Driving in the car with the radio on can be either a soothing experience or a never-ending journey into the grips of stress. I listen to entire radio shows or songs in their entirety, but many friends would never consider listening to “This American Life” or “Car Talk” (a guilty pleasure of mine). Instead, my friends listen, on average, to fifty-four seconds of songs that are three or four minutes long. Nothing stresses me out more than someone constantly twirling the dial on the iPod. This little peeve is the “tip of the iceberg” when it comes to anti-intellectualism in America, and it is only one of its many manifestations. There is no question that society has lowered intellectual standards for the people of my generation, and this phenomenon has been occurring even before the United States was established.
The cause of anti-intellectualism can be likened to the “chicken or egg” metaphor. Does the dumbing down of education lead to shorter attention spans and thusly effect the media; or does television, video games, Facebook, and etc. lead to the the problems we are facing in education? Either way, it is evident that anti-intellectualism in secondary schools and universities is de rigueur. Curricula are dumbed down, many teachers are not well-educated themselves, and there is a general lack of interest in education - both from the teacher and student.
In 1942, President Roosevelt urged Americans to spread out maps and listen to his fireside chats so that he could explain the geography that caused many hardships in the progress of the war. Susan Jacoby, in a Washington Post article, noted that Roosevelt’s request prompted eighty percent of American adults to tune into the fireside chat, and stores across America sold out of maps (Jacoby 2006). Eighty percent of the adult population wanted to learn and understand the subtleties of the war, and today, sixty years later, nearly two fifths of the population cannot locate Iraq on a map of the world.
This kind of national response highlights a clear distinction between American society in 1940 and our current society. The availability of information and the variety of media has increased exponentially since Roosevelt’s presidency, but as the information becomes more readily available there is an equally proportional decline in the comprehension of each issue. Anti-intellectualism did not suddenly start to occur after Roosevelt’s presidency. Each generation has seen its own manifold anti-intellect movements. In 1642, the Puritan John Cotton wrote, “The more learned and witty you bee, the more fit to act for Satan will you bee” (Gitlin 2000). Presidential candidates since the beginning began to slander the intellect of their opponents, and teachers’ colleges were abolished at selective universities in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
Education in American schools has gone through many movements for better or worse. Emphasis on critical thinking or test-passing has fluctuated through the years, but beginning in the 1970’s there was a sharp change in the way teachers were educated. Yale, Duke, and Johns Hopkins Universities totally eliminated their schools of education, and other leading universities offering Master of Arts in Teaching degrees dropped those programs altogether. The emphasis on teacher education shifted from practical classroom experiences to more abstract research-based methods. Furthermore, when the highly selective universities dropped their education programs, smaller less-selective schools opened the doors of their education schools to anyone - often regardless of academic achievement or interest in the field of education (Graham 2005, 119).
The selective institutions of the past ensured that teachers-in-training were the best that they could be. The pre-service teachers were considered to be the best in their high schools. Each had solid academic training in the liberal arts from the respected institutions. They were highly motivated and enthusiastic about education. The drastic shift in educating teachers at “the best” institutions to the mediocre lead to a downfall in the legitimacy and efficacy of teachers coming from those schools. Patricia Albjerg Graham, author of Schooling America, pointed out the problem with the smaller institutions:
For elementary teachers this was particularly true as most majored in education, thus depriving them of an academic major and often of a strong base in the liberal arts. High school teachers were more likely to have an academic major but often in a single discipline when they were expected to teach several subjects. For example, a teacher who had majored in biology might be expected to instruct students not only in biology but also in various levels of general science, chemistry, and possibly physics or mathematics (Graham 2005, 120).
The effects of the poor pedagogy are still felt today. Many of the teachers who received little or no practical training still focus on abstract thought, often clueless about how to integrate their theories into practice.
Vocational education has been a part of the American education system since its beginning. Farmer’s sons were not expected to be academics, doctors, or lawyers; on the other hand a doctor’s son would not be insulted by working the land. These basic rules of society were translated into educational tracking. Different curricula were developed for students that were expected to advance into one field or another. For the doctor’s son, college preparatory curricula with emphasis on the classics, and for the farmer’s son the curricula consisted of basic reading, writing, and arithmetic - enough to get him by. To add legitimacy to this idea of tracking was the inception of the IQ test.
