Who Remember)
I notice you assumed that classical education achieved these results with 'coercion, force and brutality'. Is it really so unbelievable that children might have loved learning? Do you really think they read poetry outside school, or read Shakespeare, or knew their classical Latin authors, only because they were forced to?
Well said
When given children the options of playing with friends or reading Shakespeare, do you believe most kids would choose the latter voluntarily?
Why should people be expected to know Latin but not Arabic? Equal numbers of classic works have been written in both. Why should people read Chaucer but not Guanzhong? Why is Brahms more important than Coltrane? The idea that certain cultural knowledge is somehow better than others tired at best and ethnocentric at worst.
That’s not what he was saying, at all. He meant, we have dumbed things down. He was looking at Kentucky, USA, in 1912 and Scotland, UK during the Enlightenment. The same comparisons could be made if you looked at Persian or Arabic-speaking nations, although the educational systems in some of those countries today produce graduates with much greater knowledge of both Eastern and Western traditions than a majority of US grads. (Thinking of people I’ve known from Algeria and Iran) But it all gets complicated by social factors and individual regional patterns.
This is a good point. I will say that at my kids classical education school, my son (who is in MS) has read both the original folk story of Aladdin, as well as Beowulf at age 12. So they are teaching both. History teaching includes learning about the origins and core tenants of Islam and other make world religions. Geography and cultural knowledge includes knowing where major cities, rivers, monuments are in every continent. They do learn Latin. But they learn Latin because it is the basis of scientific nomenclature and is universally understood by all scientists, from China to Belize. It is also the basis for the Romance languages, which includes many more languages than just English.
Okay, I'll tell you why some cultural knowledge is better than others: It's because Western civilization in all its manifestations is based on ancient Greek and Latin literature, philosophy, and government, and it's the greatest and most successful civilization that has ever existed.
Scientific discoveries came in large part from men educated in classical languages. It's Western civilization that has given us the engineering and medical innovations that have made our lives better. And put us on the moon. And it's capitalism that has raised the standard of living above anything ever experienced in the world's history.
As a Greek-American, I'm fond of bouzouki music. But I'd never put it above Brahms. And face it, bongo drums are just bongo drums.
I've read Chinese and Japanese poetry, and The Tale of Genji, and like them very much. True that they were in translation. But I've read Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Dante (among others) in translation too, and there's more to them.
It's fatuous to claim that African culture has benefited mankind in any meaningful way.
Go ahead, call me ethnocentric.
Yeah man, you’re just a racist.
As you please.
‘Scientific discoveries came in large part from men educated in classical languages. It's Western civilization that has given us the engineering and medical innovations that have made our lives better.’
The crankshaft, early flight machines, automatons, algebra & algorithms, windmills, early hospitals, time measurement and counting mechanisms, even coffee all come from Middle Eastern/Western Asia civilisations.
Gunpowder, refined paper making and the compass are Chinese inventions.
From India, the notion of Zero, decimal systems, early form of plastic surgery (sushruta), flush toilets and sewage systems etc.
And capitalism, well, profoundly flawed, creates deep inequality, serves the interests of a minority, destroys the environment, and prioritises profit over basic human decency.
I will grant you that other civilizations made discoveries. After that, what?
As for this, "And capitalism, well, profoundly flawed, creates deep inequality, serves the interests of a minority, destroys the environment, and prioritises profit over basic human decency," it shows a mindset and not a grasp of facts. Too bad for you.
That is a deeply uncivilised response
Actually, I will amend that and add, it is deeply offensive as well as quite ignorant. Of course, I have a mindset, one that is informed by facts as by opinions of many others better read than I. Too bad for you, that you seem to have no arguments other than a personal attack.
No no, this mysterious person without a name or username obviously has the corner on truth. They exist outside of influence and know only F A C T S.
Good grief. I was responding to the quoted paragraph. And you think I'm uncivilized?
I think you have perhaps lost the plot?
"After that what?" after that there was colonialism and destruction of social systems that hinged on these discoveries. And after that colonisers tried to sell us our own discoveries for 63800% of the initial price. (That percentage is an exaggeration)
You do realize that WASPs that built this whole system both saw the ancient Greeks & Romans as their cultural ancestors but looked down on their contemporary descendants as degenerate and racially inferior...they tried keeping them out of their colonies. Italians/Sicilians were lynched and in the South many of them went to Black schools. They were not seen as white, same deal with Greeks. (I'm not saying that the guy writing the essay believes any of that, just pointing out the ideology you are supporting views you as inferior)
As someone once pointed out, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. (It's attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, but I've seen no evidence of it.)
That WASPs looked down on Greeks and Italians is not new news to me. It really doesn't matter. The children of Greek immigrants almost always do very well, and they are over represented in medical fields. Good enough.
