Some time in the 1950s, when my children were first entering grade school, educational experts came up with the idea that we were turning students off by covering subject material more than once and forcing them to memorize portions of the curriculum, i.e. times tables, when to use punctuation marks, spelling, grammar, etc. It was also decided that forcing children to write papers that were spelled correctly and showed proper grammar and punctuation would (heaven forbid!) stifle their creativity. Parents were told not to worry about this lack of instruction because it would be taught in a later grade.
Back in the ’30s and ’40s, the beginning of each grade-school year was devoted to a review of the previous year’s work to reinforce what had been learned. In addition, any paper you wrote, no matter the subject, was graded not only for content but for spelling, grammar and punctuation. Of course, this made extra work for teachers, who were notoriously overworked and underpaid. It is easy to understand why they were so eager to embrace the new thinking that said that they were being too demanding of their poor pupils. Another problem that started in the ’50s was the move away from phonics in the teaching of reading. This left students with no way to attack new words, and it made reading laborious and uninteresting to many of them. How could these students ever be inspired to read for fun? Instead, they turned to television, movies and, eventually, electronic games for entertainment.
All of this may be an oversimplification of what took place in the education field, but I do think it was the beginning of the “dumbing down of America.” We essentially said to our children, “We are so interested in what you have to say, just put it down on paper. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make any sense or we can’t quite make out what the words are. The important thing is for you to express yourself. You’re so smart, you don’t need rules.”
After telling students this for 30 or 40 years, educators are standing around wringing their hands and wondering why Johnny can’t read, write, understand history or science, or do arithmetic. Plus our teaching pool now consists of people who never learned to read very well, and were taught that spelling and basic English composition are unimportant as long as you’re creative.
When you add the anti-intellectual movement that arose in the ’70s, the repressive atmosphere engendered by student movements of that era and the emphasis many parents place on financing sports rather than academics, we are in big trouble. Dollars won’t stop this downward slide. It requires a complete change of attitude, or we may end up with one person in each community who can read and write for everyone else, just as in ancient times.
