Sometimes, the stuff people say about curriculum sends me into orbit. Just such a response was had when I picked up a magazine in my mother’s house and read a short review of a new book about education: “Schools,” according to author Jamie Vollmer, “are designed to select and sort students according to skills and abilities we no longer need … ” (from the book Schools Cannot Do it Alone: Building Public Support for America’s Public Schools.)

Which skills are these that students no longer need? Personally, I only teach skills students need in my classroom. They definitely need to write and read, work with numbers and word problems, and talk and learn to live in a community. They are also learning about computer applications (probably not enough) and do some sports and art (definitely not enough). So when do these students learn the skills they don’t need?

The problem is that this kind of foolish talking and thinking takes away from the individual student and teacher the humanity we’re supposed to be developing in the classroom and in our society. Putting some fancy digital curriculum into my classroom may change some things, but the fundamentals of education are cognitive and in interacting person to person, which is why I don’t believe a computerized, no-teacher curriculum will ever be able to serve more than a tiny minority of students.  And educrats deciding from above they need to tell teachers and students that what they are learning is “skills we no longer need” is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

As I go forward in teaching, I think that the main goal of a school should be teaching students responsible functioning in a democracy. They need to understand our society and, as one of my colleagues said last month, they need to grow up and vote. These skills are tied up in reading and discussion, which is, in general, what education had been about for thousands of years. How are these “skills students no longer need?”

My husband is a college Latin teacher, and although we spend almost no time teaching Latin in K-12, I suppose this is one of the skills students “no longer need.” But the funny thing is, the Latin students tend to be higher than average in all the other subjects too — as if teaching them Latin drives them upward in their other areas of study.

This is known by Texas’ top prep schools, many of which teach Latin because it’s known that such studies prepare students for leadership and achievement as well as bump up their SAT scores. These prep schools also take students to art museums and nature outings as well as dance and musical performances. These “not needed skills” are what make an education strong and complete. I’m tempted to go so far as to say these activities and skills make us more free.

But the philistines are at the gate, as they always have been. Nicholas Kristoff penned this beauty of an opinion essay for the NY Times, arguing that students should be taught Spanish so they can communicate with participants in the rapidly growing economies in Mexico and the south. News bulletin: if we lie to students, they know we are lying. The students do not need to speak Spanish to go do business in Mexico, because only a tiny, tiny minority will have the opportunity to do so.  And although I speak Spanish better than just about any native English speaker I know, I can honestly tell you that the benefit of doing so is in being an educated person who understands the way language works, and understanding another culture, and this benefit can be had from any foreign language study. The benefit is greater when the language and culture is related to ours, or is foundational to ours, as is the case with Latin.

Utilitarianism with regard to education may seem like a needed practical response. But the attitude of Vollmer and Kristoff is what the term “dumbed down” was created for. Education is like a flowering plant, and I guess, deep down in my heart, I believe that students should get the education they’ve always received at good schools, from good teachers:  reading, writing, arithmatic, science, citizenship and culture. If we can cover that in elementary, I think we’ve done our job, and no, I do not think any of those subjects are “skills the students don’t need.”