This! I was thinking this while reading, and you’re the first commentator that brought it up.
We don't need to put down other cultures to appreciate our own. Don't we want to know, and want our kids/students to know, the writings that shaped our language and culture?
If I met an Iranian who had never read Rumi, I would think 'that's a shame' in a way I wouldn't if he hadn't read Shakespeare.
It's good to understand and value other cultures. But getting to know your own gives more benefit and joy, just as knowing your own wife gives more benefit and joy than knowing her sister.
Thank you for sharing.
Think you hit the nail on the head with much of this.
The root of the problem is clearly not a lack of resources - in fact, we have more educational tools at our fingertips than ever before in history - but rather an underlying cultural shift in motivation.
In the present age, education is commonly thought of as a mere gating criteria, where you need just enough of it to be (or even just to appear) economically functional.
I'd like to think of it more as a means of cultivating the mind and soul for a purpose much greater than ourselves (but sometimes for no premeditated purpose at all).
Spot on, we spend more than ever on education with worse results.
I find the odd bit about our educational system is how fundamentally arbitrary it is. You have to stifle thoughts left and right. You get a warning should you not stick to the preset answers at the preset times. It is upon facing these times that I haven’t the slightest idea if further education will follow the same pattern. Logically, it shouldn’t. Practically, I fear it may.
Broke: Lamenting the decline of education based on excerpts of standardized tests for rural Alabaman children in the 1910's, while also engaging in glorification of both Eurocentrism & the rantings of a raging Atheist about people not reading King James Bibles for funsies anymore.
Woke: Realizing that the aforementioned tests & texts were used for nothing more than creating deliberate barriers to students of color & the poor, with none of the information contained within actually being applicable to one's existence outside of occasional philosophical masturbation.
Self-Actualization: The understanding that a truly literate being, is one that understands that they don't understand everything, and is willing to gain said understanding outside of arbitrary constructs like standardized testing & racist literacy exams, simply for the enjoyment of learning.
Oh, dear God.
We're doing this again?
Okay, what was a passing score on that exam? What was the pass rate? Was this the end of these kids education (hint: bullitt county got it's first high school in 1912), high school attendance rates in 1940 (the earliest year we have good data) were about 33% for whites.
And is it really harder than current standards?
The 8th grade math standards of today:
Grade 8 Overview
The Number System
Know that there are numbers that are not rational, and approximate them by rational numbers.
Expressions and Equations
Work with radicals and integer exponents.
Understand the connections between proportional relationships, lines, and linear equations.
Analyze and solve linear equations and pairs of simultaneous linear equations.
Functions
Define, evaluate, and compare functions.
Use functions to model relationships between quantities.
Geometry
Understand congruence and similarity using physical models, transparencies, or geometry software.
Understand and apply the Pythagorean Theorem.
Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving volume of cylinders, cones and spheres.
Statistics and Probability
Investigate patterns of association in bivariate data.
Mathematical Practices
Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
Model with mathematics.
Use appropriate tools strategically.
Attend to precision.
Look for and make use of structure.
Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.
Way more, vastly more comprehensive than the material on that exam. Writing decimals is a grade 5 skill in the current standards. As is real world problems involving volume, and unit conversions. Most of the arithmetic section would be 6th grade or earlier skills.
The science standards are so much more exhaustive I can't even compare them meaningfully. Not only do they require greater conceptual understanding, they cover so much more material.
The total volume of scientific discoveries since 1912 probably exceeds the total volume of every preserved writing of the ancient world, surely if we're going to decide on a common shared core of knowledge it maybe needs to remove some of the classics for things learned since then, or did human knowledge really peak with the King James Bible?
You'll love tomorrow's post!
Language that has balance and cadence finds its roots in the King James Bible.
I made sure my students read books that were hefty, would challenge them just enough, and had passages worth discussing. When a school administrator made me teach a Y-A book because "everyone" was reading it, and I asked my students how they were liking it, they all replied, "It's pretty thin; there's nothing to it. Why are we reading it?"
Exactly.
Culture is now global. Youre not only learning about what historically encompassed Western culture. Students in 1912 were not reading African authors, or Asian ones, or parking complex histories of colonialization. These are now deep and important parts of understanding the world we live in and perhaps take the place of other things, including an emphasis on the culture of the West/global north.
We do need to emphasize the humanities more. However, we can only read and learn so much, and there has been a lot of really important literature that allows for greater understanding of the modern world.
Also, an eye for an eye predates the Bible and comes from the Code of Hammurabi (1700 BCE), which I read in my 8th grade English class. Perhaps know where the sayings youre quoting come from while lecturing others on not knowing where sayings come from.
