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Rigorous

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I appreciate being quoted in articles like these, so let me pay respects to Mr. Brewster by quoting him . . . "humans naturally default to the substandard."

It is true the American educational philosophy is waining. Every year the signposts signal the deterioration of the classroom. It's illegal to teach subjects and opinions that the government intolerantly labels "intolerant." Humanism, with its psyche-loving mentality, is preached from every lectern. Point-keeping competition sports are tabooed. Kindergartners are told to limit their Lego-houses so no one's structure is better than anyone else's. And when it's all said and done all we want is for "no one to be left behind" (which has less to do with George Bush than the people who misunderstood his intent). We've made a warm, nurturing environment of acceptance and "winners" our end-goal at the expense of creating true winners.

As long as we don't emphasize skill, over-achievement, and perfection through rigorous lessons and drilling we'll never see it. Even when the system encourages "advanced" students in "special" classes the question has to be screamed out "advanced compared to what?" The advanced students of today are mere shadows of the ordinary students of yesterday.

Mr. Brewster was right again when he asked "what kind of soldier would the military create if their goal was to nurture?" Take notice of the venues in America where we dominate (or at least keep up with) the international scene; 1. Business: a cut-throat, dog-eat-dog world of destroy or be destroyed. 2. Sports: a hard hitting, high expectation arena of performance. 3. The Military: a highly refined, well-oiled machine of war. 4. The Big Screen: a blood, sweat, and tears hierarchy of talented artists. 5. Politics: (though not a positive example) a system which has become more about smearing the competition and breaking more laws than they actually write than values and beliefs. In all these areas we break-even or far out perform any other country in the world. Why? Rigorous demands.

Now compare our schools to the other systems of the world. Are you afraid yet?

Learn more about this author, Kevin Olsen.
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