Well-Rounded Mediocrity

Next year my son starts middle school. We just received a brochure explaining all the electives offered at his new school. Foreign language, band, orchestra . . .he can even take model rocketry.

At the bottom of the page I noticed a little disclaimer that just might erase my son’s dreams of mastering the viola. It seems that kids who fail to test at grade level on the reading portion of the WASL (Washington’s Assessment Tool) must take a reading enrichment course as their elective. Apparently, only scholars are allowed to be artists.

For years, parents urged the schools to get back to the fundamentals of reading, writing, and arithmetic. I’m sure the schools would argue they are responding to both the parents’ pleas and the No Child Left Behind mandate. I think what we have here is a failure to communicate.

Yes, I want my child to be a better reader. But why can’t he become a better reader in his language arts class (that he’ll take in addition to the reading enrichment class)? If we’re going to “enrich” slower readers, why not also corral the kids who don’t pass the math or writing sections? I guess you don’t need to know your times tables before you learn to count in Spanish.

In How Full Is Your Bucket?, by Tom Rath, he explains how the North Koreans broke their prisoners during the Korean War. Rath says, “the tactic of withholding all positive emotional support while inundating soldiers with negative emotions was perhaps bucket dipping [the term Rath uses for inflicting emotional/psychological injury] in its purest and most malicious form.” While this case is undoubtedly extreme, negativity in the workplace causes lost productivity, employee turnover, absences and increased unethical behaviors.

So back to the viola. Certainly, I want my child to learn the fundamentals. But I also want him to learn to love the arts, sports or whatever non-academic interest allows him to experience life to the fullest. How will he ever have the opportunity to flourish in other areas if he’s constantly held hostage by a federal standard meant to assess the effectiveness of schools?

What’s the point of this ramble? Why don’t we learn to celebrate people’s strengths rather than throwing all our energy into fixing their weaknesses? When we will instead start helping the weak and free them to make their own valuable contribution to the world we share?