Christa McAuliffe's Death and Reagan's Reelection

Christa McAuliffe, a high school social studies teacher and mother of two, was the "first citizen passenger" scheduled to go into space. Superficially, the presence of a teacher was to signify America's high regard for teaching and schooling.

Unknown to Christa McAuliffe, however, the more basic mission was aiding President Reagan's reelection. A teacher in Challenger was the cheapest way of making the incumbent President look like a supporter of teachers and schooling even though he had set out to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education and was making drastic cuts in the Federal education budget.

When the decision was made to launch a Teacher-in-Space, the Reagan-Bush re-election campaign was already underway. Reagan-Bush was known to be vulnerable to Mondale-Ferraro on several issues. One of the most important was education. Mondale effectively highlighted Reagan's "second-rate leadership" that produced "an appalling record" of “educational neglect.” His campaign issued a "report card" on Reagan educational policy that gave the President "F's" in everything but dramatics and sports.

Shortly after Mondale launched this offensive a Gallup Poll revealed that a large majority of Americans thought Mondale more likely than President Reagan to improve public schooling. This pro Mondale trend concerned Reagan campaign officials. They felt the President needed to recapture at least some of the "education vote?" To do so they planned a counter offensive. It was launched on August 27, 1984.

While speaking at a District of Columbia junior high school, the President first announced several new members of his Advisory Council on Education. That was a warm-up. Then he proudly told the world who America's first passenger in space would be. "Today" the President said" I'm directing NASA to begin a search in all of our elementary and secondary schools and choose as the first citizen passenger in the history of our space program one of America's finest — a teacher. One year later Christa McCauliffe was selected from over 11,000 applicants.

Late Night THoughts on the Death of Christa McCauliffe

"TRULY LEARNING WHAT THEY LIVE"

John Dewey famously argued that children learn what they live. For instance, teachers can talk at youngsters about the virtues of democracy, but if they live in a despotic classroom, the kids wil learn to adapt to despotism. Dewey was precisely right.

 

For example, the person who taught me most about the value of freedom and democracy was my  fourth grade teacher: "Miss Weast, the big fat beast." That's what we kids called her behind her back. Feared by all, respected by few, she extorted compliance via credible threats and controlled violence. A ruler across the knuckles of one's out-stretched hands, for example. Eventually she went too far, even for those antediluvian times. She held a youngster against a hot steam radiator until he was sufficiently compliant. His burns did not get her fired as you might expect. But she was at least transferred to another school. But not before she had taught me the dangers of unchecked power. Yes indeed, Dewey was precisely right.

Here's another example drawn from the same 'good old days' of the 1950's. This one is drawn from Catholic parish schools off that era when overworked, under appreciated nuns were widely known for bullying, slapping and otherwise mistreating the children in their charge. What these nuns had in mind must have been making better Catholics. But the actual consequences were often very different. Many kids learned that nun talk about the redeeming value of love, mercy and forgiveness was just that — talk. That it's not what people say, but what they do, that counts. A valuable lesson, to be sure, but hardly in the official curriculum.

Here's a final example. Imagine a "freedom, lack of oppression" classroom, where lax discipline makes learning impossible and safety problematic. Where vast amounts of faculty and student time are spent trying to establish control. Many students come away from that kind of experience longing for anything that will end the chaos and make things safe. And that, in turn,  causes many kids, especially those victimized by bullies, to dislike freedom. They prefer the order even of tyranny. 

Do children learn what they live? You can count on it.  

To examine these and similar issues further, see articles at www.newfoundations.com"m

The Difficulties of Schooling for the Future

Most of us have seen articles in popular magazines that attempt to portray the future. How accurate are these prognostications? There is little room for optimism. Writers of the 1920's and 30's trying to look fifty years into the future, for instance, predicted bigger and faster airplanes, safer and more reliable cars, people commuting via autogyros or personal jet packs, and entire cities encased in plastic bubbles within which was a man-made environment of pristine perfection.

We now are beyond that “future.” To be sure, planes are even bigger and faster than predicted, but no one is whizzing to work in their own autogyro. Car are safer and more reliable than ever, but they are often gridlocked in traffic. Cities are not encased in plastic bubbles but in envelopes of noxious man-made effluvium that eats away at both person and property.

Yes, the futurists of the 20's and 30's only got some things right when they speculated about the material future. And there are other things these futururists tended to miss altogether. They rarely anticipated the changes in race relations that have since occurred. They did not imagine the change in attitude toward the handicapped, gays, sexual behavior, the pill or opportunities for women. As a matter of fact, the people depicted in the illustrations accompanying those old time futuristic articles were all white and able-bodied with the women smiling happily in kitchens of the future.

