Dr. William Glasser (who I hope History will judge as the greatest psychologist of all time) once told me that “content standards” would spell the downfall of American public education. A former principal, Fred Berson, further suggested that special education would spell the downfall of the aforementioned institution.
I’d have to say that they are both right! I’ve been working in the Los Angeles County Court Schools for close to 16 years now – and today I was nearly “drilled” in the side-of-the-head (by some miscreant that two idiot parents never cared to parent) — with a superball. How did I piss-off this little, County-orphan? I have no clue. Anything and everything pisses off these little shits.
Somehow, somewhere, Americana abdicated responsibility for raising its children; and, thereby dooming incoming generations to a state of “survivors.” Was it because two parents had to go to work to sustain the American Dream? Was it because the divorce rate approached and surpassed the 50% rate?? Was it because cocaine use spiked between 1979-1981??? Or, was it all-of-the-above and much, much, more? Who knows? But – what currently passes for education nowadays is pretty-much-of-a-joke, and, truly — no one is to blame! Sadly, a “public” education was never meant for the masses.
Back-in-the-day – only the well-to-do, and, the ruling classes received what we now term a liberal arts education. The rest-of-us tilled-the-fields or learned a trade and joined a guild. Then the industrial age hit – and factories began sprouting up in-and-around urban centers. The farm boys headed for the cities leaving their fathers to-the-farms. But not all-of-these farm boys could secure jobs in the cities. The rest began loitering about on the street corners (too embarrassed to return home). And, as adolescents are wont to do (the term ‘adolescence’ was actually invented around this time – by-the-way) – these farm lads started to get into trouble.
The city fathers realized that these wayward youth were not truly deserving of jail time for their shenanigans; so, they figured out a novel method of keeping these lads off the streets during working hours; and, this novel method of incarcerating youth was: public education. And in the relatively homogeneous society proffered by late 19th and early 20th Century America – this method of incarceration got off to a pretty good start. WWI, The Great Depression, WWII, and, the post-WWII boom gave public education some solid assists. But then came the Viet Nam War, and, close on-its-heels, P.L. 94-142 – and the shit finally hit the fan for public education.
30-some-years-later we have a host of educators with their fingers up their asses (Hell! Many of them have their entire heads up-their-asses!!) – wondering how-on-earth they can make a full-on menagerie look like a well-managed house pet! Those not involved in “grooming” said youth in academia – keep hoping that someone will wave that magic wand and make it all better.