The Atlantic is one of those magazine I never read. To find one good article, I need to wade through 100 of them whose quality, content and or morality frankly disgust me. That being said, I receive links for great articles in The Atlantic from two or three different people on a semi-regular basis. If you follow this link, you will see I think highly enough of the good articles that I write about them on this blog. Whenever I start thinking they are on the right track an article like this one titled Student’s Broken Moral Compass show up and I resolve never to read them again on my own, but wait until someone with a stronger stomach than mine wades through the dreck to find the diamonds.
The thing that put me into a state of high dudgeon about this article was the proprietary aire of the piece–like it is actually OK for failed government schools and the education union thugs to assign the teaching of ethics of other people’s children to themselves. Or that an author for a hard left moderate1 rag like The Atlantic can write about it like it is a foregone conclusion that that needs to be done. There is definitely a problem with all this, but it should be obvious that it begins with parents and a culture willing to assign the young and innocent to mediocrity and frequent failure, both morally and academically, at the hands of these progressive drones.
I know, I know, I have not yet made the caveat that there are great teachers in the system like this one. I make that caveat now (for my own safety).
1. Kelly tells me “it is moderate with a left bent tempered by many right-leaning writers,” but I do not think I am willing to say many or moderate. I might go along with “a few writers who are right-leaning on a few issues.” The article described in this post was definitely hard left with a totalitarian bent.
Trisha
I wish our culture expected parents to teach their children morals. Do you know how much easier my job would be if I didn’t have to address stealing, foul language, disrespect, unkindness, and more. It is why I am soooooo grateful and thankful for the parents who do hold their children accountable. Often I am blamed for their students behavior by the parents. “They never do that or talk like that at home.” Uh huh. So called Character Education should start at home. I didn’t become a teacher to teach your child how to be a good citizen. However, sometimes I am required to. I don’t know how anything will change unless all sides are held accountable.
Trisha,
Your reaction is exactly what I think should be the reaction of every teacher and educational bureaucrat with respect to who should own the teaching of ethics and character. The educational system should support what the parents teach the children and not impose virtually anything that comes from some value system held by the school. That being said, this only works if parents instill attitudes and behavior in their children that allow them to operate with respect of others in a civil (read non-narcissistic) society. That does NOT include acceptance of societal values, but it does include tolerance of behavior that, while it might be legal, is often onerous.