Why did the popular writers of the 20's and 30's commonly dream of sleeker cars and more efficient kitchens but not of a more humane and compassionate America? Why was it unexceptional for them to predict faster planes but exceptional for them to visualize anything like the Voting Rights Act? Because they took much of their culture for granted. In fact it was transparent to them. That’s just the way things were.

We too are like that. We also take aspects of our culture as a given, yet many of the things we never question, perhaps never notice, will change in the future. That’s the difficulty of schooling children for the future. We can’t really imagine what that future will be like. Perhaps educators should be satisfied with preparing students for the present. That's hard enough.

To examine these issues further, see Dissecting School Benefits: a typology of conflicting goals

Managing Adolescents: abandoning the myth of control

I once watched a neighbor girl navigate adolescence. Unfortunately her very controlling parents fruitlessly tried to maintain the same level of control they had when she was a child. When their daughter did things they disapproved of, they tried even harder to reassert control. That typically produced the opposite result. When they harped on her to study harder, she studied less. When they forbid her to drink she secretly got drunk. When they found out she was continuing to phone a boyfriend they disapproved of and confiscated her phone, she clandestinely bought another. When they forbade her to see him, she did so secretly. And she had sex with him in the bargain.  

In short, the daughter responded to her parent's ever more zealous attempts at control by becoming more and more disobedient and devious. It was a contest of wills. Ultimately the girl became pregnant to the very boy her parents disapproved of. He, by the way, turned out to be abusive; punching her in the stomach when he discovered she was pregnant. The daughter managed to keep her condition a secret and clandestinely secured an abortion. Her very Catholic parents would have forbidden that, had they known.  

When the girl finally reached maturity, the costs of over-zealous parental control efforts far exceeded the benefits. Parents must face the fact that they have less and less control as adolescence transforms their teen. Failing to recognize this is usually very counterproductive. Measured parental advice can still be effective, certainly, but not without some degree of willingness on the teen's part.

Adolescents have gained a great deal more control over their own lives than in the "good old days." Sure, kids who respect their parent(s) will generally not do things that might seriously embarrass or disappoint them. But this is something the adolescent, not the parent, chooses. Remember too, that when parents give a teen advice, it is apt to be as unrealistic as an Arab advising a rainforest Pigmy how to cope with sandstorms. 

Even when parental advice is realistic, it is likely to be lost on many teens. As a German proverb advises, "Everyone knows good counsel except those that have need of it."

To examine these issues further, see articles at www.newfoundations.com

What Do Online Courses Portend for Teachers and Teaching?

U.S. enrollment in online virtual classes is increasing with remarkable rapidity. Right now the level of enrollment is 22 times that of 2000 and shows every sign of continuing rapid growth. And this year, for the first time ever, on line enrollment reached the one million mark.

As this transformation progresses how will it impact teachers? It might mean job loss. And it at least means dramatic job change. Today only one percent of high school courses are taught online. But the Innosite Institute, a nonprofit thinktank, projects that 50% of all high school courses might be taught online by 2019. Perhaps that figure is inflated. So let's suppose that it will only half that That still means that in just eleven years one out of four high school course will be taught on line.

Why such rapid growth? Online instruction offers many advantages. Text books can be replaced by less expensive instructional packages with features and a level of student interest that individual teachers can never hope to match. Ability grouping, not to mention mass instruction, could become a thing of the past because online instruction permits every individual student to work at their own level in the same classroom. 

Tracking student progress becomes remarkably more detailed and individualized as well as much more efficient. Plus online instruction often works for kids who are turned off by traditional schooling. But effective implementation of this instruction implies vast change for teachers. Indeed, the role of the classroom teacher may well be transformed.

Online instruction may also cause unemployment for an appreciable number of teachers. In the first place, kids can learn on their own with minimal supervision. That appeals to school boards if it means lower instructional costs. Plus much of the growth in this type of instructionoccurs in newly minted virtual charter schools. And Morgan Stanley's experts say that these type "school"s will capture an increasing share of the U.S. education market as states encourage, rather than just permit, this type of instruction.

No one can predict the future with complete accuracy. But one thing seems certain. Online education promises major changes for schools, teaching and teachers.

For more on educational matters, including straightforward considerations of often avoided topics, visit newfoundations.com.