Here’s an excerpt from a speech that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently delivered: “In 2009 President Obama met with President Lee of South Korea and asked him about his biggest challenge in education. President Lee answered without hesitation: parents in South Korea were ‘too demanding.’ Even his poorest parents demanded a world-class education for their children, and he was having to spend millions of dollars each year to teach English to students in the first grade, because his parents won’t let him wait until second grade.”
I read this in a column by Thomas Friedman in today’s Times. Friedman also quotes a number of teachers who discuss how difficult it is to teach in a climate where parents become angry if their children receive low grades. One teacher quoted a student who said, “I know you’re a really good teacher, but you don’t seem to realize I have two hours a night of Facebook and over 4000 text messages a month to deal with. How do you expect me to do all this work.”
We live in a society in which parents attend every sports event, video camera in hand. They ask their school boards for bigger and better stadiums, and demand winning teams. However, when it comes to academic work, they demand less, not more. And our students fall behind, ill-equipped to deal with the modern world. How did we get this stupid?
Great quote from Tom Friedman....
ReplyDeleteIn China, Bill Gates is Brittney Spears.
In America, Brittney Spears is Brittney Spears.
Sadly, in a Time magazine survey on the Millennials. The number job they wanted to have was an assistant to a celebrity. They chose this over CEO of a company, being the celebrity themselves and every other job.
The problem is that Americans are too preoccupied with mass entertainment. There are no hero's any more. Mass media sends these messages and parents can't compete with it. Turn the TV off and turn your brain on