posted May 06, 2008 11:31 PM            

Functional illiteracy refers to the inability of an individual to use reading, writing, and computational skills efficiently in everyday life situations. Illiteracy is the inability to read or write simple sentences in any language.

Characteristics
When illiterate, one cannot read or write at all. In contrast, one who is functionally illiterate has a basic grasp of literacy (reading and writing text in his or her native language), but with a variable degree of grammatical correctness, and style. In short, when confronted with printed materials, functionally illiterate adults cannot function effectively in modern society, and cannot adequately perform fundamental tasks such as filling out an employment application; understanding a legally-binding contract; following written instructions; reading a newspaper article; reading traffic signs; consulting a dictionary; or understanding a bus schedule.

Functional illiteracy also severely limits interaction with information and communication technologies (e.g. using a personal computer to work with a word processor, a web browser, a spreadsheet application, or using a mobile phone efficiently).

[edit] Links with poverty and crime
Those who are functionally illiterate may be subject to social intimidation, health risks, stress, low income, and other pitfalls associated with their inability.

The correlation between crime and functional illiteracy is well-known to criminologists and sociologists throughout the world. In the early 2000s, it was estimated that 60% of adults in federal and state prisons in the United States were functionally or marginally illiterate, and 85% of juvenile offenders had problems associated with reading, writing, and basic mathematics.[citation needed]

[edit] Prevalence
In the United States, according to Business magazine, an estimated 15 million functionally illiterate adults held jobs at the beginning of the 21st century. The American Council of Life Insurers reported that 75% of the Fortune 500 companies provide some level of remedial training for their workers. All over U.S.A. 40-44 million (21-23% of adults) are functionally illiterate. [1]

In the UK, according to the Daily Telegraph (14 June 2006) "one in six British adults lacks the literacy skills of an 11-year-old". The UK government's Department for Education reported in 2006 that 47 percent of school children left school at age 16 without having achieved a basic level in functional maths, and 42 percent fail to achieve a basic level of functional English. Every year 100,000 pupils leave school functionally illiterate, in the UK.[2]

[edit] Research findings
A Literacy at Work study, published by the Northeast Institute in 2001, found that business losses attributed to basic skill deficiencies run into billions of dollars a year due to low productivity, errors, and accidents attributed to functional illiteracy.

Sociological research has demonstrated that countries with lower levels of functional illiteracy among their adult populations tend to be those with the highest levels of scientific literacy among the lower stratum of young people nearing the end of their formal academic studies. This correspondence suggests that a contributing factor to a society's level of civic literacy is the capacity of schools to ensure students attain the functional literacy required to comprehend the basic texts and documents associated with competent citizenship. [3]

posted May 06, 2008 11:32 PM            

Many companies are hiring functionally illiterate employees without realizing it. Companies should always be on the lookout for functionally illiterate employees and train them as soon as possible. It is a better alternative than fire and rehire employees.

Think illiteracy is a problem of the past? There's a reason some workers avoid the written word. Here's how you can help.

Although the majority of Americans are literate, that doesn't mean illiteracy isn't a workplace obstacle. Productivity is sagging, errors are skyrocketing, and many problems can be attributed directly to employee inadequacies with the written word. Eunice Askov, a professor of education at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, unravels this paradox: "Very few people are illiterate if that means they can't read or write at all. But millions face serious challenges keeping up with the demand to read and write on the job."

How many millions? More than 40 million Americans 16 years of age and older have only rudimentary reading and writing skills, according to the U.S. Department of Education. That's how many qualify at Level 1 in a five-level scoring of literacy. Level 1 means an individual can sign his or her name but can't make sense of a benefits write-up, reliably read a map, or accurately fill out a Social Security card application.

Those shortcomings can lead to big trouble on the job. A statistic from the Washington, DC-based National Institute for Literacy puts the finding in focus: More than 60 percent of front-line workers in goods-producing businesses have difficulty applying information from a text to a required task.

"About 20 percent of adults lack the skills to be fully productive," confirms Virginia Watson, director of the Michigan Adult Learning and Technology Center in Mt. Pleasant. Watson explains that while not being able to read or write at all used to be the definition of illiteracy, today, "functional illiteracy" means a person lacks the skills needed to perform his or her job.

How can this be in a nation that has long enforced compulsory education? "At least some of this problem rests with the educational system," contends Watson. Another factor is the steady influx of immigrants from third-world nations, some of whom have had little, if any, formal education.

But the most likely cause is that jobs have changed, explains Askov. "People who could have adequately handled their jobs," she says, "are now having trouble coping with new demands."

