- May
11
2012
Spearfish High School will have a new English teacher this fall. Eric Lappe is leaving the prairie comforts of teaching social studies in Wilmot to come teach Spearfish youth the joys of literature, research, and composition. This work is important: every student has to take English, a core subject area that is key to all the standardized tests that will be used to rate our school and our teachers. Lappe will have the opportunity to work with almost every student who goes through Spearfish High School, to directly contribute to the skills they will need to learn, to communicate, to persuade, and to appreciate and enhance the vast wealth of Western culture.
But what's the front-page story in last night's local paper?
Black Hills Pioneer screen cap, 2012.05.10
The Black Hills Pioneer staff devote four words to Lappe's new full-time assignment as an English teacher. They pour out ink discussing his additional part-time assignment as the new girls basketball coach. Interested parents learn nothing about the skills he will bring to the classroom, his particular interests in certain literary genres or periods or the application of social media to research and collaborative writing—you know, the kinds of things that will benefit a hundred-plus of our kids every day. But the press highlights the full coaching resume, right down to the fact that Lappe played for the 1992 Class B state champion Harold Cardinals and won a Mr. Basketball award for his high school hoop-shooting.
If we take the Black Hills Pioneer's ink spilled at face value, the efforts Lappe will exert for a couple hours a day during a few months of practice and games with a couple dozen physically elite girls will add far more value to the community than the far larger efforts he will make all day, every day throughout the school year for a much larger and more diverse crowd of our girls and boys.
Teaching English is a vital function of our public schools. Coaching basketball is fun but peripheral to our mission. In headlining Spearfish's latest hire's coaching duties and ignoring his teaching portfolio, the Black Hills Pioneer sends exactly the opposite message. BHP is boosting the jockocracy and marginalizing what matters to many more students and taxpayers. If reporters can take the time to research a coach's list of basketball awards, it can take the time to compile a list of a teacher's much more important list of classroom achievements.
Welcome to the show, Mr. Lappe. I look forward to hearing your kids gripe about all the heavy reading you assign and helping your kids proofread their really big research papers.
32 Responses to “Black Hills Pioneer Boosts Jockocracy, Ignores Value Added by English Teacher”
I'm a bit confused by this story. I thought state law dictated that football and basketball coaches taught social sciences. Does Spearfish have a waiver? : - J
I suspect the piece was written for the sports section of the newspaper. Each fall our local paper will do articles on the new teachers in the area schools. It isn't September yet.
Please explain this law, LK. That's the most ridiculous education law since... well, since the last most ridiculous education law (we have oodles).
Anyway, I don't live there, but just judging from population, I would say that Spearfish isn't big enough to pull itself away from the traditional small town sports first thing. Lots of people in small towns are people whose best days were playing sports for high school, and so that's what they're concerned about. But I won't say more than that, because I don't live there.
I'm really more interested in this Social Science Teachers Only law.
comment was tongue in cheek Carter
Michael, it was on the front page.
Ha. A bit of thought on my part probably would have told me that, LK.
Cory, who says high school English is more important to a community than girls basketball. Athletics teaches teamwork, discipline, and develops physical fitness. Reading and "analyzing themes" from The Scarlet Letter teaches... what exactly? Literary jargon? Vague, formulaic writing? Additionally, basketball games are public events, which the whole community can participate and take interest in. Reading books and writing essays are decidedly more private activities.
High school English classes are probably more valued by folks like you and me from the debate community, but that is only a fraction of the population. It's perfectly understandable why the majority of the readers of the Black Hills Pioneer would attach more importance to a new Girls Basketball coach than a new English teacher. You don't need to decry the rest of the community as a "jockocracy" and imply that they are somehow inferior just because they have different values than you do.
The problem with that idea, Twitchard, is that it only teaches teamwork, disciple and develops physical fitness in a select few individuals. Having been in high school (like everyone who wasn't homeschooled), I can tell you it also teaches that athletes are superior and (if Spearfish is anything like all the other schools ever) that jocks don't actually have to do anything in school, because the athletic department will pull strings to make sure the good athletes are always passing classes.
Small town athletics, especially, tend to create city-wide ideas that education is unnecessary, and that the real important thing is the ability to dribble a basketball at a mediocre level (I can almost guarantee there aren't any players in Spearfish that are beyond mediocre on a national scale).
