Sociologists define education as society’s way of passing its knowledge to future generations. In this manner, education is as old as the family. It is through a system of educating their off springs that the family helps the new citizens to behave in society according to its norms.
The range of education extends through the different societies from the hunting and gathering to the post- industrial societies. At the simplest level, parents helped their children to learn the primitive ways of life of the time. It included learning to communicate and relate well with others and develop survival skills. In this aspect, humanity hasn’t changed. Still the basic function of the family remains the same.
In modern societies, however, education continues in a formal setting of teaching and learning the process began at home. Education starts with basic survival skills instruction and continues on with technical and professional training.
The earliest civilization documentation known today unveils life in Sumer about 6,000 years ago in the land called Mesopotamia, the land between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates known today as southern Iraq. Beginning with simple images, the Sumerian progressed to develop the Cuneiform type of writing. Schooling was done at the centers of worship by the priests, and it was limited to the elite. The Sumerian also developed complex grammatical and mathematical systems.
Characteristics
American humorist, social commentator, actor and writer Will Roger used to say in jest: “Everything I know I learned in kindergarten.” The fact is that for many years formal education began in kindergarten. Now it starts in pre-kindergarten. Formal education begins early these days.
If education is “society’s way of passing its knowledge to future generations, a legitimate question to ask is: What is passed on? Seven areas of learning are generally identified by educators: beliefs, values, norms, attitudes, behavior, skills and general developmental information.
Briefly described, beliefs refer to general ideological development. Values are those things most important to the society where the person lives. Norms are the rules society sets for human conduct. Attitudes are the frames of mind people develop based on the teachings received. Behavior is the resulting conduct derived from the attitudes. Skills are the survival tools the person has developed according to opportunities and personal motivation. And general developmental information refers to round education students received in the liberal arts.
Achievement
Like every thing else in society, education has undergone much change. The explosion of knowledge we enjoy today, which continues to see the light of learning at an exponential rate, affords present student bodies to amass enormous amounts of data relevant and necessary to compete in present labor market.
Unfortunately, there is a tremendous decline in academic achievements in our country. Students of society point to five distressing concerns: poor socialization, modern distractions, shifts in basic curriculum, lack of parental support at school to maintain discipline and lack of parental educational involvement with children at home.
Politicians have made popular the blaming of the school systems for the failure of students. They do it not because of lack of knowledge about the dysfunction of the modem family. This they know very well. But they dare not alienate the family and lose their electorate. Since education is an impersonal institution, it has become fashionable among elected officials to blame the school system for failure to properly educate children.
Socialization starts in the family, not in school. The experiences children have in the family of today have an inverse correlation in their development. Parents have undesirable mutual relations, frequently fighting violently over innumerable personal and family issues exacerbated by conflicts in the work place. Often, children are used as escape goats abused verbally and physically. And Children react undesirably at school with violent acts of their own. The news media keeps the public informed of the most salient atrocities committed by students. However, they are unable to report on the daily occurrence of student’s undesirable behavior. Only individuals close to teachers can hear the constant litany of undesirable happenings in the schools.
In addition, life in modern societies is replete with entertainment. In the USA, the exponential appearance of new gadgets parents buy for their kids to keep them distracted interfere with the daily obligations children must complete. And lack of parental supervision allows children to misuse their time after school hours. If allowed, children have fun with their electronic toys endlessly and play games on television non-stop.
Proposals
Giving the condition of the family today, what can the school do to alleviate the problem? Although, irreparable damage has been done to public education in the USA, a return to fundamental education will stop the slide toward oblivion and begin a wise movement toward recovery. Here are some proposals made public to deal with the school conditions
1. Return to the three Rs and basic science as the platform on which to build. Schools have changed a lot during the past fifty years. Experimentation with curriculum modification and altogether new curriculum has been a yearly occurrence in lots of school districts throughout the nation. Consequently, reading, writing, arithmetic and basic science have been neglected. Exaggerated concern with accommodating children coming from the subcultures of the nation has occupied teaching time. New themes and subjects have taken the place of basic instruction.
