Notes from Hell: the public schools need discipline and respect for learning. That's all - Back to School

National Review, Sept 30, 1996 by Daniel Kaufman

The public schools need discipline and respect for learning. That's all.

NEW York City's Mayor Rudolph Giuliani nearly incited a riot when he recently suggested that the public schools might have a lot to learn from their counterparts in the Archdiocese. The responses to this rather common-sense suggestion were an assortment of tantrums. Left undiscussed, of course, was the mayor's actual suggestion.

Even when adjusted for population, New York City parochial schools come out far ahead of the public schools in terms of retention, performance, rates of graduation, and continuation to university --and, at that, the parochial schools serve largely minority, non-Catholic, populations. The reasons are decidedly unsexy; that is, they have nothing to do with fancy pedagogical theories, "self-esteem," or multiculturalism. The parochial schools succeed for two simple reasons: an environment of discipline and respect, and the use of traditional curricula.

I have taught philosophy and general humanities in a CUNY college where the vast majority of students are products of the New York public-school system. I am thus in a position to determine (at least, anecdotally) whether or not these two factors are really worth their salt; they are. And insofar as they are lacking in the public schools, the students who are fed into the CUNY system generally have poor working skills (read: are lazy), little to no reading or writing skills (read: are largely illiterate), and little to no academic knowledge (read: are ignorant). It is a tragedy of epic proportions.

The tragedy, however, encompasses more than simply the complete lack of academic preparation. These kids are, for the most part, living in what can only be described as Hell. They live in deteriorating apartment complexes or projects, usually with but one parent (either trying to cope but overwhelmed, or else useless --a drunk or drug addict). Worst of all, the girls themselves have babies.

The class I taught last fall was a required core course, populated almost entirely by freshmen. Of the girls in the class, mostly 17 or 18 years of age, almost half had babies. Half of this half would actually bring these babies to class. What are the chances that a girl can absorb Plato's distinction between forms and sensible objects or Anselm's ontological argument for the existence of God, while her kid is screaming and running around and mother is trying to control it while simultaneously worrying about where the father is, or whether she and the kid are going to get shot walking home? But we cannot blame the students' educational or behavioral difficulties solely on the squalor in which they live. After all, crime rates were not remarkable during the Great Depression (where not only was the poverty worse, but there was no safety net), and I never heard that kids knifed each other over jackets or "getting dissed."

It ultimately comes down to individuals; the students, the parents, and the teachers. Students don't care about their own futures let alone about anyone else's (as the "kids having babies" phenomenon shows), and the teachers don't want to give a real education. It's much easier, after all, to "affirm" students' "personal lives and experiences" than to write a rigorous lecture on A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

But the granddaddy of all stupidities must be CUNY's policy of open admissions. Basically, you do not have to know how to read, write, or do arithmetic in order to be considered qualified for a four-year CUNY college. So given that we have these students here, what happens next? Dumbing down and excuse-making. Last semester, in one of our faculty meetings, I expressed dismay over the number of students whose first papers I had to fail for clear plagiarism. We spent the next half-hour discussing what I meant by "plagiarism." It was generally opined that these students were "just overwhelmed" by college, and therefore should not be taken to task for their plagiarism.

Similarly, when we discussed writing, I explained how I start every course with a primer on analytical skills -- basic logic, the nature and importance of definitions, the difference between argument and rhetoric. My colleagues criticized this "foundationalist" approach, and I was told by the English instructor that the way she did things was "just to get the students started writing" (what people who know nothing, don't read, and can't write will write about was never explained). Completely absent was any sort of normative instruction. No wonder my students' writing didn't improve over the semester. Their English class was "reaffirming" their ignorance.

It's not fashionable to blame the students for anything, but there are plenty of fools among them too. What is most shocking is the fact that many of them seem not to have even a clue as to what's good for them. When we were studying Saint Anselm's proof for the existence of God, one girl was noticeably impatient; finally, I called on her. She wanted to know why she needed to learn "this stuff," of what use it would be to her. My answer was short: "Because it is better to be smart than stupid. Because there is dignity in being educated and cultivated." Her face was a mask of utter puzzlement; she simply could not understand the value of a thing beyond its immediate "quick-fix" potential. And so she simply stopped coming to class.