English isn't just about reading stilted prose and high-brow poetry. It's about putting commas in the correct place, and not using "your" instead of "you're". Also, not saying things like "ain't" and "I don't got no", which is all too common in South Dakota, and makes people instantly ignore opinions.
Also, English class teaches everyone, not just a select few who are super tall and coordinated.
I do agree though, that not many people are terribly interested in a new English teacher, and that many more are interested in a new basketball coach. I don't think either one is really front page news, personally.
"Literary jargon? Vague, formulaic writing? " Those are precisely the things that good language arts programs are designed to eliminate. Such a characterization, although it may give its author some pleasures of derision and derogation, is blatantly false about what the purpose and goals of teaching English are. It does represent the mindset of belligerent illiteracy that drives the decline in reading comprehension and verbal expression that is generally dismissed in reports on the sagging achievement scores.
Dr. Newquist,
Thank you for the eloquent defense of language arts programs and the reminder of what they ought to be.
I am willing to give young Twitchard the benefit of the doubt. I remember hearing him make some cogent arguments in Lincoln Douglas debate rounds. If my memory is serves, he also wrote and delivered an excellent original oration. To paraphrase Shirley Jackson, being at liberty from high school still sits uneasily upon him.
He does, however, need to read The Scarlet Letter again. His analysis is shoddy
The Madison Daily Leader gave similar treatment to Bill Thurow's retirement, highlighting his coaching career: http://madisonet.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=20470089&BRD=1302&PAG=461&dept_id=181987&rfi=8
I think anyone who spent time around Bill Thurow is well aware his greater accomplish over his 27 year career took place in the classroom. Thurow was a dedicated and driven educator first, coach second.
Hopefully, the Black Hills Pioneer wrongly captured the side of Lappe that desires highlight.
This post shows the sad side of education. It shows that a good coach is valued over an excellent and effective teacher. Too many teaching applications say with coaching or coaching preferred.
No wonder why a recent highly qualified college graduate with a high GPA (3.97), high test scores, awards, and an extensive student teaching experience cannot get an interview in their hometown. The only flaw to their resume is no coaching. This hometown happens to hire "coaches who teach."
I think Mr. H's new coworker being on the front page of the local newspaper is wonderful, but is stirring up jealousy from teachers who don't make the front page. The paper should let other teachers, ones who don't whine, make the front page.
Oh, now Grudz, you're just trying to stir the pot with more needless ad hominem instead of dealing with the issue. My critique is all about the media and its priorities, not about jealousy.
KM, I would love to see an honest study of the extent to which South Dakota schools hire "coaches who teach" and the extent to which that misprioritization drives away good teachers and impacts student performance.
And yes, thank you, Dr. Newquist, for your clear illustration of the flaws in your neighbor Richard's thinking. Good English teaching does more good for every student and for the community than good basketball coaching. I wonder: can we go in the other direction and say that bad English teaching does more harm to more students and the community than bad basketball coaching?
Absolutely, Cory. Bad English teaching results in people who can't communicate well. Bad basketball coaching results in what? Some people who are irritated because their team hasn't won? There's no real effect other than that.
Bad teaching on any level is always going to be worse for the community than bad coaching, and good teaching will always be better for the community than good coaching.
People shouldn't discriminate against Mr. Lappe just because he's a good teacher of basketball.
I don't think anyone is discriminating against him, Grudz. It's not about him so much as it's about the entire mentality (especially in small towns) that sports are much more important than academics. People don't care that there's a new English teacher. People only care that there's a new assistant coach, which is unfortunate.
In the real world, people will celebrate and remember the victories on the basketball court rather than the time spent every day in the classroom. That does not lessen the importance of schoolwork, but it corresponds to the rest of life.
Spearfish is a pretty big town, you know, Mr. Carter. It's probably in the top dozen or so sized towns in our great state.
I think people in the big towns like Aberdeen or Sioux Falls probably focus even more on sports than the people in the moderatly big towns like Huron or Volga do, but that's just my opinion.
Regardless, I understand your point about Mr. Lappe and see what you mean.
I think that jockocracy is part of the New Age Theocracy that Mr. Sibby is always ranting about.
Mr. Sibby, while young and lithe, has never struck me as much of a "jock". I think he and Mr. H. both got (as my granddaughter tells me but I don't really follow) something called "swishies" back in their day and that has permanently affected their personality.
