I think that I am going to need some help on this one. Some of us are old enough to recognize that our public schools have changed significantly from when we were in school. Some thing has happened to our public schools and I am searching for the cause. You know me, I recognize problems and I recognize attempts at relieving the symptoms, but my real concern is the "cause"! That is the point of this blog.
I know that it happened slowly and like grass growing, most of us did not even see that it was going on. I suspect that there were several elements that caused the change and some are more significant than others. A principle that I have recognized for some time is that when you have several functions operating in the same direction, big things can happen. Most of the time there is some kind of push and pull, but when it all becomes either push or pull, things start to change. That is what I think may have happened. Now the big problem is to figure out exactly what those functions were and why they changed direction or played out. The other thing that I have discovered after all these years of observation is that things don't change much until you get to some kind of "tipping point". All the factors may have been at work, but until they reach that "tipping point" life goes on with out a notice. Are you starting to see how I may need some help? It is one thing to theorize about the factors or functions, it is another to identify them and lean how they operated to bring our public schools to what they are today. Are you ready?
The first big item is the shift from rural to urban. Did you even notice? It has happened all over the world. England was mostly rural up until Columbus discovered America and the "potato". There was no industrial revolution in England. People were all trying to grow food on the farm. In this case the "tipping point" was when the "potato" came and a single farmer could grow enough food to feed 10 people rather than just his family. Every thing else for the industrial revolution was ready to go, but for a good food supply. The fact that most Europeans were stunted for lack of food is addition proof of this point.
I bring up this point because here in the USA, up until about 1900, most of the people lived in rural areas or very small towns. It is 2018 and that was just 118 years ago. That is not very long in human history. Think about how many thousands of years the human race was mostly rural. 2018 is just the blink of an eye by comparison. Up to about 1900 kids took up the same profession as their parents when it started to change. Like most changes, it started out very slowly. By 1929, it was clear that urbanization was on the way. Realize that was only 89 years ago! The USA was on a roll toward urbanization until the economic crash of 1929 and the following depression. Urban people were much worse off than rural people during the great depression so urbanization slowed for a time, but did not stop.
Next came 1940 and world war II. People were drafted to fight in the war from both urban and rural, but the impact was greatest on the rural portion. Why was that? It was because those who were drafted from the urban areas returned to their urban homes after the war while few of those from the rural area ever did. 1945 was when things really started to change for the USA. It was not only in the acceleration of the shift from rural to urban, it was a major change in family income. Since in the rural setting, most people produced their own food and much of what they needed, the urban people had to earn money to them purchase what they needed. As far a money was concerned, it was clear that the urban people had a lot more money, but were they actually wealthier? Earning money was the new focus of the country! It is clear that it was a special time where most of the world was destroyed and needed any product that we could produce. It was easy times, caused by a single event that had never happened before in human history and was not likely to ever happen again. Think about it as an "event" out of the blue rather than trying to take credit for it.
The other thing that happened was the resettlement of all these rural soldiers after the war. They were now thrust into urban areas and along came the "GI Bill" to encourage them to go to college or tech school to gain skills needed in this new urban industrial complex that was the aftermath of the war. The "GI Bill" was a good thing, but it opened the door to even greater acceleration of change in the USA. The human race has accommodated change in the past, but never at this rate. Think of how things changed from 1945 to 1965? That is just 20 years. In 1965, IBM was by far the largest computer company in the world and US Steel produced record ton of steel. I recall that in 1960 our colleges were turning away kids who wanted to become engineers and scientists. It was not uncommon for a freshman class that have 5,000 engineering students would only have 2,000 sophomore engineering students. That was because our colleges were over crowed with students who wanted to become engineers. That has now changed. Most of our colleges graduate fewer engineers today than they did 50 years ago. Think about that? What about school teachers? I will get to that.
