The Dumbing Down of American Education (A Must See Video)

This is a video that was brought to my attention by an educator in the public school systems. I know from experience the stories this video shares are true, and many of you may remember a letter I received from an Ozark Junior High School teacher when I questioned her grading and lesson plans. Now Ozark Schools claim they care about education but they aren't looking at qualified teachers to improve education, they are looking overseas to an international government body with a radical left-wing agenda called the International Baccalaureate.

Take a few minutes to watch the video and I will share the letter I received from the Ozark teacher, which the administration basically swept under the rug. But remember, they claim they want to better prepare you children for school as they push the radical agenda of the IB.



My e-mail:

Dear Ms. Houston,

I am helping one of your students with their homework, and I am disappointed with their lack of knowledge of grammar and basic punctuation. When I looked at the assignment, I quickly noticed your lack of attention of style rules in your own writing.


For instance: You need 3 “good” actually bad animals, and 1 animal accused of being bad but he/she was misunderstood and is actually good.


If you are going to teach children English, don’t you think you should consider displaying good writing techniques when you create an assignment? I would consider the Chicago Manual of Style if you don’t already have a copy.


I am not sure I know what a good actually bad animal is. Do you mean good examples of bad animals, or do you mean good animals that have gone bad?


You always spell numbers under ten.


He or she is considered sexist language and should be replaced with a neutral noun or pronoun.


This is an ugly sentence, and you should strive to promote good writing by displaying good writing, especially if you are assigning and grading writing assignments. As I read on, you frequently leave out punctuation throughout the remaining portion of the assignment sheet. You can’t prepare children for the future by demonstrating and celebrating mediocrity. Communication is the greatest skill a child learns in school.

Sincerely,

CB

I seriously wasn't trying to insult her, but at the same time I felt she had a responsibility to her students to display what she supposedly teaches them. If you are not going to enforce the rules by displaying you too follow the rules, then the students begin to think the rules are not important. Not only that, but based on the writing of the student I read, the student is not an A student in English.

Here's the reply:

Dr. Mr. Bowler:


Are you serious? Pardon me if I come off a little less than professional in my attempt to answer your criticisms of my assignment, but perhaps you should spend one minute in my life and then you just might have more insight into what it is I do here at Ozark Junior High School.


On the particular day that I was creating that assignment, I was also making an outline to demonstrate to my speech class, writing a letter to parents to ask them to judge at the Saturday speech tournament I spent my entire day at, and emailing my husband to purchase a book from a Springfield book store for a lesson I wanted to teach the next day. Oh yes, and I was also making a prop list for the One Act play I direct after school. I am currently not using a textbook in English, and I have to come up with many of my own lessons, so those are sometimes created rather quickly (as was the one you mentioned in your email). Since you asked, I will tell you that my day begins at 4:30 a.m. and once I arrive at school (usually by 7:10 a.m.) my mornings are filled with visiting with my students, emailing parents, filling out hot sheets for missing assignments, tutoring students, working in the library, and making copies for my classes. All this I’ve done before 7:45 in the morning. In fact, I’ve had so many kids in my room this morning visiting with me, that I’ve barely had time to respond to this email. I won’t even detail what I do after school, as I simply couldn’t do it in the limited amount of time I have this morning. Suffice it to say, I don’t leave school until 4:00 or 4:30 most days.


I’m not sure what your life is like, however, if you have time to email a junior high school English teacher about one particular assignment she created in the five minutes free time she had that day, you’ve probably got too much time on your hands. Perhaps you should think about a day job. Please accept my humblest apologies for not making an error-free assignment sheet. You are right. I am an English teacher, and in an attempt to teach my students, I should model better work than the sheet in which you refer. I promise to do better next time. I may have to do it on one of the weekends that I’m not spending EIGHT hours with my student performers, or perhaps I’ll do it on an evening after I’ve graded 150 (should I have spelled that out?) essays. I may have to stay up until midnight to get it done, but believe me; the next assignment that I must create myself will be self-explanatory and free from any errors. I hope this will guarantee that people such as you will not take time out of their busy schedules to write me emails filled with disappointment with my lack of knowledge of basic grammar and punctuation. Oh yes, and my pronouns will be as neutral as they can possibly be. In fact, I promise not to make them gender specific at all in the next assignment.


Thank you once again for showing me the error of my ways. Now if you don’t mind, I must wrap this up and go teach a class of thirty-one 7th graders while making less money than an assistant manager at Arby’s.


Sincerely,



Natalie Houston
OJH English Department

Do you remember the story first told in the video? See the similarities?