As a teacher for 26 years, Ive seen how we dumbed down education and how kids suffer
Recently, writing in the Acton Institute’s Religion and Liberty Online, a Texas high-school teacher, Auguste Meyrat, brilliantly formulated the most precise description of education in post-COVID America: vegetative education. As he writes, “Teachers in past decades have been faced with two choices: educating students with challenging material and frequent grading or engaging them with fun projects and participation grades.”What is he talking about? What does modern classroom instruction look like these days? To put it mildly: A lot of it is not very good.We can abolish the federal Department of Education, offer lip service about bolstering parental rights and abolishing DEI policies.But unless we acknowledge the hollowness of conventional classroom instruction, it won’t make a bit of difference. Here’s the dead giveaway: Our students suffer from a pathology of low expectations for themselves and especially for their teachers.Many of the best and most experienced teachers I know tell me they have noticed something peculiar about their new students: They ask questions that reveal an academic ecosystem brimming with mediocrity: Are we doing anything today? When do we get to have fun? Hold on, I have to read at home? Their expectations of ease don’t come from nowhere. Instead of classrooms powered by lectures, student note-taking, robust discussions and frequent exams that require actual studying, we teachers are often encouraged to “meet students where they are.” As a result, American students often spend their time watching YouTube videos, endlessly gaming online or engaging in distractions without end.Assignments are far from academically grueling — group work, making posters, “class time” for longer projects.And we wonder why 58% of instructors note their students have “little to no interest” in actually learning.As an old-school colleague of mine observed, “Their brains have changed.
They have been neurologically rewire...