Posted on 01/28/2003 7:03:50 AM PST by TLBSHOW
Are America's Teachers Dropping the Ball? Students Show Poor Study Habits -- but They Can Name Rap Stars
(AgapePress) - Reports suggest the level of integrity within the nation's education system continues to plummet -- and the problem is not just students.
A new study of college freshman indicates high-school grade inflation is not subsiding. The High Education Research Institute at the University of California shows more than 45% of freshmen said they graduated with an "A" average, up 1% from last year.
Researcher Alexander Astin blames pressure on teachers to help students become more competitive for college. But the bottom line is those teachers are lying about the qualifications of their students.
As possible proof of that, the study also says college freshmen arrived at school this year with the worst study habits professors have seen in 15 years.
In a related story, The Washington Post reports the University of Maryland is investigating 12 students for allegedly using their cell phones to dial up all the right answers during final exams last term. Campus officials say the students used the text-messaging function on their phones or pagers to receive silent messages from friends who had access to the answer keys.
Hip-Hop Hyperbole Meanwhile, a syndicated columnist is outraged that public schools are teaching students hip-hop music instead of classical literature.
Best-selling author Michelle Malkin says rather than actually educating children, many teachers are "hiding behind the multicultural smokescreen" and entertaining students with rap lyrics. Malkin says this robs kids of a common culture that has been imparted to generations and generations of school children.
"It's a lot easier to teach Tupac Shakur and wheel in the VCR and pop in the MTV videos and sit back and mollify the kids and the teens, than it is to do the hard work of teaching them Shakespeare or Melville or Beowulf or Emily Dickinson or John Dunne, for that matter," she says.
"And you get the excuse that Western literature and the great classics and the literary canon of old are no longer relevant, in particular to urban and minority students."
Malkin says it is almost a racist presumption to say minority students will not understand the great themes of literature. She believes there are better ways to educate children who know nothing but the rap music culture and show little interest in traditional classroom material.
"We need to be producing good teachers -- and you cannot produce good teachers if they themselves are not required to learn the great classics," she says."
"Probably one of the reasons why today's young teachers in the high schools are not teaching the great works is because they never had to read them themselves. We've had a long multicultural battle in the 'Ivory Tower' over what should be taught in institutions of higher learning -- and that battle still has not been won."
Malkin says it is mind-boggling that professors at elite universities are teaching their students the historical significance of "Fat Albert" references in rap songs.
Nearly every teacher education program in the nation ought to be nuked.
John Dewey, the godfather of modern education, would've loved your sentiment.
Easier to spell it fast than to spell it right.
How the heck did this get by? Was no one looking? One would think that 12 kids punching on phones during the exam would be noticeable.
Good to see the kids haven't lost their ingenuity, though.
Who's "John Dunne"? John Donne, maybe?
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