Cognitive Dissonance
One of the tools that assists the public realtions machines of most of the MO elementary schools is the immense amount of cognitive dissonance on the part of the parent bodies. By this I mean that parents are unable or unwilling to believe things about the education of their children that should be plain to see.
Of course, the schools fuel this through a combination of out-of-control grade inflation and dumbed down curricula. So long as their kids continue to bring home grades of 104 on their tests (extra credit for writing their names correctly), participate in the class play and get involved in the latest chesed program, everything is good.
(Don't get me wrong. I am not minimizing the importance of some of the extra-curricula activities. I think they are very important but not to the exclusion of actual learning).
Teachers quickly learn to go along with the charade. At parent-teachers conferences, you will see lines out the door for any teacher who is very demanding or gives high grades grudingly. Why would a teacher want to subject himself or herself to that. It's easier to give out the 104s and go through the motions.
Does anyone ever wonder how it is that their kids get 90s on every single English composition even though the only thing they read are Archie comics? Did you ever actually read one of those grade-90 compositions? (Over the years I have routinely seen grades of 90 and higher on papers that my own kids wrote that were full of spelling and grammatical mistakes; I have been shocked by the grade inflation, particularly in this area).
How is it that some kids spend eight years on the Dean's List but can't read a Rashi and can't translate the simplest pasuk of Tehillim that we say every day in davening. (Try it sometime. Ask your elemntary school kid to translate Ashrei, Yehi Chavod or Modim, for example. Simple pshat; nothing deeper. You may be surprised).
One could argue that actual learning is secondary to raising good kids who are erliche Yirei Shamayim. I would agree. And most of the kids, do, by and large, come out nice, mainly because their parents are nice. But the kids leave school with little feeling towards their Yiddishkeit, not knowing what it means to have a personal relationship with the Ribono Shel Olam and not knowing how to daven (or caring about it).
If you don't believe me, pick a day and go to a morning minyan at a high school, even an all-boy's high school. 25% of the kids will be davening. 75% will be staring into space, many not even bothering to open their siddurim).
But because of our cognitive dissonance, we don't see what is there before our eyesit's all good. After all, my kid got a 90.
(And, please, no comments that it's worse in the Chareidi world. That may well be the case but it doesn't change the reality in the MO world which is the world I know and the one I'm addressing).
One of the tools that assists the public realtions machines of most of the MO elementary schools is the immense amount of cognitive dissonance on the part of the parent bodies. By this I mean that parents are unable or unwilling to believe things about the education of their children that should be plain to see.
Of course, the schools fuel this through a combination of out-of-control grade inflation and dumbed down curricula. So long as their kids continue to bring home grades of 104 on their tests (extra credit for writing their names correctly), participate in the class play and get involved in the latest chesed program, everything is good.
(Don't get me wrong. I am not minimizing the importance of some of the extra-curricula activities. I think they are very important but not to the exclusion of actual learning).
Teachers quickly learn to go along with the charade. At parent-teachers conferences, you will see lines out the door for any teacher who is very demanding or gives high grades grudingly. Why would a teacher want to subject himself or herself to that. It's easier to give out the 104s and go through the motions.
Does anyone ever wonder how it is that their kids get 90s on every single English composition even though the only thing they read are Archie comics? Did you ever actually read one of those grade-90 compositions? (Over the years I have routinely seen grades of 90 and higher on papers that my own kids wrote that were full of spelling and grammatical mistakes; I have been shocked by the grade inflation, particularly in this area).
How is it that some kids spend eight years on the Dean's List but can't read a Rashi and can't translate the simplest pasuk of Tehillim that we say every day in davening. (Try it sometime. Ask your elemntary school kid to translate Ashrei, Yehi Chavod or Modim, for example. Simple pshat; nothing deeper. You may be surprised).
One could argue that actual learning is secondary to raising good kids who are erliche Yirei Shamayim. I would agree. And most of the kids, do, by and large, come out nice, mainly because their parents are nice. But the kids leave school with little feeling towards their Yiddishkeit, not knowing what it means to have a personal relationship with the Ribono Shel Olam and not knowing how to daven (or caring about it).
If you don't believe me, pick a day and go to a morning minyan at a high school, even an all-boy's high school. 25% of the kids will be davening. 75% will be staring into space, many not even bothering to open their siddurim).
But because of our cognitive dissonance, we don't see what is there before our eyesit's all good. After all, my kid got a 90.
(And, please, no comments that it's worse in the Chareidi world. That may well be the case but it doesn't change the reality in the MO world which is the world I know and the one I'm addressing).
posted by MoChassid @ 12:22 PM
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