WHOLE NEW WORLD

Corporate restructuring has played a large role in the changing business environment. Even a decade ago, most report-writing, for instance, was handled by front-line supervisors. "Many of those tasks have been pushed down to workers. They're having to read, write and use sophisticated technology, and they don't have the foundation for it," says Larry Mikulecky, a professor of education at Indiana University in Bloomington.

Are you assigning these types of tasks to lower-level employees? Although this puts responsibility at the level of the workers doing the jobs, an unanticipated byproduct is that the increased sophistication of the workplace has pushed literacy front and center, says Watson. "More business leaders recognize that literacy has become a workplace issue that impacts productivity," he says.

Businesses are discovering more functionally illiterate employees nowadays. While the number of illiterate workers hasn't soared, in an economy with low unemployment rates, employers are often hiring workers they might have ignored just a few years ago. In addition, the federal welfare-to-work initiative, which aims to get welfare recipients into paying jobs, has made more employers aware of illiteracy as an issue, says John Doyle of the Employment Policies Institute in Washington, DC. Doyle cites studies that peg illiteracy among welfare recipients at upwards of 38 percent. "More companies will employ these people in the future," he says.

Surprisingly, you may not even realize which employees are functionally illiterate. "It can be difficult to [detect]," says Askov. "People are good at covering it."

"A great deal of shame and fear is attached to illiteracy," says Marsha L. Tait, national president of the Literacy Volunteers of America Inc. "People are afraid if it becomes known, they'll lose their jobs."

The best strategy for discovering employee illiteracy is to be watchful. Signs to look out for: workers who consistently dodge reading or writing on the job, or those who make a string of goofs they wouldn't have made if they'd read the instructions. And don't forget the issue is inadequate skills, not no skills at all. To a large degree, this is a judgment call: If you feel an employee is having problems, you're probably right.

GET WITH THE PROGRAM

Should you simply find ways to work around an employee's illiteracy? In most businesses, that's not a long-term solution - at least not with job complexity intensifying at every level. The shrewder solution is to train the worker. "It's cheaper in the long run than firing and rehiring," says Joe O'Connor, a human resources consultant with MHR Consultants in Chandler, Arizona. "You'll also see a payoff in worker loyalty. Help an employee learn to read, and that employee will remember [your efforts]."

Finding programs to help illiterate workers is usually easy, adds O'Connor. Literacy Volunteers of America Inc., for instance, has a nationwide network of affiliates that arrange one-on-one tutoring or small group instruction for illiterate adults at no cost to participants. In many communities, too, evening adult education programs offer literacy classes at nominal fees.

Although there are many programs to help the illiterate, that doesn't mean the process is easy. Substantial time is involved in effecting a cure. "An estimated 100 hours of one-on-one tutoring is required to achieve a grade-level gain,' says Mikulecky. And many workers will need to gain a few grade levels - meaning they'll need 200 or more hours of study.

Summoning the will to see this program through to its completion can be tough. "But the employer can help make it happen," says O'Connor.

How? A key is to provide incentives to the employee. "[Workers will be] embarrassed by their illiteracy," O'Connor says. "They have to fight to overcome that, and rewards will make it easier." Paid time off to take a class or perhaps even just a pat on the back, says O'Connor, can mean a lot to an employee struggling to learn new skills.

When helping an employee improve his or her literacy skills, sensitivity on your part is a must. "Never talk about a worker's illiteracy with any of his or her co-workers," says O'Connor. "Confidentiality is critical."

A third step: "Create a safe environment," O'Connor advises. "Tell the employee his or her job is safe and add that you want this employee to participate in a literacy program because you value him or her and want to prepare that person to achieve still higher goals."

Recognize, too, that you don't just take these steps once - you'll likely need to continue to reassure this worker throughout the many months of classes he or she may need to achieve a satisfactory level of literacy. That's a big chore on your part, but know that what the employee is doing is tougher still.

The payoffs of helping an employee gain literacy justify the investment of effort on your part, promises Askov. "Absenteeism drops, retention rates improve, productivity increases and employee morale is raised," she says.

Beyond the economic reasons, "It feels good helping a person learn to read," says O'Connor, who logged several years as a volunteer literacy teacher. "You're helping a person, benefiting society and contributing to your business's bottom line. That's why I always tell small-business owners this is an investment they'll be very glad they made."

NEXT STEP

Literacy Volunteers of America Inc. can arrange literacy training at no cost to participants. For more information, call (888) HELP-LVA or visit the organization online at www.literacyvolunteers.org.

