Why is it wrong for a kid to cheat on a test?

This post by Justin McBrayer got me thinking about the moral status of children. The author criticizes the common practice of teaching students that opinions are unprovable “beliefs” while facts are provably “true”—thus, in effect, teaching them that there can be no moral truths. As a result, the author contends, students think a statement such as “It is wrong to cheat on a test” is merely an opinion, and cannot be “true.”

I agree with McBrayer at least to this extent: Whether there are “moral facts” is a philosophical question, open to debate, which means the school should not be teaching any view of it as a settled fact. Under the school’s own definition, the assertion that “value claims cannot be true” is itself an unprovable opinion, a “mere” belief. From the piece, though, it sounds like the author believes that the opposite “fact” should be taught as true. Either one looks like indoctrination to me.

The more interesting question, for me, is why we think it’s wrong for a kid to cheat on a test in school. I’m not saying it isn’t wrong, but I do think it matters how we get to that conclusion. It can’t be simply because the school prohibits it, right? Certainly the school can’t be the final arbiter of what is morally right and wrong. If it were, then the worst practices would become morally right just because a school requires them. (Was it morally wrong for a black child to try to attend a whites-only school?) So how should a child reach the conclusion that cheating is wrong?

Is the district about to cut elementary orchestra and band?

Word has it that our school district’s administration is planning to propose cuts in elementary school band and orchestra programs—possibly eliminating them entirely, which would mean that kids wouldn’t start instruments until junior high. Some band or orchestra teachers were told that if they had other job offers, they should take them. Building administrators were reportedly told not to talk about the possible cuts. The issue may appear on the agenda of the April 8 school board meeting.

There are different theories about what would be prompting any cuts. Some think it’s because the legislature is (as usual) dawdling about setting the allowable growth rate. But as I understand it (and I almost certainly don’t), the allowable growth rate for next academic year has already been set—it’s the rate for fiscal year 2016 that’s still unresolved—so it’s not clear how that would drive any cuts in next year’s staffing. Others I spoke to thought it was because of the district’s $3.6 million budget shortfall. Others suggested that the district was concerned about kids being pulled out of class for their instrument lessons (oh, the instructional minutes!), or about the buildings being too crowded to have adequate space for the lessons.

My first thought was that this sounds like the Washington Monument syndrome—that any proposal would be a ploy either (1) to get people to make a stink to their legislators about allowable growth or (2) to get grudging acceptance of some other cut that the administration is actually after. Yet budget and allowable growth dramas are a regular occurrence, and this is the first time I’ve heard any talk of cuts like these. I’ve emailed the superintendent to ask about the issue.

For what it’s worth, I consider my kids’ orchestra lessons to have been one of the most valuable parts of their elementary school experience—and certainly a far better use of their time than the behavior assemblies and the countless hours of standardized testing. And will the district really cut orchestra and band while using class time for things like the “employability” training described here?
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“He will be a good employee for the job”

Iowa City parent Scott Samuelson has a great opinion piece in today’s Wall Street Journal on the real value of teaching the humanities. He cites research showing that undergraduate humanities majors earn more than those who major in professional or pre-professional fields, but argues:

Thinking of the value of the humanities predominately in terms of earnings and employment is to miss the point. America should strive to be a society of free people deeply engaged in “the pursuit of happiness,” not simply one of decently compensated and well-behaved employees.

Scott’s book, “The Deepest Human Life: An Introduction to Philosophy for Everyone,” comes out next week.

Meanwhile, our school district’s “Guidance” program had fourth- and sixth-graders learning job interview skills this week. In some classes, the kids played the parts of employer and job applicant and then evaluated the applicant’s interview skills. Was the applicant “clean, neat and well-groomed”? Did he have “Hands relaxed (not clenched)”? Did he “honor the end of the interview”? The interviewers then wrote overall comments, such as “He seems like a good employee.” Here’s an example:

(Click to enlarge.)

The Iowa Core, after all, has twenty-five pages of mandatory standards devoted to “employability skills.” See if you can find the Iowa Core sections devoted to philosophy or the arts.
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Choices

Imagine two approaches to teaching ethical reasoning to elementary schoolers (or to anyone, for that matter):

In the first, teachers would pose questions to the students about ethical quandaries. The teacher would solicit opinions from the students, and in response, would ask further questions. At first, the hypotheticals might be relatively easy: for example, the students might be asked how they would respond to a friend who pressures them to shoplift. But, as the discussion progressed, the questions could become progressively more challenging: What if a teacher asks you to reveal something that a friend told you in confidence? How much money would you give or lend to a friend who needs it more than you do? Throughout the discussion, the teacher would refrain from dictating any “right answers” to the questions (which are, after all, questions of opinion). Instead, the teacher would use further questions to get the kids thinking about right and wrong and developing their own nascent codes of moral reasoning. The teacher would also point out patterns in the kids’ responses, giving the kids a vocabulary for talking about ethical choices.

In the second approach, the teachers would tell the students rules about what kind of behavior is right and what is wrong. The teachers would spend large amounts of time and effort to make the rules as clear as possible, so everyone will know them. Throughout the day, the teachers would give token rewards to students who they “catch” following the rules: a paper ticket, say, or a string bracelet. Kids would use the rewards to enter into weekly drawings to win prizes -- the more rewards you accumulate, the better your chance to win. Classrooms, too, would compete against each other to get the highest number of rewards. The use of material gain as an incentive for the kids to obey the rules would be defended on the (empirically suspect) grounds that eventually the kids will internalize the “right” attitudes. The implicit message would be that the highest value is to always do as you are told, and that people in positions of authority are automatically the arbiters of ethical right and wrong.