Christ on a cracker, what a bunch of duplicitous legerdemain. First of all, conflating literacy with education is downright villainous. But the real topper was throwing in quotes from Aristotle and Aurelius et al that have LITERALLY nothing to do with education (or reading). Fucking hell, you arrogant prick
The article is an implicit condemnation of the subject it purports to promote. In spite of the benefits of literacy, Kentucky banned interracial marriage, instituted segregation in its schools (likely including the one where this test was administered) and public transportation, even at drinking fountains!
Literacy in the case of Kentucky does not lead to a more humane, loving, just or equitable society.
They learned the 3 Rs, but missed the essentials.
Nostalgia for the "good old days" has its limits.
I'm glad my children were born now and not in Jim Crow Kentucky.
Thank you for this essay, I agree 100% with your analysis as it applies not only to the US. I am Italian, migrated with my parents to Germany at the age of 6. My father was housekeeper in an US military base. My education is a mess. I got my high school diploma while I was already married at 23. I speak three languages but would fail any exam on all of them. In German and Italian school 55 years ago we had Latin, in Italian high school I had philosophy. I have never been a proficient student, but I read a lot, children books, yes, those you mentioned and many more from Italian and German tradition. At 69 I wish I would know more, I just began to read some Greek philosophy history. I live in China now and in a rural area at that. They keep their traditions, they know their philosopher, they know their history, they even have books with the history of their clans dating back nearly 1000 years that are passed down generation after generation. They know their roots, you can engage conversations that go beyond small talk. And they have been able to do that even if only 30 years ago, half of the people could not write or read, and were living in poverty. Before moving to Mainland China I have been living in Hong Kong 15 years. I thought that Hong Kong would be a natural melting pot where different cultures would meet, engage and evolve. I found that most of the local population has no idea of western and Chinese culture, basically they have no education, they are blind and deaf. They have been subjected to colonial brainwash. My wife 20 years ago was not reading, I began to read books to her, now I cannot keep up, she is devouring books, western and Chinese alike. To know your own roots, own culture is not only important to understand yourself and your origin, it is also fundamental to understand others, alien cultures, it opens up your mind. By being exposed to so many different social environments, I have developed critical thinking, actually I have learned to think, not just to follow, I have learned to ask questions and to find answers. I haven learned to respect and to argue, sometimes I have to revise some of my thoughts, other times I can confirm them, I keep on learning and discover. So thank you again for your thoughts, I have failed half of that early century rural examination. I would like just to add that knowledge is universal. Do not use your knowledge and roots to close yourself in your own yard, while you should know every inch of it remember there is a world outside, culture is not static it evolves. The old Greeks were masters in that, debate is necessary. So when you look outside do it with an open mind and an open heart, despite difficulties, beliefs and misunderstanding, you will be surprised by the amount of convergences that other cultures can offer.
This traces back to Horace Mann’s importation of Prussian educational practices, which mandated classical education for the elite and, yes, just enough reading and math to make good employees for the rest. And obedience. Always obedience.
No other workforce is more entitled than public school teachers. Teachers at the high school I graduated from had the gall to demand more pay a few months ago while ranking #229 in the state, with a reading proficiency rating of 38%. Public school teachers get paid far too much and it’s high time we trim the fat. That includes kicking out students who don’t want to learn. No Child Left Behind was a nice idea, but it has been detrimental to our education system.
Consider, that you may attract the wrong teachers, because the salary is low?
It should be low. It requires very little intellectual skill. Child education is essentially a solved problem: developmentally-appropriate, content rich cirricula; maximize use of tracking and spaced repetition; punish, even expel, badly behaved students consistently.
We resist this due to political concerns of the teachers and administrators of our education system.
My garden isn't growing well in this drought, I should probably stop watering it so much! 🤔
Oh yes, because the best way to increase literacy rates in this country is by paying underpaid teachers less! Are you aware of the fact that we are in such a large teacher shortage that many of my classes at my public high school will have fifty students in it next year? Fifty students to one teacher. Your comment makes it painfully obvious that you have not stepped foot in a public school in the past twenty years, nor interacted with anyone who has. Please tell me exactly how paying teachers less and sticking fifty kids into a classroom will magically improve literacy rates. I'd love to hear your ideas.
I’m actually so grateful that my comment distances me from public schools. That means I can read and string together coherent sentences. Thanks for the compliment. Keep making excuses for why your students are retarded. I’m sure it has nothing to do with you being terrible at your job.
I'm not a teacher. You are arguing with a seventeen year-old girl online and losing. Also, I'm public school educated and my sentences are perfectly coherent. Thank you so much for comparing me to my fabulous (and underappreciated) teachers. I can assure you that me and my fellow students are far from intellectually disabled, but please resort to name-calling when your argument doesn't hold up. It makes you look really smart and well-spoken!! Have a nice day sir.