Side note: I thought swishies were on those shoes that the really good basketball guys who could jump wore.
Other side note: I have learned there are religions that study nature.
O.K., when Sibby can hijack a thread without even showing up, I'm convinced I've cut him too much slack. And when the only way to get Madison High School renovated is to hold those renovations hostage with plans to build a luxury gym, I'm convinced the jockocracy has more substance than that thing Robert mentioned.
And Grudz, you've obviously never visited a small town. Small towns obsess even more about sports, particularly high school sports, in part because of the absence of other local entertainment.
This is exactly why extracurricular activities should be in private clubs - removed from distracting scholarly pursuits and academic excellence -- as is the case in the top 20 nations performing education systems in the world. If the adults are unable to focus on what is important, what chance do the students have?
Carter, even supposing your claim is true, that a news article highlighting a coach somehow sends the message that children who are gifted in athletics are superior, let me tell you that it is nothing compared to the message drummed day in and day out into every single child, the message institutionalized into our public education system that children who are gifted in academics are superior—that test scores and letter grades and filling in the correct bubbles are what matter. And if you are not the sort of person who can readily learn by sitting still in a desk all day, if you’re not the sort of person who has an aptitude for analyzing the rhetorical devices employed by Nathaniel Hawthorne, if you can’t shade in the correct bubbles come test day, then somehow there is something wrong with you.
In my experiences at least, by the time High School rolled around, your/you’re and avoiding “ain’t†had already been covered, and it was Nathaniel Hawthorne time—though I’ll admit I’m not sure if that’s the way they do it in “all the other schools ever†which you apparently have knowledge of.
Dr. Newquist, if “literary jargon and vague, formulaic writing†are precisely the things that good language arts programs are designed to eliminate, then I’m afraid “good language arts†programs are not a current feature of our public education system. Take the AP English courses. The curriculum is designed exactly as I described: the course is spent in preparation for one exam, which features reading passages and multiple choice questions about either reading comprehension, or—you guessed it—literary jargon terms like “litotes†and “metonymy†and “juxtaposition†and whether you can identify their occurrences. The Lit exam is a little better—you have an essay where they give you some broad prompt, and you have to interpret how some book that you read during the course applies to the prompt…but creativity is never encouraged. Writing with any sort of voice is never encouraged. The score in large part is determined by whether you answered all parts of the prompt or not, or if you were able to analyze things in sufficiently literary (jargoned) terms. Read the model “9†essays AP sends out—what students are supposed to strive for. They are snoozefests. And these AP courses are looked upon the ideal, mind you, the courses all the top students are supposed to take.
My statement is completely accurate, a characterization of high school English classes as they are—unlike your objection, a description of what English classes ought be like in some dream world.
Cory, it's still not clear at all that "good" high school English teaching (if it exists) benefits all kids. Not everybody is cut out to be good at playing basketball--but not everybody is cut out to be good at literature, either. Literature is all well and good for those who enjoy it and are going to require that knowledge in their later lives--but beyond the basic level of literacy it takes to function in society, I'm not sure that subjecting students who do not have an aptitude for literature to Shakespeare does more good than harm.
Richard, you'll find no argument from me on the impropriety of categorizing success and personal worth on the basis of standardized tests. That doesn't mean that the pursuit of academic excellence, in whatever form it ought to properly take, is less important than athletic prowess or that the headline on Mr. Lappe's hiring ought to focus on his coaching skills and ignore his teaching skills.
As for the harm question: come on, now you're starting to sound like you are arguing for the sake of argument. Not everyone is good at basketball; not everyone is good at communicating. But we have a much greater social imperative to work at improving everyone's communication skills than to improve everyone's basketball skills.
Cory, you're not being entirely fair. Supposing we do have an imperative to improve every child's communication skills, (I'm not quite sure who is "we" and where exactly this "imperative" comes from, but I'll fly with it for now) this does not translate into an imperative to subject them to the Natty Hawthornater and instruct them in literary jargon. You're making an unwarranted jump in assuming that the supposed goals of High School English are realized in the nature of High School English as it exists, which is not the case.
