Most of what is written in criticism of public schools seems to concentrate on deficiencies at the high school level. Many national reports complain that the curriculum is inadequate for college entry and prescribe courses that should be mandatory.
For those children who have major problems, however, the problems started in elementary school. The real disadvantaged, the terribly handicapped children, are those who failed to learn in grade school how to read, write, spell, add, subtract, multiply, and divide.
Parents feel very frustrated about what to do. Most want to help their children but they don’t seem to know where to start.
It was a delight, therefore, to discover a most useful article of advice written by an elementary school teacher. It’s rather unusual because it’s written by someone who understands all three parties to the elementary school experience: the child, the teacher, and the parent. Miss J’Aime Adams’ article is called “How To Make Sure Your Children Learn the Three R’s.”
If you have a choice of schools, Miss Adams recommends that you avoid those that have frequent changes in faculty, procedures, or textbooks. This kind of changing atmosphere is upsetting to children and teachers and makes it impossible for the school to make informed assessments of a child’s abilities.
Beware of “classroom enrichment,” Miss Adams warns. It may sound impressive but it’s just another disruption of orderly routine and learning. Children learn reading by being taught to read, not by drawing, cutting, pasting, discussing their feelings, or other diversions.
Field trips, outside speakers, cooking projects, movies, and role playing can be entertainment for the children, but the purpose of grade school is to learn reading, writing, and arithmetic. All the time spent on “enrichment” is taken away from the essential tasks.
Miss Adams points out one of the most depressing facts about education today. Whereas “most everyone concedes that children should learn to read by the phonetic method,” yet “most of the standard textbooks in use today” still feature the contrary method, called “look-say” or word guessing.
It’s up to the parents to check up on their child by having him read out loud at home daily. Don’t let him guess at words, or substitute words with similar meanings, but help him to sound out the syllables.
It is so good to hear a teacher urge children to take their readers home and read aloud to their parents. Unfortunately, many teachers or school administrators discourage or even forbid children to take school books home.
Miss Adams gives sensible information to parents who may be told that their child has a “learning disability” or a “perceptual handicap” because he may reverse letters and numbers (that is, read them backwards). More likely than not, this is just the normal, occasional mistake any child can make, and the child simply needs to be corrected a few times instead of being treated as though he were permanently defective.
One of the greatest failures of public education today is that most children can’t write a coherent letter to apply for a job. The recent U.S. Department of Education publication, “What Works,” includes the shocking statistic that only 5 percent of students at age 17 can synthesize and restructure ideas, that is, organize thoughts and put them clearly on paper.
Miss Adams thinks this is the fault of the elementary school passion for workbooks in which children are asked, hour after dreary hour, to circle the answer, fill in the missing word, or select the correct answer from a choice of three. Children are seldom if ever asked to formulate an answer in their own words and write it on paper.
She points out the importance of mastering the multiplication tables by memorization and drill. Some teachers claim that this isn’t creative thinking and is unnecessary anyway because now we have calculators. According to one university physics professor, youngsters trained on computers without a mastery of multiplication tables “don’t catch crazy mistakes.” A great deal of practical experience has taught Miss Adams the truism that intelligence, talent, and genius are really very common, and that it is only certain elitists who try to make us believe that they are rare. All parents should assume that their children have the intelligence to master the basic skills that should be taught in elementary schools, and not let anyone tell you that your child can’t learn. A reprint of Miss Adams’ excellent article is available from Human Events, 422 First St., S.E., Washington, D.C. 20003 for $1.50. It could be the best buck and a half any parent ever spent.
