An unexpected conversation about schools

A seminary professor is talking with a small group of mostly older adults.

“We’ve had to change how we teach our courses,” he says. “Half of the students in our classes have made it through high school and college without reading a book. They can’t write an essay. They don’t know how to spell or anything about grammar and punctuation, because they were never taught it.

“These are young men mostly in the mid to late 20s. If they went to one of the better public high schools or a private school, they’re in better shape. If they went to an average high school or worse, they’re in worse shape. And they made it through college without reading a book.

“Boys are taught differently in schools than they used to be. They’re expected to behave like girls so the teachers can teach them all the same. If they don’t, and most of them don’t, they’re doped. Given Ritalin for years. They sit in the back of the class with their baseball caps on backwards and looked spaced out. However, they usually find ways to rebel.

“Do you know what it’s like to be talking with a 28-year-old who discovers his intellectual potential for the first time in his life? When he realizes he isn’t stupid?

“The first thing he understands is how many of his years have been wasted. And then he realizes just how many people participated in that waste.

“This has been going on a long time.”

This short conversation left me stunned. It came up independently of the subject at hand, which wasn’t about schools or young people or the state of American education.

A student can enter a seminary after graduating from college and high school and never have read a book. Students can walk in the door having never understood or even glimpsed their intellectual potential. Students can walk into a seminary without knowing how to write an essay.

And if it’s true for seminaries, it’s also true for business. And government institutions. And non-profits. And schools.

Yes, this has been going on for a long time. We pulled my oldest from public school after 6^th grade – and we lived then. As we do now, in one of the best school districts in the state, with the second highest paid superintendent.

We pulled him because his English teacher kept sending notes to parents about classroom activities – and the notes were filled with misspelled words and grammar and punctuation errors. The English teacher didn’t know grammar and punctuation. Or how to spell.

This was in 1993.

A generation ago.

Photograph by Ian L via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.