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Last Updated: Nov 14, 2008 - 12:49:26 PM |
Recently, I’ve noticed a remarkable change of mood in the folks I encounter. A combination of short-term factors – recession, soaring gasoline and food prices, uncertain investment markets – have combined with a growing acceptance of longer-term challenges such as global climate change and the rise of Asia to produce a new attitude.
That attitude, it seems to me, is surprisingly positive. Some people seem worried, but many express a vague sense of satisfaction – as if wishing good riddance to the era of easy abundance now drawing to a close.
The other day, a friend expressed it this way: “We’ve been too wasteful for too long. It’s time we started being thrifty again.”
I’m certain she was right. Back in the 50s, when I was a kid, my father was rapidly gaining recognition as one of Virginia’s brightest lawyers. But, almost every morning, he met a neighbor – an executive with AT&T – to carpool to Richmond.
Dad’s friend had a son a few years my senior, and – except for my Sunday clothes – much of my elementary school wardrobe consisted of his hand-me-downs.
We were hardly poor. But we wasted nothing. Mom – who even today retains a remarkable grasp of finance – rigorously stretched Dad’s earnings to provide us with what we needed. The rest went into savings.
In the 1950s, there was nothing whatsoever unusual about two prominent men carpooling, or a lawyer’s son wearing hand-me-downs. So when my friend spoke of thrift, I understood that she, too, was thinking of those days.
Those happier days.
In Enon, fathers who car-pooled to work also got together on weekends to create and coach athletic programs for their sons. They built churches – with their own hands – while their wives provided hearty lunches to fortify their efforts.
They sent their kids to schools which were getting better every year. In the fifties – especially after Sputnik – America’s schools became very purposeful places, preparing my generation to compete with our adversaries in the race for space and for global influence.
Our principals and teachers expected good behavior – and they were supported by parents who understood that a belt had more functions than keeping Father’s pants up.
At Enon Elementary, they taught us well – but it wasn’t all work. We played kickball and dodgeball – games which had winners and losers – and learned sportsmanship.
We took field trips and put on plays. We had whole-school sing-alongs in the auditorium, with Mr. Craven leading us in songs that were old and corny when our parents were kids.
And when John Glenn made his three orbits of Earth, the whole student body of gathered to watch a single, flickering black-and-white TV, with Walter Cronkite explaining every step of the mission to us.
It wasn’t all work – but in the thrifty fifties, our teachers didn’t waste time, either. They started teaching the day after Labor Day, and kept on teaching until that glorious final day in June. Even the “fun” things – the field trips and sing-alongs – contained carefully-considered lessons.
I’ve been thinking of those times lately, as I put in a few final days of substitute teaching prior to starting my summer gig at the Virginia Shakespeare Festival.
In a modern high school – even a very fine one - this is video time. In a tradition already becoming established before I left the classroom, not much teaching takes place after May 1. A combination of policies – enacted by politicians who know nothing of the classroom and educational bureaucrats who’ve forgotten – have gradually reduced the effective length of the school year by about 30 days.
One culprit, the “King’s Dominion Law,” prohibits schools in central and eastern Virginia from opening before Labor Day. Now, any teacher can tell you that every day after May Day has less teaching potential than the day before. Bus this law – enacted to assure a supply of cheap labor to the tourist industry during summer – guarantees that schools don’t let out before late June.
A far greater factor is the great, bloody scam of standardized testing, which Virginia authorities insist be administered in early May.
Since SOLs are supposed to test a year’s worth of curriculum, teachers feel compelled to compress their courses into the 7 ½ months before SOLs. Once testing is completed, teachers and students are left with nothing useful to do – so the three or four weeks after SOLs have become – even in the best schools – video time.
Thus, last week, I substituted for a science teacher whose instructions included collecting textbooks from her honors students who were finished with them.
Before Memorial Day!
I can’t really blame the teacher. I blame politicians and school authorities who have – like most of us – forgotten the meaning of thrift.
Youth is a fleeting thing. Imprisoning bright young minds in classrooms for weeks – with nothing more to do than take mindless tests and watch videos – is a criminal waste of the opportunity to teach them something.
In the thrifty fifties, our teachers would have known better.
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