LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: EDUCATION REFORM? MORE LIKE GREAT LEAP BACKWARD!

Dear Editor,

According to the Southeast Missourian (July 5), SEMO instructor Richard Bryant thinks Missouri is about 20 years behind in public education ("Local educators get involved in state reforms"). Hallelujah! Considering the perceived condition of public education in the U.S. (particularly urban areas), Bryant's criticism should be cause for celebration, not concern. I doubt he intended it that way.

Bryant seems to think vague, general education goals (on which he worked) are "the answer". He must believe these goals, to be achieved in Lord-knows-how fashion, should replace what he facetiously refers to as "factoids". Baloney!

The strength of bootheel education has always been its emphasis on traditional, fact-based knowledge. Bryant, in put-the-cart-before-the-horse manner, sounds authoritarian in the degree to which he is anxious to impose on students what he must see as a Great Leap Forward. What is the nature of this brave, new world into which he wants bootheel students to venture? Evidently, it is one in which Bryant thinks students can better communicate verbally, think critically, speak well, etc., etc.. However, it will be one where the inevitable de-emphasis on core facts will leave students less capable of processing the information necessary to achieve these worthy sounding goals. Why? They'll be less equipped with the necessary factual information teachers are trained to impart. Sounds more like a Great Leap Backward to me.

Thinking critically? Communicating in writing and speech? All in a less-culturally-literate, fact-less, feckless, to-hell-with-the-western-tradition void? Good luck.

I have never doubted that bootheel citizens will see to it that Senate Bill 380 will not require throwing out the baby with the bath water. Traditional, rigorous, fact-based education, built on broad knowledge of the basics, will not become a casualty to a confusing, quixotic quest to achieve glittery goals, which sound more substantive than they are.

I assume Richard Bryant meant his observation that Missouri is 20 years behind in public education as a criticism. This is not atypical of a totalitarian mentality which casually dismisses tradition, while offering to lead us out of the wilderness. Bryant has evidently become ensconced in that ivory tower a bit too long. He would be well served to return to it. We'll survive without him. We might even prosper. Factoids and all.

STEVEN MOSLEY

Sikeston