What is the aim of education? Some U.S. educators have a pat answer:- “Training for democratic living.” When other educators fail to show proper reverence for their tenets, these pedagogues sometimes erupt—in the orthodox lingo of their set.
Such a steamy geyser blew off last week when Mrs. Elizabeth E. Malament, a Brooklyn social-studies teacher, inveighed against a recent U.S. history exam set by the State Board of Regents. Wrote Mrs. Malament: “Does [the exam] measure the significant and enduring values that we strive to develop in our pupils? Will it help teachers by directing their emphasis into the most meaningful channels?” Mrs. Malament thought not.
“There was no question … to test pupil understanding of the meaning of democracy, the struggle to achieve it, the vigilance required to keep it.” Not even in the “reading selection” had the regents seized the “wonderful opportunity to include inspirational material. . .”
“Imagine,” said Mrs. Malament, “the chagrin of the teacher who has weighted his work heavily in the direction of the growth of democracy, who has said to his pupils, ‘This above all you must know, understand, feel . . .’ “
What was Mrs. Malament really talking about—education for human beings, or propaganda for docile citizens?
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