- Editorial -

The Problem with Education
is NOT the Students

This Editorial is in response to a monthly news letter
by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison

Problem

Kay Bailey Hutchison: The way to educational improvement
Developing the skills of the next generation of Americans will be the prime engine for our economic growth, yet U.S. students are underperforming in the vitally important fields of science, technology, engineering and math.

The article goes on, but misses the mark.

Our Reply

You make reference to education in your news letter and the needs there of. The reason for the lagging and flagging development in education is very, very simple. Instructors!

There were very few good ones when I graduated from High School and College(s), there are even fewer now, much fewer. Of course parents need to shoulder responsibility as well, but instructors, any instructors whether public school, Sunday School, etc., must capture the hearts of their protégés and inspire them to reach higher.

Do not talk to us about TV, video games, and myriads of other excuses. These are the stock and trade of fumblers and stumblers who want to assign blame to the students, so they themselves can watch TV, play video games, smoke dope, live illicit lives and draw their pensions. How can the instructor blame students?

Of course the students are ignorant. No one goes to the first grade unless they do not know what the first grade is about. You do not move to the second grade because you know the second grade already. You start grades because you do not know that grade, yet. Of course, students do not want to learn. It has been this way since Adam and Eve.

If you ask a child if he or she wants to be a _______ologist (fill in the blank) they will surely say no or nothing at all, because they don't know what you are talking about. But if you present the subject matter in the exciting way it actually is (all subjects are exciting), everyone gets enthusiastic. Even those who are certain they do not want to live the rest of their lives involved in it.

In Northwest Chicago's Puerto Rican district and Gary Indiana's Black district and North Idaho and South Texas I have operated Sunday School Buses bringing in children who did not necessarily want to go to Sunday School. Some kids much, much worse than others. But none started out wanting to be Bible students. We had to capture their imagination, stimulate their enthusiasm, begin to set very few boundaries (kids always appreciate knowing what they can and cannot do, regardless of what the boundaries are) and start their education in spiritual things.

None of the teachers were paid, schooled or given a pension, they just began by loving the kids and everyone responds to love. No teacher ever threatened, spanked or raise their voice to some of the most unruly of children. The children's parents were no help, either.

I believe there are many instructors today who love their students, but their love is killing the students. How can a child graduate from High School and not be able to read or write and say he or she was loved by their instructors? Those students will suffer a lifetime of abuse from instructors who have neglected their craft.

Incidentally, I have occasion to ask many teens in states from Louisiana through the midwest to Washington State to compose a sentence of their own expression and write it out. Well over 60% cannot write legibly, cannot spell the simplest words and cannot express their feelings.

Are they incapable? I have proof that they are not, because I have just discussed with them issues of an abstract nature where they listened and responded with interest. Am I an exceptional human being? Of course I am not. Believe me, I would want the credit if it was true.

What is the problem? Instructors! I graduated from a "Normal" (the old title for schools which trained teachers) college. Many of my friends went on to teach in schools. They were good people, but ill prepared to impart knowledge. They could display knowledge, but not transfer it.

In May of 2009, a professor at Texas State is retiring. He has taught Geography there for many years. Anyone recommending that school will tell you, you must take the professor's basic Geography class, no matter what your major is. He teaches, he loves to teach, he loves his students and they get it. These are the same students the other professors are complaining about as being dull, disinterested and not worthy of their exposure to a college degree.

I apologize for the length of this note. But, at the same time I plead for the young people of our beloved country. Do away with the assembly line produced instructors and the arrogant, self-centered, non-producing, stumbling block, hypocritical college professors (liberal and conservative).

Thank you and God bless your efforts as our leader in a difficult time, under adverse circumstances.

Steve Andres

G. Steven Andres
Psalms 45.17
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