Unfortunately, you don’t need to imagine the second approach; it is the reality in Iowa City public schools (and in many other places as well). I doubt that the people administering PBIS, and all the similar authoritarian behavioral programs (examples here and here), think of themselves as teaching ethical reasoning -- and granted, what they’re doing is barely worthy of that label. But there’s no question that those programs are teaching kids lessons about their ethical obligations -- about what it means to be “good” -- and those lessons are: always do what others expect of you, always obey whatever rules you are given, let the people in authority tell you what to think. When, exactly, did our community choose that approach?
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The saddest song

This was choral concert week at our elementary school. I admit that I’m not the biggest fan of these school concerts; the desire to make large groups of children sing in unison just seems a little creepy to me. Making matters worse, the songs often seem to have a propagandizing or indoctrinating purpose. I still get a kick out of my kindergartner’s performance of “I Love to Eat My Veggies” last year. (“I was just moving my lips,” she told me afterward.)

This year, mixed in with songs about penguins and pizza, we heard renditions of “Brush Brush Brush Your Teeth,” “Wash Your Hands with Water and Soap,” and “Drug-Free Me.” (One woman said, “What about all the kids on Ritalin?”)

But even I was unprepared for one of this year’s fifth- and sixth-grade songs, “Why Music?” The song started with some relatively innocuous verses:

Do you know what music brings to us
As we learn, as we go?

Do you know that music plays a part
In the way we can grow?

Do you know why?
Do you know why?
Why music?

Then, one by one, students came up to the microphone to speak these lines:

Everyone knows that music is part of a well-rounded education.

But did you know that music can improve our learning?

Music can help us make better grades.

You know what’s coming, don’t you?

It can also help us perform better on standardized tests.

Music training enhances brain function.

Music is a core academic subject, just like math and reading.

Music students are more likely to achieve academic honors and awards.

Music students are more likely to achieve higher math and verbal SAT scores.

Another chorus, then:

Music education can help us integrate learning across the curriculum.

It can help us learn to pay attention, persevere, and solve problems.

Music may contribute to a more positive self-concept.

It can help us improve our social skills and teamwork.

It can help us express our feelings in a creative way.

Schools with music programs have higher graduation and attendance rates.

Music students are more likely to plan to attend college.

According to a Congressional resolution, music should be available to every student in every school.

Search the lyrics in vain for any indication that music might be meaningful, fulfilling, moving, beautiful, or fun. We make music because it raises our test scores and gets us awards. Baby Einstein lives!

I have to believe that the music teacher doesn’t actually think that this is why the kids should learn about music. I assume that music funding is so beleaguered that she feels compelled to put these words in the kids’ mouths in hopes of making her case in the only way our educational policymakers might hear it -- which only makes the song even sadder.

Another parent was so bothered by the song that he blogged his own response, with good suggestions for better ways to choose concert songs. (One of his tips: “Just don’t pick songs that nobody in the history of the world, including now, has ever loved!”)

You can listen to an excerpt from the song here. Just click on “Play MP3” -- it doesn’t cost anything, except a little part of your soul.
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The business of America

Martha Nussbaum:

Eager for economic growth, our nation, like many others, has begun to think of education in narrowly instrumental terms, as a set of useful skills that can generate short-term profit for industry. What is getting lost in the competitive flurry is the future of democracy.

As Socrates knew long ago, any democracy is a “noble but sluggish horse.” It needs lively watchful thought to keep it awake. This means that citizens need to cultivate the skill for which Socrates lost his life: the ability to criticize tradition and authority, to keep examining self and other, to accept no speech or proposal until one has tested it with one’s very own reasoning. By now psychological research confirms Socrates’ diagnosis: people have an alarming capacity to defer to authority and to peer pressure. Democracy can’t survive if we don’t limit these baneful tendencies, cultivating habits of inquisitive and critical thought. . . .

And yet, all over the world, the humanities, the arts, and even history are being cut away to make room for profit-making skills.

The White House last week:

Today, President Obama announced the launch of Change the Equation, a CEO-led effort to dramatically improve education in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), as part of his “Educate to Innovate” campaign. . . . In his remarks to day, the President emphasized the importance of providing American students with a solid foundation in these subjects in order to compete in the global economy:

“As I discussed this morning with my Export Council, our prosperity in a 21st century global marketplace depends on our ability to compete with nations around the world.”

News reports also noted:

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology also released recommendations Thursday: Over the next decade the federal government should help recruit and train 100,000 STEM teachers, support the creation of 1,000 new STEM-focused schools, and reward the top 5 percent of STEM teachers.

I think the survival of democratic values in our country is more important, not to mention more genuinely at risk, than our competitive advantage in the global marketplace. Why is there no blue-ribbon panel trying to ensure that our schools serve that goal? On the other hand, I shudder to imagine the top-down “pro-democracy” curriculum -- with its own standardized tests, no doubt -- that such a panel would probably propose. (On that, more here.)
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Reading list: Not for Profit

This New Yorker review of Martha Nussbaum's Not for Profit moves it to the top of ABlogAboutSchool's reading list:

Nussbaum, a philosopher who teaches at the University of Chicago, candidly describes her latest book as a “manifesto, not an empirical study.” She is alarmed by the degree to which the humanities are being pushed aside -- at all levels of schooling and in countries around the world -- in favor of subjects more clearly linked to economic growth. We endorse values like democracy, empathy, tolerance, and free speech, Nussbaum writes, but give little thought to insuring their survival in future generations. By deëmphasizing the liberal arts, we are training students to become “useful profit-makers with obtuse imaginations” and no critical-thinking skills, as opposed to active international citizens. Nussbaum makes a persuasive case that, in the age of No Child Left Behind, “the pedagogy of rote learning rules the roost.”

..How can I comment?