RELATED ARTICLE: CLICK

WEB SITE: www.benefitslink.com

Benefits are critical, and not just to employees: Many entrepreneurs take a keen personal Interest in assembling the benefits package that best meets their own needs. Because most benefits are governed under U.S. law, It's easy to break the law - thereby possibly invalidating the benefits (and wiping out any tax deductions you have taken). Preventive medicine is yours, free of charge, at Benefits Link: The National Employee Benefits Web site. The site is rich in content but well-organized, so it moves as fast as you can click into the library, which is filled with U.S. government publications, and read guest columns on topics such as "Correction of Plan Defects." A plus is an extensive list of benefits professionals available for hire.

Robert McGarvey writes on business, psychology and management topics for several national publications. To reach him online with your questions or comments, e-mail rjmcgarvey@mail.entrepreneurmag.com.

COPYRIGHT 1999 Entrepreneur Media, Inc.
This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.
For permission to reuse this article, contact Copyright Clearance Center.

posted May 06, 2008 11:34 PM            

Ronald Nash

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The restoration of functional, cultural, and moral literacy requires that we expose the ideologies and movements which have promulgated relativistic nonsense and moral bankruptcy

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Education at all levels in the United States has reached the crisis stage. Of course, the situation didn't arise yesterday; it has developed over a period of decades. Nor is the crisis news to people who have been paying attention to what's been going on in the country.
This crisis of education is manifested in three levels of illiteracy: functional illiteracy, cultural illiteracy, and moral illiteracy. Typically, to say that a person is illiterate means that the person cannot read or write. But the word does have other senses. It is sometimes used of someone who is ignorant of the fundamentals of a particular art or area of knowledge. It is this broader meaning that is in view when, for example, we say that a person is musically illiterate. The word can also be used to describe a person who falls short of some expected standard of competence regarding some skill or body of information. In this last sense, a person who falls short of our commonly expected standard of competence in mathematics can be described as illiterate, even if he or she is quite competent in language skills.

Functional Illiteracy
The United States Department of Education estimates that functional illiteracy, incompetence in such basic functions as reading, writing, and mathematics, plagues 24 million Americans. Thirteen percent of American seventeen-year-olds are illiterate, according to a recent issue of Time; the estimate for minority youth is an astonishing forty percent.[1] Every year, at least a million of these functional illiterates graduate from America's high schools, the proud owners of meaningless diplomas.
Writing in the monthly Commentary, Chester E. Finn, Jr., a professor at Vanderbilt University, cites the dismal findings of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. "Just five percent of seventeen-year-old high school students can read well enough to understand and use information found in technical materials, literary essays, and historical documents."[2] Imagine then how hopeless it is to get the other 95 percent to read Plato or Dante -- or the Bible. "Barely six percent of them," Finn continues, "can solve multi-step math problems and use basic algebra."[3] We're not talking difficult math here but rather something as elementary as calculating simple interest on a loan.

Illiteracy this extensive is virtually unprecedented in America's history. Eighty years ago, in 1910, only 2.2 percent of American children between the ages of ten and fourteen could neither read nor write. It is important to remember that the illiteracy of 1910 reflected for the most part children who never had the advantage of schooling. The illiterates of today, however, are not people who never went to school; they are, for the most part, individuals who have spent eight to twelve years in public schools.

Clearly incompetence of this magnitude is not the result of accident. A large part of the blame rests with the educational establishment itself, the very people and institutions entrusted with the task of educating America's children.

There is a growing body of evidence that suggests that many of our public school teachers are themselves woefully under-educated. In 1983, for example, school teachers in Houston, Texas were required to take a competency test. More than 60 percent of the teachers failed the reading part of the test. Forty-six percent failed the math section while 26 percent could not pass the writing exam. As if this weren't bad enough, 763 of the more than 3,000 teachers taking the test cheated.

The major reason for this widespread incompetence is the departments and colleges of education that have been given the power to determine what future teachers will be taught. The professional educationists who staff these institutions have persuaded their states to dictate that no one can become a public school teacher in that state without taking an inordinate number of courses in professional education. This enormous overemphasis on such courses might not be so bad, except that most education students take the classes in place of content courses. While they may learn how to teach (a debatable claim), they end up having little or nothing to teach.

