...................... The SUPERBOWL in 1922 .....................
Today's trivial trivia question.
1869 was a first for what 2 American sports?
Click here and Scoll down to "Interests" for the answer.
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How middle-class identity holds down the performance of our school, resulting in low SAT scores and poor college attendance.
From time to time exceptional individuals apply for teaching positions at Knox. Often the applicant is the spouse of a professional or manager recently transferred to this region. The applicant may have been “Teacher of the Year” in a prominent suburban school or have some other professional distinction. Personally, I lust for that sort of teacher for our students. However, it is sad but true, these teachers generally don’t get hired. If they make it past the initial hiring obstacles (difficult for any teacher with experience) they often get shot down in the final stages in staff-review. This is a committee composed of peer teachers that makes and reviews hiring recommendations for the Principals. The comment most often heard is, “They wouldn’t like it here.” or “They wouldn’t be comfortable here.”(See note below)* Of course what is really meant is “We wouldn’t be comfortable with somebody that outstanding working in the classroom next-door.”
Knox schools have an unofficial hire-local policy. That is another way of saying hire someone with the same class identity to which we now hold. A Knox High School graduate will generally be shown hiring preference. Well, OK, let’s be honest, they will have to get in line behind the families of the School Board. But in any case, newly hired teachers are generally well within the local comfort zone. The outstanding applicant from Barrington, Illinois isn’t going to compete strongly against this hire-locals attitude. Ironically, here we see middle-class bias morph into a sort of self-destructive “caste-like” behavior of a minority lower class. The Knox middle class isn’t very self-confidant, suspecting they might be “out-classed”.
By embracing insular and mediocre middle-class values, Knox High School has become very comfortable with mediocre performance: mediocre performance from the educational professionals due to lack of competition, lack of decent examples of professional excellence, weak administrative leadership, and a school board hostile to teachers: also, mediocre performance from the students given weak academic challenges, low expectations, and a lack of decent examples of academic excellence.
Parents are also discouraged from higher expectations for their children. If their child wanted to apply to a prestigious Ivy League college, neighbors and friends would accuse the family of elitism, of trying to be superior. They would be told: Indiana schools are certainly good enough, if not even better. Of course, Notre Dame’s the best. Those Eastern schools are dangerous, liberal places where your child will get all sorts of wrong ideas. It seems odd that in any dusty, destitute village in Africa, a parent would say that their ultimate dream for their child would be to go to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. Yet in Knox these places are somehow undesirable. That is the irony of Knox’s embrace of the “good enough”.
Watch for upcoming Blog on “Treating Teachers like Crap”.
*(Note) This so-called reasoning is nearly identical to the governmental board’s I described earlier in On the History of the Negro in Knox Part 5 when the board declined to interview a professional candidate because they “might” be African American.
2 comments:
Middle class values have nothing to do with it. I'm rather proud of my middle class values. I'm also proud of my son's >2000 SAT score. Now, if you want to argue that it is Knox community values, I might buy that argument. But your theory fails to explain communities such as Bremen and Nappanee, strong middle class communities, and the students from there who have gone on to places like the University of Chicago, MIT, Harvard, and that bastion of liberalism, Brown.
Middle class virtues are great. I am also quite proud of mine. Middle class communities and their values don’t cause the problem that I attempt to describe at Knox. Please reread the blog paying close attention to the part where I write, ‘Ironically, here we see middle-class bias morph into a sort of self-destructive “caste-like” behavior of a minority lower class. The Knox middle class isn’t very self-confidant, suspecting they might be “out-classed”.’ This point I attempt to make in this blog is rather unique and a bit difficult to comprehend. This is either due to my muddled thinking or to poor communication of the idea. I think the point is worth thinking about as, to the best of my knowledge; it is a completely original application of modern caste theory. I think a book could easily be written on this topic. In any case, this example of caste-like behavior easily explains the difference between Knox and Breman / Nappanee. I think that those communities show more self-confidence and less caste-like behavior.
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