Lewis Terman developed the Army Alpha test to assess army recruits’ minds, and later adapted the test for educational purposes, claiming that it was a “scientific and, therefore, presumably accurate, means of identifying smart children” (Graham 2005, 72). The standardized testing in America was different from its counterpart developed by Alfred Binet in France because the American tests were used not to assess which students were weakest but which students were “gifted.” IQ testing became de rigueur in wealthy American schools as teachers presented students which they believed were above average. The IQ test would approve or disprove the teachers’ claim, and the student was tracked accordingly.
The problem with standardized tests were threefold. Scores depended on how well the child could read, how quickly the child could answer questions, and the child’s home life. Although standardized testing can be a useful tool to track students, it is not a “presumably accurate” measure of a child’s intellect. From Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius, a majority of the children above the 140-IQ score came from families in the top four percent of the “vocational hierarchy.” Terman also indicated that the most gifted children came from white European families. The IQ testing proved to be an ineffective way to gauge a child’s potential, and it gave reason to track presumably intelligent children into rigorous curriculum and presumably unintelligent children into vocational tracks. This split the schools into college-bound and work-bound students without regard to fostering the minds of each child (Graham 2005, 70-75).
The Standards Movement in recent education history culminates with the No Child Left Behind Act. Students are expected to pass tests in order to gain funding for the schools, and in response teachers are forced to “teach to the test.” Only material that will be covered on the test is taught along with test-taking strategies. No time is left for critical thinking or reasoning - the banking theory of education is the most effective way to insert lots of facts into students to recall for the test and promptly forget. The problem, however, is not teaching to the test; if the tests involved comprehensive critical thinking teaching to the test would be beneficial (Graham 2005, 188).
In my primary and secondary education, I witnessed the school district change its focus from critical development to testing. This change preceded No Child Left Behind, but classes became test oriented, and each year when the MEAP (Michigan Education Assessment Program) test was given the school shut down and went into “test mode.” For an entire week the lights in the hallways were dim, children were chastised for speaking before and during test time, and letters were sent home to instruct parents that early bed times for children increased their testing potential. This testing mentality eliminates creativity and places undue emphasis upon a test that ultimately will be forgotten by the student in a matter of weeks. NCLB (No Child Left Behind) is anti-intellectual propaganda disguised as a cure for the problem it provokes.
At Westminster Choir College, curricula are “dumbed down” nearly each year. Students complain about the rigor of classes that require them to think critically and comprehensively. The Music History and Theory department drastically changed the music theory track within the past ten years. Ear training, sight singing, keyboard harmony, and the lecture class used to be separate entities until it was decided that too much time was spent properly developing the musicianship of each student. The classes were combined into one large class. One hour per week “Theory Lab” meets to test students in keyboard harmony, ear training, and sight singing. Very little time is spent developing the skills to master the material.
Anti-intellectualism even plays a role in the day-to-day life at Westminster Choir College. Music education students are involved in the most classes with the biggest workload of all the majors. Music education students are also musicians, so they must practice just as much as a performance major. Music education students are regarded as “insane overachievers” by other students. The Bachelor of Arts degree is romanticized by all students because of the ease of the coursework. Anti-intellectualism shapes life at Westminster and possibly at many other institutions, and this downturn is linked to the overall societal advancement of anti-intellectual practices. It is time to change the way this society regards intellectuality.
References
Gitlin, T. (2000, December 8). "The Renaissance of Anti-Intellectualism." The Chronicle Review. Retrieved April 13, 2008, from http://chronicle.com/free/v47/i15/15b00701.htm
Graham, P. A. (2005). Schooling America. New York: Oxford University Press.
Jacoby, S. (2008, February 17). "The Dumbing of America." The Washington Post. Retrieved April 13, 2009, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502901.html
No comments:
Post a Comment