Cultural Illiteracy
Even when the students in our public schools and colleges manage to attain a degree of functional literacy, they often suffer from a different problem -- cultural illiteracy. According to E.D. Hirsch, Jr., the author of Cultural Illiteracy: What Every American Needs to Know, "To be culturally literate is to possess the basic information needed to thrive in the modern world."[4] As William J. Bennett explains, being culturally literate is
a matter of building up a body of knowledge enabling us to make sense of the facts, names, and allusions cited by an author....For example, someone who is unsure who Grant and Lee were may have a hard time understanding a paragraph about the Civil War, no matter how well he reads.[5]
Cultural illiteracy is the burden of a recent book titled What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know? The book, co-authored by Diane Ravitch and Chester E. Finn, Jr., reports what has been learned from the first nation-wide academic assessment of American seventeen-year-olds. The national average of right answers for the history questions was 54.5 percent; the average for the literature questions was even lower, 51.8 percent. The authors point out that if we approach these percentages from the commonly accepted view that 60 percent is the line between passing and failing, American students are in deep trouble.
A few examples from the Ravitch and Finn book may help underscore how bad things really are. Take the matter of history, for example. An astonishing 31.9 percent of seventeen-year-olds do not know that Columbus discovered the New World before 1750. Almost 75 percent could not place Lincoln's presidency within the correct twenty-year span, and 43 percent did not know that World War I occurred during the first half of the twentieth century.

Things didn't get any better when the students surveyed in the Ravitch-Finn book were tested about geography. Almost one-third of them could not locate France on a map of Europe, while less than half could locate the state of New York on a map of the United States.

The test also examined seventeen-year-olds' familiarity with important literature. The results were equally depressing. Almost 35 percent did not know that "We hold these truths to be self-evident..." are words from the Declaration of Independence, and more than 40 percent did not know that Dicken's Tale of Two Cities described events occurring during the French Revolution. I suppose there is something fitting and prophetic about the fact that the last item on the literature test indicates that almost 87 percent of American seventeen-year-olds are ignorant of the content of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.

These are not difficult or trivial matters of information. This abysmal ignorance exists among American youth who have had eleven years of public school education, who are one year away from getting a high school diploma, and who soon will be college students. Just for the record, I ought to state that I asked several college-level classes I teach the same questions and found almost the same degree of ignorance.

Has anything been done to identify the causes of this cultural illiteracy? Hirsch knows where much of the blame rests. He writes,

The theories that have dominated American education for the past fifty years stem ultimately from Jean Jacques Rousseau, who...thought that a child's intellectual and social skills would develop naturally without regard to the specific content of education. His content-neutral conception of educational development has long been triumphant in American schools of education and has long dominated the "developmental," content-neutral curriculum of our elementary schools.[6]
Ravitch and Finn agree with Hirsch that the thing most responsible for the widespread cultural illiteracy in America is an approach to education that eliminates culture from the curriculum and replaces it with an emphasis on learning skills. "There is a tendency," they write, "in the education profession to believe that what children learn is unimportant compared to how they learn; to believe that skills can be learned without regard to content; to believe that content is in fact irrelevant so long as the proper skills are developed and exercised." [7 ] While the acquisition of skills has a place in our schools, it is only part of the total educational process.
While the older traditional approach to education had it faults, it contained something that is missing from the new developmental approach. From the old approach, as Ravitch and Finn say, one could learn "who we were as a people, what battles we had fought, what self-knowledge we had gained." In short, one acquired "a point of view that could be disputed, attacked, or controverted. What took its place was not a reformulated and modernized literary tradition that embraced the rich variety of our culture, revealing to us how we had changed during a critical period of our history. The old tradition was dead, but in its stead there was merely cafeteria-style literature, including the written equivalent of junk food."[8]

Moral Illiteracy
While it is difficult for some people to believe that anyone involved in education would intentionally act in ways that would induce functional illiteracy, it is hard to overlook the educational philosophy that is responsible for cultural illiteracy. But no informed American can possibly doubt that there has been an all-out campaign to cut moral and religious values from our schools. Many educators will deny culpability with regard to functional illiteracy; they will claim innocence with regard to cultural illiteracy; but their contribution to their students moral illiteracy is something many of them actually claim with pride.
The bias against religious and moral values has left us with a generation of moral illiterates. John Silber, president of Boston University, has taken note of this illiteracy in his powerful book, Straight Shooting:

In generations past, parents were more diligent in passing on their principles and values to their children and were assisted by churches and schools which emphasized religious and moral education. In recent years, in contrast, our society has become increasingly secular and the curriculum of the public schools has been denuded of almost all ethical content. As a result universities must confront a student body ignorant of the evidence and arguments that underlie and support many of our traditional moral principles and practices.[9]
This loss of moral order is linked inseparably to the wrecking of our intellectual tradition. According to Jewish scholar Will Herberg: "We are surrounded on all sides by the wreckage of our great intellectual tradition. In this kind of spiritual chaos, neither freedom nor order is possible. Instead of freedom, we have the all-engulfing whirl of pleasure and power; instead of order, we have the jungle wilderness of normlessness and self-indulgence."[10]
The recovery of the belief that there does exist a transcendent, universal moral order is therefore a necessary condition of America's being delivered from its present educational crisis. Important thinkers throughout history have contended that there is a higher order of permanent things, that human happiness is dependent on living our lives in accordance with this transcendent order, and that peace and order within human society requires similar conduct. The most important task of education, then, is to continually remind students of the importance of this transcendent order and of its content.