I would argue that also, in addition to an imperative to improving communication skills, we have also an imperative to improve the discipline, cooperation skills, and physical health of students, which can be the supposed goals of girls basketball. "We" have lots of imperatives, and which imperatives are more important is a matter of values. It's silly to insist that a set of prebalent values which places high school basketball above high school English is a "jockocracy" or as Dr.Newquist put it "belligerent illiteracy." Especially considering how in the current system no child is forced to shoot hoops, while every child is forced to submit themselves to Shakespeare. If there's any "ocracy" going on, it's directed the other way.
In my school, everyone had to take gym class until their junior years (senior year you basically had to take nothing). The fact that the gym teacher just had us play dodge ball is irrelevant. We still had to take the class.
We never studied Hawthorne, either. I don't think I've ever read anything by Hawthorne, actually. We only read a bit of Shakespeare, too (not even Hamlet). Mostly, it was either learning to correctly apply the English language, or it was reading comprehension.
You've railed against reading comprehension before, but I'm not quite sure you grasp the concept of it. Being able to comprehend Hawthorne or Kafka isn't just so you can say you did it. When you read authors like Kafka, you find they're fairly difficult to understand. If you teach kids to comprehend Kafka and Hawthorne, they'll presumably be able to comprehend most things.
When you can read Kafka and pick out subtle points, you can read an argument and pick out subtle points. If more people learned to analyze Kafka, maybe more people would be able to contribute intelligently to our democracy.
Yeah I forgot about gym class. Maybe "no child is forced to shoot hoops" is inaccurate. Still, I doubt they're spending long hours poring over the piles of homework their gym teacher assigned them. And I doubt that every adult from the principal to the school counselor is jumping down their throats about their poor performance in P.E. class...
I'm slightly baffled by your choice of Kafka to demonstrate how English class teaches reading comprehension. "Reading comprehension" is when a child understands the meaning of a piece of text. But isn't the whole point of existentialist literature that there really is no meaning? (And then maybe something about "the self" and "struggle" and "consciousness"?) You can't teach a child to decipher the meaning of a piece of text if there's not meaning there to begin with. And that's not what teaching Kafka does. It's all about "interpretation." You read the text, you pick out something random that you decide "symbolizes" something else, pick out something else that you decide should be a metaphor, come up with some specious argument contrasting the two using a bunch of literary terms, and voila! That's your English essay. If I haven't convinced you, go ahead and browse some of the literature on Kafka. You'll find a thousand different phDs arguing that it means a thousand different things--when the whole while everybody really knows it really means none of them. It's all like some sort of twisted game.
In contrast, in almost every other field of study, academic writers have one meaning and one meaning alone. They do not make "subtle points." They avoid subtlety at all costs. Most students in their later lives will never be required to read or write anything like Shakespeare or Kafka. So the argument that analyzing literature in English class teaches reading comprehension in a useful way is pretty weak, I think.
I don't mean to be all disparaging of literature. I enjoyed my English classes myself, almost more than anything else. And for students who, that's their thing, I think it's great! Literature can be entertaining and challenging and rewarding--there's no question. Sort of like basketball!
It's not so much teaching them to be on par with what they'll come across, but to exceed it. I'm a math guy, myself, so I'll give you an example there.
When you study math, it's often a good idea to practice very hard problems. Problems you know won't be on the test because they're too hard. But if you can do those, then you can do the ones you need to do easily.
The same concept is true for reading comprehension. If you give someone a piece of text that's very difficult to interpret and analyze, and teach them how to do it, then they will be more likely to be able to accurately analyze less difficult things.
I'm not saying that English is the end-all, be-all of classes (I personally think the hard and soft sciences are more important), and I'm not saying physical education isn't important (it certainly is). It occurs to me, actually, that I haven't really said what I'm trying to get across, other than "English is good".
I firmly believe that education should not merely be "teaching for careers". That's what training is for. Certainly, students should learn how to succeed in life, but it's also education for the sake of education. Being educated improves almost everything, directly or indirectly. You might go through life without having to use much math, but by learning math you gain thousands of new skills. It's the same with English. You don't just learn obscure English rules. You learn hundreds or thousands of different odds and ends that help you out in life.
As I said earlier in this thread (days ago, now), I have no problem with people being excited about a new coach. I have no problem with basketball, or softball, or lacrosse, or amateur caribou riding. I just wish that people would be more enthused about education for children, instead of only caring about sports and not giving two licks about teaching ability.
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