When I was a college student, I took a course “on education” though I cannot remember its exact title. I know what you are thinking, “Aren’t all courses in college 'on education?" Or, you might be thinking, “Not unusual, probably a philosophy course, maybe specifically one on epistemology or a psychology course, maybe one devoted to the mechanisms of cognition or human development. Those seem to be reasonable conjectures because theories, philosophies, and psychologies of knowledge and knowing seem germane to ‘education.’” But no, what you are thinking is wrong. It was a course essentially on methodology and laws (or regulations). It included a list of dos and don’ts in the classroom, suggestions for effectiveness, and, if memory serves me, it also included some of the legislative bases for public education in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I remember being somewhat bored by the very person who presented the information without demonstrating the principles he espoused.
With regard to those “legislative bases,” I can note that teachers in Pennsylvania’s public schools stood “in loco parentis,” that is, “in place of the parent(s).” Teachers served as surrogates. Those were the days when paddling was still an acceptable disciplinary action and unruly students had to stay after school in detention hall. Those were also the days before teachers’ unions and the turmoil of the 1970s during which college students, for example, raided and occupied administrators’ offices and lawyers had proliferated to a ratio in which one out of every three people in America was a litigator (my exaggeration).
Over the past five decades, the term in loco parentis has swung on the pendulum of popularism. It has gone from well nigh total acceptance to well nigh total rejection to simultaneous acceptance (in some matters) and rejection (in other matters). The current status of the term reveals an ambivalence in the minds of many (actual) parents and guardians.
Two thoughts occur to me with regard to that course and the nature of teacher education: 1) Education majors were never required to take a course in epistemology and 2) The society assumed that teachers were paragons of virtue and diligence whose first motivation was instilling knowledge in the context of an ethical upbringing of youth. In fact, as I realize from experience, teachers were and still are like other human beings, and “in the old days” there were teachers who were very much like protected tenured teachers today, that is, imbued with the same virtues and shortcomings common to humanity. You can fill in the blanks here and fault me for generalities.
Public education changed since I took that course just as the society itself has changed. One reason for the change has been the rise in new technologies, so that, for example, specialists in numerical control machines now replace the previous generation of “shop teachers”; children see virtual science experiments with chemicals lest something explosive happens in the lab and view virtual dissections lest some frog experience an unjust demise; and the rise of globalism has resulted in a diminution of the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian traditions—at least so in the USA. And as education moved away from rote learning and toward what I might term “free expressionism,” the legal ramifications of school discipline and the status of teachers as those who stood in the place of the parents also changed. I assume that a paddle taken into a school today would be seen as a weapon of ass destruction and that a teacher who even reasonably scolds a student would be subjected to discipline, including suspension and even dismissal.
Also, it is not unusual today for a disciplined child’s parents to show up at the principal’s office with accusations and legal threats presented under the logic that a teacher is not, in fact, the parent. That’s been a growing trend for about five decades now. So, with regard to teachers standing in loco parentis as they stood in the 1920s. 30s, 40s, 50s, and early 60s, well, that era seems to be over. That is, over until recently. It seems that now there is a push for teachers to act as parents with regard to “gender” education, a push that is receiving in many places a counter-push by parents who do not want their young to be subject to “sex education” in grades kindergarten through third grade. That counter-push centers on teachers telling children about having the “body parts” associated with one sex isn’t a significant gender identifier as a New Jersey directive for 2022-2023 school year demands. So, from moving away from in loco parentis the legislature of at least one state has moved back to in loco parentis, at least as far as sex education goes. Ah! The pendulum swings, and now parents are objecting to the schools taking over their role in this one regard.
“What time is it, reader? Well, it’s anecdote time.” Here’s a tale that might put all the foregoing in another perspective. In the state university where I taught, a new administration in the 1990s instituted “character education” as part of the college curriculum, requiring, of course, a Director of Character Education. I remember a senior telling me that he was sitting in class when his professor introduced the new director. When the new director began to talk, the senior told me that he objected. “Look,” he said to the director, “I came here for an education in a particular field and an enhancement of my knowledge so that I can find gainful employment. I already have a religion and parents who instructed me on ‘character’; I don’t need you to come in here and tell me, a person over 21 what I should be doing to ‘develop my character.’” In the context of that story, recognize that the school already had a “code of conduct” and a “code of honor” that were at least a century old. The school’s founders recognized a need for honesty and integrity, so they had adopted those codes. And since human nature has not changed over the course of millennia, what they instituted was, in fact, a response to the potential for unethical conduct and uncivilized, or uncivil, behavior. What, pray tell, could a director of character education do that would influence young adults? Adopt the students; take them into the home; and begin from scratch, from tabula rasa?