Russell Kirk observes that even some college students sense that this important element is missing from their education. "Not a few undergraduates," he writes, "complain that their college offers them no first principles of morality, no ethical direction, no aspiration toward enduring truth."[11]

Like any important human activity, however, education has an inescapable religious component. Whatever we may think of other things he said, Paul Tillich was right when he defined religion as a matter of "ultimate concern." Obviously religion is more than this, but it cannot be less. Every person has something that concerns her ultimately, and, whatever it is, that object of ultimate concern is that person's God.

It is absurd, then, to think that the choice in public education is between the sacred and the secular. Whatever choice the State makes will only establish one person's set of ultimate concerns at the expense of others. An education that pretends to be religiously neutral is a fraud.

One of the more disturbing ways in which one group's set of ultimate concerns has asserted itself in public education is the misleadingly named "values-clarification" movement. Perhaps the most basic assumption of the values-clarification movement is that no one, a teacher or a parent, should think she has the right set of values to pass on to children.

As Kenneth Gangel, a professor of Christian education at Dallas Theological Seminary, explains:

Values clarification in secular education centers on inviting impressionable children and young people to make a choice among options without any consideration of absolute truth and absolute values. Is lying acceptable? Is stealing permissible? Should premarital sex be approved? Well, "it depends." Situations differ. If young people have "clarified" their own value systems and have chosen to do or not to do these things, education has been achieved.[12]
In one of the more helpful articles written about the movement, philosopher Christina Hoff Sommers explains that the leaders of the movement are convinced "that traditional middle-class morality is at best useless and at worst pernicious, and they have confidence in the new morality that is to replace the old and in the novel techniques to be applied to this end."[13]
Sommers often sounds as though she can hardly believe what she is reporting. As a university philosophy teacher who specializes in ethics, she advises that "Young people today, many of whom are in a complete moral stupor, need to be shown that there is an important distinction between moral and nonmoral decisions. Values clarification blurs the distinction."[14]

Gangel warns that this movement may be the most serious factor in America's educational crisis. He writes, "Perhaps the number one problem in public education is the attempt to educate students without a moral pint of reference. With a floating target of truth and the desertion of absolutes, the entire system has abandoned its base."[15]

This elimination of values in education has resulted from several factors. One has been the apathy, indifference, and inaction of people who should have been on guard. This includes the majority of conservative Protestants, Catholics, and Jews who failed to say or do anything. Like the people in Jesus' parable of the wheat and the tares, they slept while the enemy came out and sowed tares in their field.

But the plague of moral illiteracy is also due to the greater commitment, dedication, and cleverness of the people who gained control of public education. It was their zealous dedication and specious arguments that won over enough politicians and judges to seal their victory. That victory has been a defeat for education in this nation and an irreparable loss for the millions of young people who had the misfortune of going to schools controlled by their philosophy.

The desertion of absolutes that Ken Gangel warned against above has escalated far beyond the mere teaching of values-clarification, however. We can see moral deterioration all through society as a result of such relativistic nonsense. But others have eloquently warned of the consequence of such moral decay.

We find a most creative expression of such concern in the writing of the nineteenth-century poet, essayist, and thinker, Matthew Arnold. Arnold saw the need for reform in education and the danger of losing moral values in the educational process not long after it began to be popular to promote relativism in the schools of his day.

Arnold saw the Bible as a great work of literature and a means of advancing culture, though he did not hold to personal faith in Christ. But he recognized the importance of the Christian faith as a guide for society and saw the waning of faith as a loss for society. He believed that culture and education would have to fill the void left by the retreat of Biblical faith as the integrating force in society.

In the poem Dover Beach, Arnold presents the reader with a couple in a room on the cliffs of Dover. The night scene is viewed through the window of the couple's room, and the feeling is one of quietness and near solitude. The man calls the woman to the window and, as they listen to the sounds of the sea, the tranquil mood gives way to feelings of apprehension and melancholy. The Christian faith, like the ocean, is waning, and the world has become dreary and naked. Secular humanity is exposed and alone; "free" but irrevocably lonely.

Finally the man calls his lover to be true. Nothing in the world is certain now that the Christian faith is in retreat. Confusion creeps in; war and conflict spread. All that remains is love and personal relationships.

Arnold believed that culture could take the place of Christian faith as the basis for society. Yet, as his famous poem plainly shows, the loss of Christian faith in the West left the world a more fearful, lonely, and confusing place. Culture and education are not adequate grist for the mill of society, and Arnold's poetry clearly reveals the loss his heart feels at the inadequate solution his secular solution has suggested.