Oh that really explains why your comment was so brain dead. I’m not arguing with anyone, sweetheart. I’m just taking 5 seconds out of my day to tell someone they’re retarded while enjoying a beer. Cheers.
In order for intellectuals and potentially amazing teachers to have the drive to enter education, a pay rise is necessary within this society. Underpaying teachers for their hard work to cater to an underperforming system isn't going to be a step towards fixing the issue. Enjoy your beer, but maybe people aren't retarded but simply don't have the access to the holistic education which would allow them to reach a higher level of literacy.
The median salary for teachers in my district is $88,000/yr which is actually $10,000 higher than teachers statewide and slightly higher than my state’s median household income. They’re getting paid more than most to work 9 months out of the year, and are still one of the worst performing districts in the state. You’re talking out of your ass.
It’s interesting to me that I can answer the questions on the 1912 exam, understand political philosophy, and have read the King James Bible, among the other books mentioned.
I am a public school graduate.
But one thing differs between me and other students: my mother instilled in me the habit of reading and finding answers to my own questions.
The problem is in your family environment.
Well stated and I agree it is like an unstated holistic undstanding of things of the past to KNOW where one is now and in the future.....to speak in euphemisms and concepts in a few simple words without requiring further elucidation.....I am a High school drop out at the 10th grade, went back again and got kicked out....THANK GOD!.....it unbound my curiosity by having to deal with life, it also freed me having a bunch of BS stuffed into my head.....I know a lot about a LOT, an expert in several other areas.Never witnessed anything fix itself.....only Humans can if they want to.......
Good for you!
Wow, some people really didn’t seem to like this… apperantly if *they* feel they are literate, it doesn’t matter that nearly half of Americans literally can’t read their children a bedtime story. The idea of snobbish modern superiority is so engrained in some, it lashes out at anything challenging it without prejudice.
I’m still reading the article but on of the striking things to me is how practical most of this is. “Use a map”, “spell words, and define English” “calculate what this would cost” “name government workers in your area”
The practical knowledge of the past has been replaced with abstracts. Humans are inherently lazy. When it is no longer required to stay warm, we forget how to build a fire. Which is fine… until the heat goes out.
I'd wager to say this is not really a problem in the long run. You speak of Harvard in the 1800's requiring Latin, I'd point to the opium and gambling dens that were taking shape along with other vices. The nature of man in this fallen world is to arrive at what they're meant to be. This includes cultures and civilizations. There are those who are born into "high culture" that fall to vice and those born to the dregs that come out as wise men. You cannot lay blame on any failure of a culture to any singular when it's just the fallen state of man that drives this.
Consider all the things a single man must know in today's day and age compared to before: Technology, social etiquette, the tasks of the day, how to logistically make it to and from destinations in good time, politics, leisure, all surrounded by wants and desires that have grown as knowledge has increased. The literacy of man has not diminished, it has been spread among a million different things that we now must navigate in the daily life of our age.
But, there is an even more insidious thought in that the 20th Century study of the mind yielded understanding of how to influence and shape human behavior while industrial advances made production of goods prevalent to the point where it's easier to buy a new one than repair an old one. The virtues of today are not the virtues of yesterday and I guarantee that the virtues of tomorrow will not be the virtues of today. People are bombarded with information that is deliberately tuned to be more receptive to their minds.
There is a common culture currently being formed in the digital space and even that changes much faster to the internet culture that first emerged in the early 2000's. It's rudimentary with sayings like "X is cooked" being a euphemism for either exhaustion, defeat, or any completeness in a negative sense. There's also the one doing the cooking as accomplishing a great thing. They've replaced archetypes of man with psychological diagnoses like narcissists, attachment styles, or Meyer-Briggs classifications.
And there are yet still geographical and dialect differences in these sayings and other cultural idioms. There is a culture there, but it's unlike anything we've seen before and can be more directly influenced paradoxically both by individuals and groups with the funding to broaden exposure to an idea and making it "viral".
All in all, I agree with your overall conclusion and do lament some of the changes to this world. There is, however, a problem that must be solved. I'm disconnected to most of my peers by nature of refusing more and more to engage with this digital culture. It's being part of a vastly shrinking minority, and while I can say I've been able to drag some people out of it their technological dopamine hooks run deep. I do not foresee this type of culture here becoming greater than that emerging culture without reaching them.
This reminds me of a recent discussion with a young PhD psychologist where I mentioned one of her patients was getting the "scarlet letter" from the school administration and getting a blank look. Guess kids don't read Hawthorne anymore.
We truly are diminished.
If you think it's important for people to know what "the scarlet letter" means then teach them that. But don't force them to read the whole bloody boring novel; that'll just teach even enthusiastic readers that "literature" is something to be avoided at all costs.
Tastes differ, it certainly wasn't as bad as what's being pushed now. Point being, we are losing a common set of ideas and references- in one generation.