A Nation of Elitists

As I was reading an article in NY Times today I was struck by the growing concern of our dire education system (by our I mean American). Apparently, even Bill Gates is appalled at our public education, especially in the math & science department, when compared to the likes of other Western European nations.

Well, I knew our public education is in a sorry ass state when the ability to speak clearly and intelligently or think critically is being viewed as elitist. How did we get to this stage? My guess would be around 2004 when Bush pointed to Kerry and labeled him an elitist. Or was it in 2000, when he pointed to Gore and called him an elitist.

When I was in high school, those qualities were the most prized. I remembered spent countless hours reading books after books trying to come up with well supported evidence for my essays. I spent days organizing and perfecting my thoughts/arguments before I wrote them down on papers for assignments. My English classes were either about parsing sentences or discussing classics such as Dickens, Austen, or Camus.

I remembered spending days learning how to break down the molecular structure of key elements (like that will come in handy in my everyday life) or trying to keep up with whatever my math teachers were trying to teach.

I didn't enjoy high school because of the rigorous curricula, but I wouldn't have traded them for anything easier. Because, in the end, I truly believe that learning is supposed to be difficult...it takes hard work and dedication to learn things that are worth knowing.

In today's education, teachers/parents/kids have this mentality that too much hard work prevents learning. They want everything to be easy for kids - no homework more play time, replace Shakespeare with Dan Brown (ARGH!!!), if it can't be googled, then let's skip the research process (what about going to the library and searching the catalogue?).

And we wonder why American kids lag behind other developed countries.

So, I say, let's bring back the 'elitist' mentality and forget about the 'average American' mumbled jumbled crap. After all, haven't we suffered enough during the eight years of Bush administration? I wouldn't mind having an elitist president for a change - at least he speaks good, understandable English (even if I had to look up some words in the dictionary).

I'd rather be viewed as a nation of elitists rather than a nation of fools.