Dover Beach
The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits -- on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was one, too, at the full, and round the earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Conclusion
Matthew Arnold recognized the incredible loss that the secularization of our educational system creates. The loss of Christian values has marched on, though, despite Arnold's poetic harbinger. The restoration of functional, cultural, and moral literacy requires that we identify and expose the ideas, ideologies, people, and movements who, to use Russell Kirk's apt phrase, have served as our generation's "enemies of permanent things," those values that have been replaced with relativistic nonsense, irrational ideas, and moral bankruptcy that sent Arnold into eternal sadness. We must find ways to loosen their destructive control over the education of future generations of young people. And we must then act in cooperation with others in our society who want to see an end to the crisis of American education.
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Ronald Nash, Ph.D. (Philosophy; Syracuse) is professor of philosophy and religion at Western Kentucky University. He is author or editor of twenty-one books including Christianity and the Hellenistic World, Faith and Reason, Poverty and Wealth, and, most recently, The Closing of the American Heart (Probe Books, 1990). He has lectured extensively throughout the United States and Britain and also serves as an advisor to the United States Civil Rights Commission.
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Notes
[1] See Time, 14 August 1989.
[2] Finn, Chester, "A Nation Still At Risk," Commentary 87 (May 1989) p. 18.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Hirsh, E.D., Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987) p. xiii.

[5] Bennett, William, "Moral Literacy and the Formation of Character," Faculty Dialogue, Number Eight (Spring/Summer 1987), p. 24.

[6] Hirsch, Literacy, pp. xiv-xv.

[7 ] Ravitch, Diane and Finn, Chester, What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know? (New York: Harper and Row, 1987), p.17.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Silber, John, Straight Shooting (New York: Harper and Row, 1989), p. xiv.

[10] Herberg, Will, "Modern Man in a Metaphysical Wasteland," The Intercollegiate Review, 5 (Winter 1968-69), p. 79.

[11] Kirk, Russell, Decadence and Renewal in the Higher Learning (South Bend, Ind: Gateway, 1978), p. 192.

[12] Gangel, Kenneth, Schooling Choices, H. Wayne House, ed. (Portland: Multnomah, 1988), pp. 126-27.

[13] Hoff Sommers, Christina, "Ethics Without Virtue: Moral Education in America," American Scholar (Summer 1984), p. 381.

[14] Ibid. p. 383.

[15] Gangel, Schooling, p. 127.

posted May 07, 2008 09:33 AM              

------------------
The truth is ... everything counts. Everything. Everything we do and everything we say. Everything helps or hurts; everything adds to or takes away from someone else. ~ Countee Cullen

We are weaving character every day, and the way to weave the best character is to be kind and to be useful. Think right, act right; it is what we think and do that makes us who we are. ~ Elbert Hubbard

posted May 07, 2008 02:37 PM              

Dover Beach is an old favorite.

posted May 07, 2008 10:09 PM            

I've read you are home schooling GG. And I believe you Eleanore and you TINK are going to do the same or consider private education.

No private sector enterprise could possibly tolerate such utter incompetence as that displayed by the various public school systems...under the tutelage of the National Education Association and the Federal Teachers Association.

Is it time to throw in the towel on public education and wrest control of education from the so called educators?

From where I sit, they don't come up to the level of decent babysitters.

posted May 07, 2008 10:40 PM              

I just felt that homeschooling was a natural extension of the attachment parenting philosophy. And I felt that no one could teach them as I could, since they'd been learning from me from day one.

When I had to start the compulsory paperwork with the local school district, at age 5, I had our daughter tested, just because I was worried that I might not be doing well. She tested at a 3rd grade math level, and a 5th grade reading level.

One of the nicest things about homeschooling, is that we can spend as much time on a particular subject/idea if they need extra help, or if they are really interested in something. It's not like I only have 3 weeks per topic, and then we have to move on. Many of the subjects/interests eventually mesh together. And another thing is we can study things when they are first interested in it, and excited about it, and I don't have to say "sorry you can't learn about x until 5th grade." You can strike while the iron is hot.

Another nice thing, is that I don't have 30 people to attempt to teach. I can fit the learning style with the subject. So it doesn't matter that our eldest son is mapped kinesthetically, he can move around if need be, and tap his pencil, or whistle while he works etc. and learn in his own way, not be forced to fit in the round hole.