While all this was going on from about 1965 to today, two more things have changed. Like I pointed out above, urbanization has made it more important for families to earn money. This has allowed urban women along with may rural women to join the work force. Just like the men, women went to college in great numbers, but rather than following teaching or nursing as they had done in the past, the smarter ones went into the professions like Law, Medicine and Engineering. Like most things that are "good", there is often a "bad" side.
Historically many of the smarter men and women went into teaching, but after about 1960 the shift started where both men and women of lower intellectual ability who wanted to take advantage of college were not qualified for the more intellectually demanding professions. This left them with teaching as their only alternative. As I mentioned above, over 50% of those who got into college and wanted to become engineers were rejected as unqualified. Many were accepted into teaching which had much lower standards. This was some kind of "tipping point" where a significant percentage of people who would have become teachers in the past opted out of teaching. This left a vacuum that was filled by lesser competent people. I could say the same about auto mechanics or cabinet makers because they were also subject to the same kind of loss of their most competent members.
Like I said in the beginning, it might take several items lined up in the same direction to have caused the shift in our public schools that we have seen. My next point is parenting. The human race has been doing parenting with a model where the father works for or grows the food and the mother cares for the kids and the home. Historically, kids spend 90% of their waking hours in the presence of their parents where they learn the lessons of life. Again, in about 1960 that has seriously changed. Now, many mothers send their kids to nursery school as early as one or two years of age where they associate with young children like themselves with one adult divided between 20 or more kids. These adults are mostly concerned just about getting thru the day without injuring any of the kids, where as, the mother would have been concerned about imparting life lessons to just one or two kids. My point here is that our kids have been changed! This is before they even start first grade. In my day Kindergarten was an option, where as, now it is almost mandatory.
Are you starting to see the picture? Our kids have gotten worse while our teachers have also gotten worse. That is a "double". When two stars line up like that, big changes can take place and fast. The problem that I still have is it seems to have gotten much worse than I can attribute to just our kids going down hill at the same time our teachers have. There must be more. Next, I want to take a look at what happened to our teachers while they were in college. There are far too many who are bleeding heart liberals for it to have all been some kind of accident. Like old Newton, there has to be a cause there some place. My next blog will explore that area.
I know that it happened slowly and like grass growing, most of us did not even see that it was going on. I suspect that there were several elements that caused the change and some are more significant than others. A principle that I have recognized for some time is that when you have several functions operating in the same direction, big things can happen. Most of the time there is some kind of push and pull, but when it all becomes either push or pull, things start to change. That is what I think may have happened. Now the big problem is to figure out exactly what those functions were and why they changed direction or played out. The other thing that I have discovered after all these years of observation is that things don't change much until you get to some kind of "tipping point". All the factors may have been at work, but until they reach that "tipping point" life goes on with out a notice. Are you starting to see how I may need some help? It is one thing to theorize about the factors or functions, it is another to identify them and lean how they operated to bring our public schools to what they are today. Are you ready?
The first big item is the shift from rural to urban. Did you even notice? It has happened all over the world. England was mostly rural up until Columbus discovered America and the "potato". There was no industrial revolution in England. People were all trying to grow food on the farm. In this case the "tipping point" was when the "potato" came and a single farmer could grow enough food to feed 10 people rather than just his family. Every thing else for the industrial revolution was ready to go, but for a good food supply. The fact that most Europeans were stunted for lack of food is addition proof of this point.
I bring up this point because here in the USA, up until about 1900, most of the people lived in rural areas or very small towns. It is 2018 and that was just 118 years ago. That is not very long in human history. Think about how many thousands of years the human race was mostly rural. 2018 is just the blink of an eye by comparison. Up to about 1900 kids took up the same profession as their parents when it started to change. Like most changes, it started out very slowly. By 1929, it was clear that urbanization was on the way. Realize that was only 89 years ago! The USA was on a roll toward urbanization until the economic crash of 1929 and the following depression. Urban people were much worse off than rural people during the great depression so urbanization slowed for a time, but did not stop.