Finally, shifts in basic curriculum activities constantly experimenting with new unproven methods of teaching retard and in some cases stops the learning process.The absence of fundamental training in the basics has deprived our students of getting vital information without which competition to advance is severely limited.This of course is an issue indirectly related to the socialization process of the new citizenry. It is, however, an effort to find new and improved ways of resolving a problem at school which should be taking care of at home.
The family should understand that the function of the school is to assist in socializing children. The school will never be able to take the place of the family. The function of the family is exclusive, having no possible substitute.
2. Reduce the number of students to a maximum of twenty-two students per classroom. Initially, teaching in the schools was done at multiple levels. A classroom would have in access of sixty students. Gradually, school districts started teaching by grades, as it exists today. The number of students was reduced per class. Student population explosion and lack of new facilities to accommodate the new students increased the number of students per class. In many cases, individual classrooms are packed with an excess of students. This prevents teachers from giving individual attention to children.
3. Parental involvement. As said above, the function of the school is to help the family in the socialization of their children. Teaching and learning begins at home and continues at school. But the school is not a substitute of the family. No other institution can take the place of the family. The family and the school must work together in close cooperation. Thus, it is essential for parents to be actively involved in the education of their children at school. Parents should volunteer time to help in the classroom showing children care and support toward their success. Moreover, helping in the classroom, parents will assist teachers doing secondary tasks, allowing them to use this time in their primary instructional function.
Working parents are limited in what they can do; yet, they too may contribute. These parents can be in touch with their children’s teachers via e-mail. My four school teacher nieces report on the effectiveness of this system of communication for parents stay on top of what is going on at school with their kids. They obtain information on the homework assignments and receive instruction on how to help the children. Parents also receive notification of school activities in which they could participate at night and week-ends.
Lack of parental educational involvement with children at home after school hours has become the norm. There is little supervision making sure that homework is properly completed. This does not help the school efforts to educate and continue to help the family with their socialization mission. And absence of parental support at school to maintain discipline adds to the already fragile state of the family
4. Mentoring. Increasingly, schools have mentoring programs. Advanced students are used to help students in need of further explanation and clarification on subjects difficult for them to understand. Mentoring should continue at home as parents make sure their children are able to complete home work and even go beyond. It is important for children to develop reading habits. Parents may take their children to the public library and help them select books of their interest. Parents needing assistance should ask the librarian to help them identify the right books for their children.
5. More committed teachers. Following the teachings of the Judeo-Christian traditional perspective, it may be assumed that teaching is ministry. By far, this is how teachers see their function. They are assisting the family the best way possible to teach their children the ways of life of the society where they live. In addition, teachers are charged with the task of beginning to equip children with the needed survival skills they will use to live in present competitive modern world of opportunities. Teachers are highly skilled professionals whose salaries are much less than those of equally specialized practitioners working in private industries and commerce. The status inconsistency of teachers in relation to other professionals, where salaries are disproportionate to their work tells of teachers’ commitment to their vocation.
Few teachers, however, do not take their work as expressed above. Like in all other professions, some teachers care for themselves more than they care for their students. These teachers engage in repulsive unethical activities. Some of these are criminal in nature. The mass media reports regularly on this behavior wherever it occurs, and much more goes unreported.
In addition, modern living affects all sectors of society in a stressful way. Although the majority of people cope well with the pressures of life, some are unable to do so because of their own poor socialization. Teachers are not exempt from these maladies. As customary of folks emotionally disturbed, some teachers exhibit behavior departing from the norms of society. Upon detection, these educators are promptly removed from their classrooms.
6. Develop a school discipline program. All schools have a normative system posted in each classroom along with the consequences resulting from violations. These norms cover a dress code, attitude and behavior. Frequently, however, this normative system is not enforced. School districts administrators are aware of the cost and consequences of frivolous law-suits resulting from enforcing discipline. Instead, a permissive policy of exaggerated “student rights” allow students to do as they please. It is high time for parents to recognize the damage done to their children and intervene with the legislature to stop frivolous law-suits against school districts and allow schools to enforce discipline as it should be.
EDUCATION AND THE FAMILY J.C.Cordova, D.Min., LCSW