Raising the Bar: How Parents Can Fix Education - WSJ.com
Daniel Akst is a successful writer with at least 3 books in print and numerous articles on NYT, WSJ, and LAT. So when he speaks about parenting and the cure of education, it has a distinct tone of a successful person.
I will refrain from making comments here — trying not to be too cynical. I am tempted to assign this paper in my seminar on reading development. Not that this is anything extraordinary, but precisely because it represents (arguably) the loudest voices in the media. It should be an interesting exercise to bring to light some of the unstated assumptions in it.
Raising the Bar: How Parents Can Fix Education - WSJ.com
At the start of yet another school year, it’s time for some radical change in your local schools — a specific change that only parents can bring about. … It’s simple. All you have to do is to start insisting that your children fully apply themselves to their studies — and commit yourself to doing your part. That means making sure they do all the work expected of them as well as their abilities allow. It also means making sure everything at home stands behind these principles and supports the idea of learning.
According to Akst, SES doesn’t matter (and in the ideal world, it shouldn’t):
One great thing about this statement is that income should not matter, since almost any family can insist that conscientious schoolwork be Job One. The stereotype, of course, is of frantic upper-middle-class parents bombarding their precious little ones in utero with Mozart and then hectoring teachers and hiring tutors right up until the Harvard application essay.
Here’s the prescription you will need:
- set education as your family’s highest priority
The first thing we did was to tell our kids that we had no doubt they could do well, and that in fact we expect it of them. We declared that their education is our family’s highest priority, and that during the school year everything in our home will revolve around their success in school. We reiterate these messages regularly, and we communicate them to teachers and administrators, making clear that we want to be kept well-informed.
- Become an academic consultant
With some effort, we resist the impulse to "help" our boys much with their homework. Would doing push-ups for them strengthen their arms? The same applies to schoolwork, whatever it is — including science projects. But we make sure homework is done early, without loud music or other distractions. We’re available for consulting, and while they’re still young we review their work nightly.
- No game, no TV, and watch some 1942 movies
We keep a tight lid on media. Computer time is limited, there’s no gaming system, and during the school week virtually no television. Extracurricular reading is constantly encouraged, and we choose movies with care. For years now we’ve made a family project out of classic cinema, most of which is highly suitable for kids (and pleases grown-ups as well). "To Be or Not to Be" (1942), in which Carole Lombard and Jack Benny hilariously foil the Nazis, was recently a huge hit with our boys. They can have their jarring music, as long as there’s no foul language or misogyny, but during family meals — which we never miss — they can get used to Mahler or Miles Davis.
- Cut back on sports and other "perks" if they don’t do well in school
We’re also conscious that incentives matter. Like most kids, ours have spending money, cellphones and most other perks of prosperity. But none of these things are mandatory, and all parties understand that blowing off school will have a high cost. Extracurricular activities hinge on school performance too. Recently I heard from a friend that his teenage son, a superlative athlete, was getting poor grades, so I asked if they’d considered cutting back on sports. "I could never do that to him," my friend said, and I couldn’t help thinking: "How could you not do it for him?"
There is a fine line between commonsense and nonsense — it depends on which side of the line you are standing on.
August 30th, 2008 at 11:17 am e
I don’t mind your disagreeing with me, but your argument seems to be that I’m not just wrong but guilty of nonsense because I’m a “successful person.” Why don’t you try reading carefully what I wrote, making a substantive argument about it, and then signing your own name to it? You can even do this if you’re a successful person!
I will be happy to read this (signed) argument and, if it’s persuasive, allow my kids to watch crap on TV day and night, which at least will negate some of the advantages they presumably enjoy from being the scions of such privilege. Or is it your contention that the poor would be better off letting their kids watch crap on TV day and night? Or maybe you’re claiming the poor can’t do anything else? Who knows what you’re claiming? Innuendo and anonymity are great this way.
September 18th, 2008 at 5:51 pm e
Uh, Dan … I am not only signing my name but also posting it on the website with my name all over it.
Looks like you were really annoyed by the tone of my post and by being called “nonsense”. But if you read carefully the last sentence of my post, I was not making a judgment of whether your article was nonsense. I said it depends on where you are standing. In other words, what you wrote clearly made perfect sense to you, but may not to others.
You attribute too much agency to individual free will, and failed to realize or acknowledge how much of your own cognition and decisions were shaped by the your own history and situations. Your recommendations that parents should do X and Y and Z only make sense to people who are either practicing them already or could apply them. Others will see them as utter nonsense.
– gary (signed)