From The Record for Sunday, June 28, 1987
Editor, The Record:
I was appalled by the Apr. 27 article about the West Virginia science teacher who faced disciplinary action for "giving too many D's and F's."
Larry Brown, the teacher, had been criticized by his principal and certain other teachers for not "properly monitoring his students' progress." In turn, he filed a grievance against his principal and was quoted as saying that many of his students were doing poorly because they were not doing homework and failing tests and quizzes.
Mr. Brown was told to "change his expectations of students or lower grade scales...to be in line with other teachers." In other words he was told to lower his expectations; his colleagues were not asked to raise theirs.
As a high school educator for the last 20 years, I can say with great conviction that this attempt to usurp a teacher's judgment because he is attempting to maintain high standards is one of the core reasons for the decline in the quality of American education today.
America still stands as a major power in the world, but ranks only eighth in terms of the level of education it provides. It is only a matter of time before this decline begins to affect the country itself.
Many of my foreign students have expressed shock and disappointment at the quality of education they find here and at the American students' attitudes toward it. They had expected to find intellectual challenges and students who enjoyed them. Instead, they find a generation of "party animals" who could hardly care less about academics.
The teaching profession and education itself are in grave danger when quality teachers with high standards, like Mr. Brown, are held up for criticism rather than praise. Without spending many hours in the classroom, no outsider can have any real criteria for evaluating a teacher's judgment about his students' work. Uninformed criticisms like those of Mr. Brown demean and undermine what little professionalism teachers have. If parents wish to monitor their child's education (and it's every teacher's wish that they would), they should do so in a way that is respectful, not destructive, of the teacher's goals and standards.
American parents would do far more to ensure their children's academic success if they fostered in their own homes a respect and love of learning. They should replace technological gimmicks—televisions, stereos, VCR's, telephones—with activities and experiences that encourage thinking and intelligent expression. Such activities include reading, family viewing of educational programs, and family trips to places of interest. Equally important are the high standards in the home itself, particularly with regard to ethics, responsibility, and the importance of education.
Although I have now and have had many superior, motivated pupils, even they are often strangled by conflicts between school and work, social life, or athletics. One of my students stunned me this year by saying that her mother complained because she was doing homework and could not go to her part-time job, even though there was no financial duress.
Academic integrity is a question of high standards. Too often, teachers who demand that students do "real work"—doing assignments and studying for quizzes, or writing a genuine paper, or reading the original work instead of the Monarch Notes—become the "bad guys," the "villains."
Certain guidance counselors will even encourage students to change out of a "hard" teacher's class. Parents and other educators who enthusiastically subscribe to the "no pain, no gain" ethic on the athletic field fail to see its application in the classroom. I would like to see a body of parents cricicize a coach for having standards that are too high for his team, or an administrator tell a coach to "ease up" and lower his standards to the level of more mediocre coaches. I would like to see anyone deliberately commit a loved one to the care of a doctor who was allowed to "get by" in medical school, or give legal business to a lawyer who took the easy way out.
Like anything else that is meaningful, there are no shortcuts to a good education—no easy routes to writing, speaking, and thinking clearly, to reading with understanding, and to the development of values and ethics.
I hope that Mr. Brown continues to have the courage of his convictions. I hope his administrators reshuffle their deck of distorted values. Even more than that, I hope that the parents of his students begin to do their part in their homes and let him do his part in his own classroom.
BARBARA CARUSO
Hackensack