Modern Education and Our Future

Norcross Georgia Homework Assignments Anger Parents.

A other day I came across the above article about how some elementary teachers had attempted to link their math assignments with a social studies class they had taught on American Slavery.  In looking at the questions they posed to the students the teachers reflected either a complete lack of reasonable judgment or worse, a stereotypical Southern bigotry.  Since Norcross appears to be an upscale community northeast of Atlanta, for the moment lets assume the teachers were just stupid and not atypical bigots.

Today’s news has the community up in arms and calling for the dismissal of the teachers.  Certainly a plus for them when compared with time honored Southern tradition of lynching those people you don’t care for.  But I would like to write about what this incident brings out in us, and what if anything, we will do to change.  Not about whether Norcross should follow or abandon its time honored traditions. As I do from time to time I posted the article on a social media network and was somewhat surprised by some of the responses.

My first question -- Are the qualities of prejudice, intolerance, and bigotry inevitable human traits, and if they are how do we limit their impact on our society, and if not how do we begin the process of removing them from our nature?  As I look around and study history I find very little evidence to suggest humans have ever lived without prejudice and bias against others outside their group, we have unlimited examples of mans intolerance of opposing views.  Bigoted behavior can be found in every society I am aware of.  So on the surface it appears these qualities are prevalent traits, but where do they come from?  Surely they are not there from some genetic quality are they? Are we born with a prejudice gene?  No, I think they are learned behaviors, passed father to son, mother to daughter, and adult to child, as part of the maturing process.  Children see and hear what their parents do so often they internalize those qualities as their own, unless there is some compelling event that breaks that chain.

Within our nation we have had waves of immigration, and each wave brought about new problems we as a society had to work through.  Whether the English, French, Irish, Germans, Italian, Norse, East European, Asian, Latino, African or Middle Eastern; each has caused a shift in our culture and were discriminated against until they are assimilated into the fabric of our nation.  Some assimilate quickly, they learn the nations language, they blend in with community they settle in, marrying outside their historical group, etc.  Others do not, they maintain their home country’s culture, language, social links, or there are physical differences that separate them and make assimilation harder.  But each group has had to or still deals with discrimination, bigotry, and prejudice.  I’ve purposely avoided identification of the religious groups but they too have experienced this same problem of bigotry, which is, in a way, quite funny when you consider this nation was founded by Europeans seeking religious freedom.

So I come back to my question, how do we limit the impact of this prejudice and bigotry on our society?  Do we follow a path where we never discuss the problem for fear of hurting someone’s feelings, or do we lay it on the table and teach people there is a problem we have to deal with?  For me it seems obvious we have to talk about it, because if we shutter it away it festers until it boils over.  It is like Aunt Elsie’s drinking problem, it will just sit there until she dies of cirrhosis of the liver unless we intervene.  But what about children who may be subjected to this bigotry and abuse and hurt by it, how do we protect them?  Seems like a good question, but the real concern is do we benefit them if we do?

If bigotry exists and we can’t eradicate it from society with the wave of a wand then don’t we owe it to the victims to teach them how best to deal with this evil?  If we shelter them, at what point do we let them become adults responsible and capable of dealing with life’s problems on their own?  It is painful for a loving and concerned adult see someone you love hurt.  But hurt in life is inevitable, it is how we deal with it, and how we teach our loved ones to deal with it that offers our society a chance to grow out of petty emotions like hate.  If the children are protected and sheltered from all this hate, then when they are on their own who will intervene on their behalf?  Isn’t that one of the problems we see today where so many believe it is the governments responsibility to make up for their choices?  Don’t mistake this for a position advocating that bigotry and discrimination should be tolerated, where it exists it must be addressed through the civil and criminal process, but I am saying that children should not be sheltered from this process, they should be loved by those who love them, and taught that bigotry exists and how to stand up for themselves.  To do less will set them up for failure in life.  The true victims will be the children who have parents who don’t provide the love and support they need and react to these issues with hate and violence of their own.  That is a problem I don’t know how we address, as it does not provide progress towards acceptance, but just perpetuates the problem.  “Then Peter came up and said to him, ‘Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.’” (Matthew 18: verse 21 and 22 (RSV))

So now back to the issue of education, what message do we send our children when we take localized teacher stupidity and blow it into a full fledged national firestorm where all the Al Sharpton’s and Rush Limbaugh’s of the world can spin this issue as if the world turned on coming out their way?  We loose a wonderful teaching opportunity and a chance to show our children how “civilized adults” handle mistakes, and we compound whatever simple concerns the children may have had into something much worse.