The Choice Channel

The holiday season can be filled with surprises. Of course, when it comes to the public school system, those surprises aren’t always wrapped with colorful ribbons.

One morning a few weeks ago, I got a frantic call from my 14-year old daughter from school. “Mom, can you bring in some canned food?” she frantically inquired.

“What for?” I asked.

“It’s for English class. We get 10 bonus points for bringing in canned food for the poor.”

“What???!!”

“Please Mom. I can really use the extra credit!”

“I can’t believe this.”

So what do I do? I hate this on so many levels, but all the other students will be doing it and getting the advantage of the bonus points for something that does absolutely nothing to develop the English skills I pray my daughter is somehow acquiring in this system.

So I resentfully and begrudgingly dig out some canned food out of my pantry and run on over to the Junior High building like some kind of hoop-jumping sheeple.

Of course, I immediately shoot off an email to teacher and ask if it is true that the students have been offered extra credit in Honors English class for bringing in cans of food. She confirms unapologetically that it is true. But don’t worry, she responds to an additional email of clarification and complaint, 10 bonus points doesn’t really amount to much in the whole grade. Then why offer it at all? Because she can, because she gets away with it, and it allows her to manipulate her students into doing what she wants with her all-powerful grade-giving authority (my response, not hers.)

Later I find out that my daughter’s friend’s math teacher offers extra credit to the math class, also for bringing in cans of food.

Why does this bother me so much? Is it really such a big deal?

Before we write this off as a fairly innocuous and forgettable act of poor judgment by a few misguided school teachers, let’s take a look at what our young minds have learned from this lesson.

First the teacher asks them to please bring in canned food for the poor. Her request goes ignored, and she is annoyed that the students can be so thoughtless of others this holiday season when they themselves have so much. So if they are not going to do the right thing on their own, she is going to offer them a bribe to do the “right” thing. After all, that is how morality is learned, right? Not through reason or from ones parents, but through bribes! She is going to offer to lift their grades in English in exchange for them doing something good for the community!

So the students learn that there are ways to game the system. Don’t do something because it’s right or good. If you hold out long enough, someone will offer you something in return, which completely changes the nature of your so-called “donation.” Now you have made a purchase - some cans for some bonus points. What could be easier or more clearly in one’s self interest?

And you learn that you can get credit for something, namely English class, without actually performing anything at all in that area. You can get ahead in life not by getting good at something and acquiring skills that add value, but by doing something completely unrelated for someone in power.

You learn not to differentiate between charity and service, bribery and extortion, the quid pro quo.

You learn that people in power can get you to do things that you don’t really want to do through manipulation and misuse of that power.

You learn to lose respect for “educators”, and by association, anyone trying to teach anything. If this is what education is, let’s just get it over with as quickly as possible and with as little effort as necessary, and please, don’t ask me to learn anything unless you can prove to me that there’s really something in it for me in the end. Because we all know it’s just a game, and it’s really just wasting my time.

And indeed it is.

Lois Kaneshiki homeschools her 9 year old daughter, who has never been in the public school, in central Pennsylvania. She homeschooled her can-giving 9th grade daughter through 5th and 6th grades.