Classic education narrows school curriculum

Public education often falls in love with shiny, new trends. A school administrator goes to a conference and comes home with the latest and greatest idea and is convinced every classroom should implement it immediately.

It happened so often we called it the “flavor of the month.” Trends like the Madeline Hunter method, cooperative learning, McRel, open classroom, and Individual learning, are examples. All had their day in the sun and died a slow or quick death.

There’s nothing wrong with educators attending conferences and returning with fresh ideas to try. The problem is when every teacher is force-fed ideas and told they’re mandatory.

Force-feeding ideas into a classroom rarely works. It’s like when I was in grade school and forced to eat school lunch, stewed tomatoes. My response left Mrs. Robins wearing red shoes for the rest of the day.

These canned methods concentrated on science and shortchanged the individual art, joy, and style each teacher brought to teaching.

Teachers survived “flavors of the month,” because we knew, “This too shall pass.” But these methods were at least based on some research and developed by educators.

Now, the force-feeding of curriculum is often mandated by governors and legislators believing if they attended second grade, they know how to teach it. They don’t.

Classical education is one of those shiny new ideas that popped up in Florida and was quickly made law. My guess is Iowa will see something similar when the Legislature reconvenes.

Here’s how Kerri Ingraham, director of American Center for Transforming Education describes the classical education model in Florida. “It’s a schooling model that fosters principles of moral character and civic virtue in students through studying liberal arts and sciences relying on Western civilization’s classic texts and ancient history. The idea of the new law is to counter how public schools and colleges are teaching social issues like race and gender ideology.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis told Andrew Atterbury of Politico,“ Classical education aligns with how the Founding Fathers were educated. Classical really recaptures what’s been lost in some of the political mumbo jumbo that we’ve seen infiltrate our universities and K-12 school system. But for me, it’s called classical education just because it sounds better than “Anti-woke. “

There’s nothing wrong with teaching Western ideas, but there’s nothing classical about only teaching those ideas. I’m pretty sure, unlike today, the reason it wasn’t part of the founder’s education was lack of access to other cultures.

DeSantis and Gov. Kim Reynolds harp on teachers as “groomers,” and now this so-called classical model seeks to indoctrinate students by only teaching them ideas, and culture from one part of the world.

It isn’t just a “flavor of the month.” Its malpractice made law.

Public education needs to be broad and encompassing. Students deserve to explore a diverse range of ideas and cultures. If not, we’re cheating our future.

Bruce Lear of Sioux City taught for 11 years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association Regional Director for 27 years until he retired. BruceLear2419@gmail.com