(can you tell I'm passionate about homeschooling? LOL)

Another reason we homeschooled is due to the social environment. There's so much unkindness going on in there that it boggles my mind. That's not to say they are kept in cages by any means. We take field trips and in the school district we live in now, they have enrichment classes, and the children get to take 2 per quarter. Which is nice, because I've met other parents, and they've made new friends.

Also, we felt that learning should be something that you just do, not something that is only in a specific part of the day ie, Math is only from 9-10 AM and then you're done for the rest of the day! Learning is something that happens all the time, all day long, and isn't segregated into chunks.

I really love homeschooling it's one of the best parts of being a parent for me. It's so neat to get to watch the lights "click" on. I'm the one who gets to see it, and see the joy on their faces when they figure something new out. I'd hate to miss that. It makes my life richer and fuller for having those experiences.

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The truth is ... everything counts. Everything. Everything we do and everything we say. Everything helps or hurts; everything adds to or takes away from someone else. ~ Countee Cullen

We are weaving character every day, and the way to weave the best character is to be kind and to be useful. Think right, act right; it is what we think and do that makes us who we are. ~ Elbert Hubbard

posted May 07, 2008 10:57 PM              

Holy poo. I didn't realize it was that much per student.

Most homeschoolers I know do it on a shoestring, and end up with a much better result. I think last year I spent, as a estimate, let's say $300, for supplies, books, etc. The rest was checked out from libraries and other freebies you can find on the internet.

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The truth is ... everything counts. Everything. Everything we do and everything we say. Everything helps or hurts; everything adds to or takes away from someone else. ~ Countee Cullen

We are weaving character every day, and the way to weave the best character is to be kind and to be useful. Think right, act right; it is what we think and do that makes us who we are. ~ Elbert Hubbard

posted May 07, 2008 11:00 PM            

******

It makes me furious, too, Jwhop. And, as my son grows older, I worry about his educational prospects. I know DOD schools are ranked among the highest compared to public schools (not surprising) but I've no clue how they compare to private schools though I'm beginning to research. Having been tested at an early age myself, I also want to have my son tested for gifted asap. At this point, if we don't end up stationed near Waldorf or equally respectable (imo) schools then homeschooling it is, no doubt. I've also found that there are quite a few military families who also homeschool and hold play groups or field trips regularly, etc. Goodness, if I could wave a wand and abolish the entire wasteful, foolish system of public education, I would. People talk about the machine taking over someday ... well, it already has. Over our children. And it's frightening. I could go on for days ...

******

posted May 07, 2008 11:48 PM              

quote:

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Goatgirl, I've got some of these books on my wish list and am thinking of getting them sooner than later. What system (if any) do you use for homeschooling? Also, how difficult is it to keep up with educational "requirements" as a homeschooling parent? Very interested in your store of knowledge. I know you're super busy but if you ever have the time to share, please post or email me. I'm an eager little sponge.

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One of the best things I ever stumbled upon was this site:
http://www.vhomeschool.net/mambo/

It's $20/year, and worth 100 times that at least in my mind. These people both have Phd's in education, and they homeschool their 8 children. They are from Iowa as well. They went around and found all the old primers, readers, etc. from the early 20th century and late 19th century, scanned them in, and you can download them in a PDF format.

Here's another fun site:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/

Again for membership it's $20/year. Wonderful printables, and other fun crafts.

I'm one of those "unschoolers" or "eclectic" homeschoolers. I haven't picked out a curriculum, as I didn't want to have school at home, I wanted learning at home. I know some people do just move the school into home, though that's not been my focus.

I kinda fell into homeschooling really. A friend recommended these books to me when our daughter was a baby, and they just spoke to me deeply about learning and what that should mean:

The Gentle Revolution

The Gentle Revolution began quietly more than a half century ago. It was, and is, the most gentle of all revolutions.

Consider the objective of The Gentle Revolution: to give all parents the knowledge required to make highly intelligent, extremely capable, and delightful children, and, by so doing, to make a highly humane, sane and decent world.

The Gentle Revolution proposes that tiny children have within them the capacity to learn virtually anything while they are tiny. It proposes that what children learn without any conscious effort at two, three or four years of age can only be learned with great effort, or may not be learned at all, in later life.

By 1964 How to Teach Your Baby to Read was first published. Parents all over the world read the book and the Gentle Revolution began. More than two million parents have read How to Teach Your Baby to Read in hardback in English. Scores of mothers wrote almost immediately to tell of their joy in reading the book and their success in teaching their children.

More than four decades have passed since then. It is now very clear that the children who are truly bright, knowledgeable, capable, and confident are the nicest and kindest children.

They are full of the characteristics for which we love children.

The Gentle Revolution aims to give every child alive, through his parents, his or her chance to be excellent.

As parents consider homeschooling or "unschooling" for their children, they seek proven resources for information and teaching materials.

