Reforming Our Educational System

August 28,2000.
Reforming Our Educational System
By T.S.Khanna

The quality of education in our public schools has been a disappointment to many parents. Parents like to educate their children as well as possible and as much as possible but do not like to expose them to the growing evils of the educational institutions. A special effort is called for at this stage to remove the evil influences from our schools, and provide high quality education.

Removing or disbanding of teen age gangs and enforcement of discipline in the public schools should be the first priority. Now children seem to respect the gang members, not the teachers. With too many rules and rights coming into play, the school principles and teachers first lost their power and now their interest to discipline the children. In fact, the faculty staff is afraid of school gangs, although they would not admit it openly. Respect for the teachers should be restored and the growing power of gangs must be rooted out. At the same time, at the family level, parents’ authority to discipline children must be restored. Over the years, the parental authority has been nibbled away in the name of protection from “parental abuse”. Now our schools and parents have the responsibility to raise children properly but without commensurate authority.

It does not speak well of us as a civilized society if we cannot bust the school gangs and the parents and teachers do not have the authority to discipline the children. It takes four to five generations to build a culture for a civilized society and only one generation to destroy it.

The educational curriculum should be revised to reflect our ideals of human character and our expectations from children as they grow up. In the past, our focus has been on utility education, ignoring the value of character education and ornamental education, i.e., education in proper behavior for a decent, civilized society.

Familiarity and practice of proper etiquette, social graces, and good manners in everyday dealings can have a significant positive impact on one’s personality. These qualities should embody the finest human thoughts to serve as efficient social lubricants. Proper etiquette, social graces, and good manners are best learned at a very young age. Once learned at a young age, they are never forgotten; missed out at young age, they are never learned.

It seems imperative that our Kindergarten, Elementary, and Junior Schools include systematic courses on proper etiquette, social graces, and proper behavior in the adopted curriculum for education. The effect of such courses, eventually, should become noticeable at the High School level to the benefit of the students, teachers, parents, and the society at large.

One of the main functions of education should be to transform the human mind into humane mind. Leaving, at a very young age, an abiding imprint on the mental outlook of those seeking education can best perform this function. In the past, this function was the responsibility of the parents and the religious institutions. Modern times have eroded the influence of both these sources.

The modern economy and the changing attitudes have erased the financial and traditional boundaries that used to set apart the wealthy few as the elite social class of high taste. Now no class is set apart in distinction to be emulated in etiquette, social graces, good manners, or even in fashions. What was once considered the gracious living of the wealthy few, now must become the heritage of all citizens in the USA. This heritage can be passed on to the younger generations only through our educational system.