Next came 1940 and world war II. People were drafted to fight in the war from both urban and rural, but the impact was greatest on the rural portion. Why was that? It was because those who were drafted from the urban areas returned to their urban homes after the war while few of those from the rural area ever did. 1945 was when things really started to change for the USA. It was not only in the acceleration of the shift from rural to urban, it was a major change in family income. Since in the rural setting, most people produced their own food and much of what they needed, the urban people had to earn money to them purchase what they needed. As far a money was concerned, it was clear that the urban people had a lot more money, but were they actually wealthier? Earning money was the new focus of the country! It is clear that it was a special time where most of the world was destroyed and needed any product that we could produce. It was easy times, caused by a single event that had never happened before in human history and was not likely to ever happen again. Think about it as an "event" out of the blue rather than trying to take credit for it.
The other thing that happened was the resettlement of all these rural soldiers after the war. They were now thrust into urban areas and along came the "GI Bill" to encourage them to go to college or tech school to gain skills needed in this new urban industrial complex that was the aftermath of the war. The "GI Bill" was a good thing, but it opened the door to even greater acceleration of change in the USA. The human race has accommodated change in the past, but never at this rate. Think of how things changed from 1945 to 1965? That is just 20 years. In 1965, IBM was by far the largest computer company in the world and US Steel produced record ton of steel. I recall that in 1960 our colleges were turning away kids who wanted to become engineers and scientists. It was not uncommon for a freshman class that have 5,000 engineering students would only have 2,000 sophomore engineering students. That was because our colleges were over crowed with students who wanted to become engineers. That has now changed. Most of our colleges graduate fewer engineers today than they did 50 years ago. Think about that? What about school teachers? I will get to that.
While all this was going on from about 1965 to today, two more things have changed. Like I pointed out above, urbanization has made it more important for families to earn money. This has allowed urban women along with may rural women to join the work force. Just like the men, women went to college in great numbers, but rather than following teaching or nursing as they had done in the past, the smarter ones went into the professions like Law, Medicine and Engineering. Like most things that are "good", there is often a "bad" side.
Historically many of the smarter men and women went into teaching, but after about 1960 the shift started where both men and women of lower intellectual ability who wanted to take advantage of college were not qualified for the more intellectually demanding professions. This left them with teaching as their only alternative. As I mentioned above, over 50% of those who got into college and wanted to become engineers were rejected as unqualified. Many were accepted into teaching which had much lower standards. This was some kind of "tipping point" where a significant percentage of people who would have become teachers in the past opted out of teaching. This left a vacuum that was filled by lesser competent people. I could say the same about auto mechanics or cabinet makers because they were also subject to the same kind of loss of their most competent members.
Like I said in the beginning, it might take several items lined up in the same direction to have caused the shift in our public schools that we have seen. My next point is parenting. The human race has been doing parenting with a model where the father works for or grows the food and the mother cares for the kids and the home. Historically, kids spend 90% of their waking hours in the presence of their parents where they learn the lessons of life. Again, in about 1960 that has seriously changed. Now, many mothers send their kids to nursery school as early as one or two years of age where they associate with young children like themselves with one adult divided between 20 or more kids. These adults are mostly concerned just about getting thru the day without injuring any of the kids, where as, the mother would have been concerned about imparting life lessons to just one or two kids. My point here is that our kids have been changed! This is before they even start first grade. In my day Kindergarten was an option, where as, now it is almost mandatory.
Are you starting to see the picture? Our kids have gotten worse while our teachers have also gotten worse. That is a "double". When two stars line up like that, big changes can take place and fast. The problem that I still have is it seems to have gotten much worse than I can attribute to just our kids going down hill at the same time our teachers have. There must be more. Next, I want to take a look at what happened to our teachers while they were in college. There are far too many who are bleeding heart liberals for it to have all been some kind of accident. Like old Newton, there has to be a cause there some place. My next blog will explore that area.
