Our Little Angels

About ten years ago I was sitting on the couch at a family gathering. Suddenly, out of nowhere, my six-year-old nephew clapped his hands over my ears as hard as he could. The pain was excruciating, and the effect on my hearing was immediate: everything sounded muddy and indistinct. I thought he'd popped my eardrum. It took months for my hearing to return to normal.

As appalling as it might be that a young child would assault someone for utterly no reason, his mother's reaction was even more appalling: My little angel wouldn't do that!

But why would I lie about this? I asked her. How could I even think to make up such a lie?

Well, she admitted, the boy had been taking karate lessons, and they had just showed him how to box someone's ears. So, she grudgingly admitted, he might have done it. (How anyone could possibly think it was appropriate to teach a child how to permanently damage someone's hearing is still beyond me...)

And this isn't an isolated incident. My own sister was convinced that an adult was lying about her five-year-old's spitting at another child on the bus. This kid was completely out of control at home, so it's unclear why my sister would have a hard time believing he was out of control with a dozen other rambunctious kids.

Old fogey time: when I was a kid, my parents would never take my word against an adult's. It was a given that kids lied to avoid punishment. Why is it that so many parents these days can't believe that their kids act like, well, kids?

A few years ago our neighbors would drive their kids down our one-block street and park on the corner with the engine running to wait for the bus. I wouldn't have cared, except they blocked the intersection and made it difficult to pull out into traffic. When I was a kid I walked to school rain or shine, snow or sleet, in blustering cold or blistering heat.

Stories of parents doing their kids' homework projects these days are rampant. And it continues on to the college level. I recently heard a news story about how several colleges have had to ban parents attending college orientation sessions. I've heard other stories about parents showing up at their kids' post-college job interviews. When I was in college my parents -- and the parents of everyone else I knew -- had no idea what we did at college.

So, what does this have to do with anything? One of Markadelphia's favorite topics is education reform. So here's my take on it.

Everyone these days is bemoaning how bad the education system is. The president and every Republican out there is talking about firing teachers who don't perform. Others blame parents for not being involved enough. Still others complain that class sizes are too large, while others clamor for school vouchers and charter schools. But the one factor no one ever dares mention? The one that undeniably has the largest impact on the educational performance of our little angels? The little darlings themselves.

If we ran schools like a business we wouldn't be talking about just firing the teachers whose students do poorly on tests. We'd fire the kids who are doing poorly. And that's exactly what private schools do, and it's one reason why their test results are so much better than those of public schools. They can choose their students and dump the rejects back into the public system.

How many kids do you think there are in math classes in India and China and Singapore? How many hours a week do you think those kids' parents work? How many of those parents drive their kids to school every day? How many of those kids go to bed hungry? A lot of those kids have jobs and actually have to work. On the whole, our kids are richer, healthier and better fed. We spend far more on them per capita than third-world countries spend on their kids. We enjoy all the advantages, and yet kids in third-world countries are beating the pants off us academically. Why?

I think the biggest reason is that our kids just aren't motivated. Some teachers may well be boring. Some may be just plain bad. But that's how life is. When they get out of school they're going to stuck in boring jobs. They're going to work for terrible bosses. But they're going to have to suck it up and keep on working. Mommy isn't going to be there for them every day in the real world.

Now look at it from the kids' point of view. All they hear is us talking about is firing their teachers if they get bad test scores. What's the take-away message? I can get back at my teacher by flunking this sucky standardized test.

This situation has existed for many years now, so it's not the result of the lousy economy. There are many reasons: smaller families, richer families, more leisure time, lower general expectations for children, a system that's eager to label every quirk of personality as some syndrome that requires special treatment or drugs. In many ways America has become fat, dumb and lazy.

Of course we have to hold teachers, administrators and parents accountable for making sure our kids get the education and support they need. We have to fire bad teachers and get parents involved. But coddling kids with overweaning concern for their fragile little egos is not doing them any favors. We cannot continue to throw billions and billions of dollars down the rat-hole of education and demand Herculean effort and sacrifice from everyone except the little angels themselves.

We have to instill real self-confidence, self-reliance and inner drive in children by making them the masters of their own fates. That only comes when you stand or fall on your own. American parents need to take the training wheels off and give their kids a good hard shove down the road of life.