It seems that the push for gender education as defined by teachers’ unions and school boards is similar to that “character education” which the college imposed on the students so that the administration would look good nationally at a time when such programs were being introduced. In 2022, gender education is a cause célèbre. After years of trying to dissociate themselves from the principle of in loco parentis, legislatures, school districts, and teachers’ unions have reverted to the principle of in loco parentis. Can you watch a pendulum swing?
Short version: Public education has long been a mess, and it’s getting messier. The role of teacher as a surrogate parent morphed as unions and education departments decided to standardize character, character development, and testing. And, now they’re back! Those surrogates in the schools—but only with regard to sex (sorry, “gender”).
Nothing I have written here gives the complete picture, of course. But some truisms are unavoidable. Namely, with so many education bureaucrats from the federal to state to local level, a rise in conflict between parental rights and bureaucratic regulations seems inevitable. Special interest groups who are either education administrators or influencers, but who do not serve in the classroom, will foist onto school districts whatever trend they latch onto in the name of progress, which is, in fact, not progress, but fashion.
And because in almost every instance of bureaucracy, administrations tend to balloon. Take that character education program I mentioned above. It required a director. That meant another management person in the administration. Every director does whatever she or he can to maintain the program; every director needs a secretary, maybe an assistant, and a faculty devoted to the program. Thus, gender studies will necessitate a burgeoning management staff to write new directives, evaluate results, and keep up the appearance of productivity to justify the initial and subsequent ballooning staff. I can envision gender specialists within gender studies and topics proliferating till they crowd out those traditional staples of education: writing, reading, and arithmetic.
One final anecdote relevant to that last point: When a president of my university retired and the new president took over in the 1990s, the administration had ten managers. By the early 2000s, the subsequent administration had 110 managers, one of them being, of course, the Director of Character Development. And since many institutions operate with the help of tax dollars, there’s little accountability as productivity is immeasurable. How does one measure character education? By the number of graduates who don't go to jail? By the number of graduates who become nuns to serve the poor in India? More and more managers will make more and more regulations that will make them the surrogates who stand in loco parentis.
With regard to those “legislative bases,” I can note that teachers in Pennsylvania’s public schools stood “in loco parentis,” that is, “in place of the parent(s).” Teachers served as surrogates. Those were the days when paddling was still an acceptable disciplinary action and unruly students had to stay after school in detention hall. Those were also the days before teachers’ unions and the turmoil of the 1970s during which college students, for example, raided and occupied administrators’ offices and lawyers had proliferated to a ratio in which one out of every three people in America was a litigator (my exaggeration).
Over the past five decades, the term in loco parentis has swung on the pendulum of popularism. It has gone from well nigh total acceptance to well nigh total rejection to simultaneous acceptance (in some matters) and rejection (in other matters). The current status of the term reveals an ambivalence in the minds of many (actual) parents and guardians.
Two thoughts occur to me with regard to that course and the nature of teacher education: 1) Education majors were never required to take a course in epistemology and 2) The society assumed that teachers were paragons of virtue and diligence whose first motivation was instilling knowledge in the context of an ethical upbringing of youth. In fact, as I realize from experience, teachers were and still are like other human beings, and “in the old days” there were teachers who were very much like protected tenured teachers today, that is, imbued with the same virtues and shortcomings common to humanity. You can fill in the blanks here and fault me for generalities.
Public education changed since I took that course just as the society itself has changed. One reason for the change has been the rise in new technologies, so that, for example, specialists in numerical control machines now replace the previous generation of “shop teachers”; children see virtual science experiments with chemicals lest something explosive happens in the lab and view virtual dissections lest some frog experience an unjust demise; and the rise of globalism has resulted in a diminution of the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian traditions—at least so in the USA. And as education moved away from rote learning and toward what I might term “free expressionism,” the legal ramifications of school discipline and the status of teachers as those who stood in the place of the parents also changed. I assume that a paddle taken into a school today would be seen as a weapon of ass destruction and that a teacher who even reasonably scolds a student would be subjected to discipline, including suspension and even dismissal.
