Apathy (Part 2)

Apathy in the classroom: The Death of American Education

My previous post gave some of my generic thoughts on apathy in our society and how getting involved and recognizing how each individual effects society would help address several issues of our culture.

Now let me specifically address that student’s comment about the PSAE not being important to her. Bear with me for a moment and follow this chain of command.

1. America is ranked in the bottom three of the top thirty industrialized nations in math and science.
2. The federal government enacted No Child Left Behind to help increase our competitiveness in a global market. This law established a standards-based, normalized criteria for all students in public education to help monitor deficiencies of our educational standards.
3. Colleges all across the country closely monitor and enforce “readiness standards” for entrance into their campuses. In addition to their own academic entrance requirements, they use the ACT score, which all students must take, as one component to evaluate which students are qualified to continue their studies with them.
4. State Education Departments are allotted a certain amount of money by the Federal Government to fund education to meet the expectations of educational law. The federal money plus the money raised by State revenues [sales taxes] and local communities [in many forms, including property taxes] are what pays for public education. Public education is required to educate to a certain age, and, in that process, prepare students to continue their own education somewhere. In short, prepare students to meet or exceed on the Prairie State Achievement Exam [including the ACT].
5. Local Education Departments allocate, budget, and spend that money to meet the needs in the best way possible to educate and prepare current students to be active and well prepared for their futures.
6. Superintendents, Principals, Administrators, Teachers, and all Staff Members are all held to standards to be in compliance with the demands of No Child Left Behind. This includes not only the top–down scenario [making sure students have necessary equipment {within the financial means} and as safe and healthy learning environment] but it also examines the quality of the product.
7. Students, YOU are that product. Each step of this process leads to you. It is ALL about preparing you to be competitive in the world’s market.

Now, thank you for indulging me in that chain of command. One more, but put in little more simplistic terms. Start with you and work your way up. Oh, and throw in that apathy word we are talking about. Apathetic student. No. Strike that. There is more than one. Apathetic students, like the one that prompted this conversation, have made choices NOT to take into consideration how their individual test scores effect the . . . . [now take a moment and go UP that line]. The next step is accountability. Miss the standards for a year or two, not a big deal. Miss them for several years and SOMEONE has to step in and make some adjustments. [That is where this school district is currently.] It is to the point that the federal, not state, government is going to “take over” certain schools in our district if students do not meet or exceed those standards THIS YEAR.

To be fair, I am focusing on the student here. But we all know that apathy is NOT exclusively a student quality. There is not a step in that process that is not inundated with apathetic individuals or groups. And we are ALL paying a big price for that destructive and pervasive attitude. Our backs are up against the wall. Students are not meeting the standards in sufficient numbers, teachers are ill-equipped or unwilling to prepare students sufficiently, Administrators and Superintendants are having their resources severely limited, States continually mishandle budgets, and the federal government seems to set the example of all of this. It is as if the federal government is a fat cat who has eaten all of the female mice and is now working on the males. Eventually . . . . well, who really cares anyway? “It’s not really important to me, it won’t affect me at all and I will never really use it.”

Why are we talking about this again?

Apathy

Apathy is the “lack of interest in anything, or the absence of any wish to do anything.” I bring this up because of two recent comments. Well, one specific quote from a student and another generic observation about our culture as a whole.

First, I overheard a couple of junior students discussing the PSAE in April. One girl caught me off guard when she said, “I don’t really care about that test, it really is not that important.” The other student did not necessarily disagree with her, which is JUST as upsetting to me.

The second is our culture as a whole that has developed the attitude that “if it doesn’t relate to me then I don’t need to pay attention to it.” So we have developed into a society that does not care about moral principles, politics, or the entrepreneurial spirit and have replaced those ideals with entertainment and self gratification. We do what we want, when we want, where we want, how we want, and with whom we want. An attitude of satisfy me. It has led us to where we are as a society.

Without getting into a super long and detailed history of how I think we have developed this complacent attitude, I want to simply challenge us all to adopt a new attitude. One that states: My actions impact others. It would mean a switch of focus from “me” to “we,” or at the very least, “you.”

There is an old idea that used to exist in human history. Societies have built countries on this seemingly strange philosophy. We have gotten so far away from it that it seems ancient, like walking into an old library and taking that book off of the shelf covered in dust. You know the one. You open it and it has that smell. Old. Yellowed and crispy pages. Fragile, must be very careful. You can actually hear the pages crinkle when you turn them. Yeah, THAT book. But you begin to read its pages and realize that it actually makes sense. It talks about a society where people were actually afraid to do something wrong and get caught. In getting caught they shame not only their family, but also the whole neighborhood. The neighborhood would look out for each other. Families were close knit. Parents would have such a close interaction that they would have no problems correcting someone else’s children, and they would EXPECT other parents to correct their own children. This society lived in fear of heavy punishment if they were even thinking of doing something against the societal norms. So they complied and lived very happy lives. They knew that there were liberties within those norms. Laws were made, not for the oppressive rulers to keep their loyal subjects under a strict system, but to keep those erring few in compliance with human rights. You know, keep murderous thinkers from actually killing. Keep thieves from taking from other people. To keep family values pure, not self-indulgent. We have lost this way of thinking. We think, "My actions only effect . . . ."

How did you finish that thought? If you said “me” then I want you to examine the source of why our politicians are so out of touch. Why Congressional approval rates were approaching single digits. Why our President’s numbers are unsatisfactory. Examine why our debt ceiling is being raised to 14 TRILLION. And education . . . do we really want to understand why our scores are so low when compared to other industrialized nations. Like bottom three in math and science out of thirty. Now let’s talk about business, banking, real estate. On and on and on. Could it be that we have lost that sense of “my actions impacting others”? Apathy?

Would it be such a bad thing to reopen that book, learn what made our country so great, learn what our great grandparents knew: things that taught them how to survive during war and bankruptcy and Depression? Would it be so bad to actually KNOW what our elected officials are doing with our vote? Would it be so bad to do well on a test to not only gain the best opportunity for personal advancement but also see to it that fewer obstacles are there for the next group? I mean, THAT is what our parents do for us, our grandparents for them, our forefathers for our new nation. Where did WE lose that? When did we replace principles like hard work, honor, dignity, trust, generosity, and stewardship with apathy? And are we satisfied with the results?

I am not.

And what if you answered that statement earlier with “everyone”? If you did, then you must be weird, strange, different. You are not conditioned to think like that. Our society does not promote that. If you really did think that . . . .

WELCOME! I am glad you are awake. Now go wake up your neighbors.