American Educators Must Make Some Hard Choices

Regarding the suggestion here about writing in cursive, a friend writes: Handwriting is an essential skill, helps develop individuality, hand-eye coordination and a more intimate form of communication not deluged with mechanical devices. One’s signature and the sadly endangered art of the hand-written letter. Bring it back!!!

We’ve all seen entreaties like this.  Shouldn’t our kids be taught to grow their own food? Balance their checkbooks?  Apply for mortgages?

It’s hard to say no to any of these things, until we realize that every one comes at the expense of something else.  Each year, the United States falls further behind in terms of basic educational standards, especially math and science, but also language and the humanities.  If I had to make a choice, I’d prefer to have a kid who has the education necessary to compete effectively in the global marketplace, and ask someone to teach him to grow corn over summer vacation, i.e., without impacting these vital competencies.

If you want to make a play for something like this, make it music.  One of my best friends when I was a younger man had grown up in Holland, and I recall how envious I was that he could play the intermediate level waltz of Chopin below. “Wow, that’s fantastic,” I remarked, to which he said, “Oh, every schoolkid in Holland learns to play the piano.  I’m no better than average.  Europeans stand in wonder as to how limited American education is. It’s impossible to graduate from high school in Holland without reading some Plato, some Descartes.”

Stupefying.