For forty years, The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential has been teaching parents how to create a joyful learning environment at home.

The Institutes programs are designed for all ages, from newborns to school-age children. Parents who begin to teach their children at home often find that homeschooling is the natural next step in their child's education.

Thousands of parents have found these programs to be useful guides when designing and implementing a homeschooling curriculum for their children. The programs are designed to provide parents with the ability to teach anything and everything. This includes reading, mathematics, science, art, vocabulary, gymnastics, music, history, geography, ballet, writing, and much, much more.

As mother or father gain experience, they realize that they are becoming excellent teachers who can guide their child to intellectually, physically, and socially toward excellence.

Parents who wish to homeschool their children are encouraged to attend The How To Multiply Your Baby's Intelligence Course. This course explains clearly how children learn and how to create a stimulating and enjoyable home program that expands and evolves as the abilities of the child are enhanced. Parents are also encouraged to read How To Multiply Your Baby's Intelligence and other titles in The Gentle Revolution Series.

After graduating from the course, homeschooling parents benefit immensely from becoming members of the Alumni Association through which they can obtain sophisticated teaching materials and personal guidance from the staff of The Institutes.
http://www.iahp.org/

~~~~~~~~
As far as keeping up with educational requirements, right now, we are learning these subjects: math, history, geography, spelling, reading/language, literature, science, art, music, and foreign language. In Iowa you only have to teach a portion of these up until about 6th grade.

I don't know how it is when you are overseas, but surely there would be someone you could speak with, whether it be a fellow family, or there might be someone on the base who could help. There are different requirements for each state, so I don't know how that would affect your family.
http://www.hslda.org/laws/default.asp
http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/Issues/H/Home_School_Enlistment.asp

There's a couple of PDf files on the last link that talk about requirements it seems.

I hope this will give you a place to start. If you have any other questions, please let me know, and I'd be happy to help if I can.

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The truth is ... everything counts. Everything. Everything we do and everything we say. Everything helps or hurts; everything adds to or takes away from someone else. ~ Countee Cullen

We are weaving character every day, and the way to weave the best character is to be kind and to be useful. Think right, act right; it is what we think and do that makes us who we are. ~ Elbert Hubbard

posted May 08, 2008 12:31 AM              

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The truth is ... everything counts. Everything. Everything we do and everything we say. Everything helps or hurts; everything adds to or takes away from someone else. ~ Countee Cullen

We are weaving character every day, and the way to weave the best character is to be kind and to be useful. Think right, act right; it is what we think and do that makes us who we are. ~ Elbert Hubbard

posted May 08, 2008 09:04 AM              

quote:

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No private sector enterprise could possibly tolerate such utter incompetence as that displayed by the various public school systems...

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yes yes yes

oh how comforting to hear like-minded people!

I'm sure there are good intentioned, caring teachers out there, but the evils of the system they're forced to operate under neutralizes so much well meaning effort. And that makes me even angrier.
I've watched the trials and tribulations endured in the public school system by my nephew and my husband's children. I'm angry and disgusted and disheartened. I don't suppose I need to go into details ...

I have a friend whose teenage son attends a very expensive private Catholic school, which she adores. The academic level is admittedly higher and there's a sense of discipline and respect there I don't generally see in public schools (he says cute things like "yes ma'am" ). My husband feels this is a worthy alternative but ... I don't know. I'm looking for something even more than that.

If there was a waldorf school nearby, I'd seriously consider it. Unfortunately, the two closest are each an hour away. I don't think I can leave my son's education to a system with which I find myself in such deep conflict. I just can't do it. So homeschooling it is.

posted May 08, 2008 09:08 AM              

quote:

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Also, we felt that learning should be something that you just do ...Learning is something that happens all the time, all day long, and isn't segregated into chunks.

One of the nicest things about homeschooling, is that we can spend as much time on a particular subject/idea if they need extra help, or if they are really interested in something. It's not like I only have 3 weeks per topic, and then we have to move on. Many of the subjects/interests eventually mesh together. And another thing is we can study things when they are first interested in it, and excited about it, and I don't have to say "sorry you can't learn about x until 5th grade." You can strike while the iron is hot.

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Now that's what I want

quote:

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I know some people do just move the school into home, though that's not been my focus.

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and this is what I'm afraid I'll succomb to. I've only started to wander about homeschooling websites, but I'm finding a lot of this. I'm looking for an entirely different approach.

Thank you for the info and links and inspiration, GG. You're really something else, did you know that?

quote:

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People talk about the machine taking over someday ... well, it already has. Over our children. And it's frightening. I could go on for days ...

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yes. there it is. right there.