Also, it is not unusual today for a disciplined child’s parents to show up at the principal’s office with accusations and legal threats presented under the logic that a teacher is not, in fact, the parent. That’s been a growing trend for about five decades now. So, with regard to teachers standing in loco parentis as they stood in the 1920s. 30s, 40s, 50s, and early 60s, well, that era seems to be over. That is, over until recently. It seems that now there is a push for teachers to act as parents with regard to “gender” education, a push that is receiving in many places a counter-push by parents who do not want their young to be subject to “sex education” in grades kindergarten through third grade. That counter-push centers on teachers telling children about having the “body parts” associated with one sex isn’t a significant gender identifier as a New Jersey directive for 2022-2023 school year demands. So, from moving away from in loco parentis the legislature of at least one state has moved back to in loco parentis, at least as far as sex education goes. Ah! The pendulum swings, and now parents are objecting to the schools taking over their role in this one regard.
“What time is it, reader? Well, it’s anecdote time.” Here’s a tale that might put all the foregoing in another perspective. In the state university where I taught, a new administration in the 1990s instituted “character education” as part of the college curriculum, requiring, of course, a Director of Character Education. I remember a senior telling me that he was sitting in class when his professor introduced the new director. When the new director began to talk, the senior told me that he objected. “Look,” he said to the director, “I came here for an education in a particular field and an enhancement of my knowledge so that I can find gainful employment. I already have a religion and parents who instructed me on ‘character’; I don’t need you to come in here and tell me, a person over 21 what I should be doing to ‘develop my character.’” In the context of that story, recognize that the school already had a “code of conduct” and a “code of honor” that were at least a century old. The school’s founders recognized a need for honesty and integrity, so they had adopted those codes. And since human nature has not changed over the course of millennia, what they instituted was, in fact, a response to the potential for unethical conduct and uncivilized, or uncivil, behavior. What, pray tell, could a director of character education do that would influence young adults? Adopt the students; take them into the home; and begin from scratch, from tabula rasa?
It seems that the push for gender education as defined by teachers’ unions and school boards is similar to that “character education” which the college imposed on the students so that the administration would look good nationally at a time when such programs were being introduced. In 2022, gender education is a cause célèbre. After years of trying to dissociate themselves from the principle of in loco parentis, legislatures, school districts, and teachers’ unions have reverted to the principle of in loco parentis. Can you watch a pendulum swing?
Short version: Public education has long been a mess, and it’s getting messier. The role of teacher as a surrogate parent morphed as unions and education departments decided to standardize character, character development, and testing. And, now they’re back! Those surrogates in the schools—but only with regard to sex (sorry, “gender”).
Nothing I have written here gives the complete picture, of course. But some truisms are unavoidable. Namely, with so many education bureaucrats from the federal to state to local level, a rise in conflict between parental rights and bureaucratic regulations seems inevitable. Special interest groups who are either education administrators or influencers, but who do not serve in the classroom, will foist onto school districts whatever trend they latch onto in the name of progress, which is, in fact, not progress, but fashion.
And because in almost every instance of bureaucracy, administrations tend to balloon. Take that character education program I mentioned above. It required a director. That meant another management person in the administration. Every director does whatever she or he can to maintain the program; every director needs a secretary, maybe an assistant, and a faculty devoted to the program. Thus, gender studies will necessitate a burgeoning management staff to write new directives, evaluate results, and keep up the appearance of productivity to justify the initial and subsequent ballooning staff. I can envision gender specialists within gender studies and topics proliferating till they crowd out those traditional staples of education: writing, reading, and arithmetic.
One final anecdote relevant to that last point: When a president of my university retired and the new president took over in the 1990s, the administration had ten managers. By the early 2000s, the subsequent administration had 110 managers, one of them being, of course, the Director of Character Development. And since many institutions operate with the help of tax dollars, there’s little accountability as productivity is immeasurable. How does one measure character education? By the number of graduates who don't go to jail? By the number of graduates who become nuns to serve the poor in India? More and more managers will make more and more regulations that will make them the surrogates who stand in loco parentis.
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