JOHN ADAMS | FREE WHITEWATER

I’ll focus on one part of the December 17th Whitewater Unified School Board meeting — the discussion of changes to the English language curriculum. (That’s Language Arts, for specialists.)

The revisions may overcome some prior course fragmentation, but I cannot be alone in thinking that competitive, talented students would benefit with something more than AP English as the capstone of their accomplishments. WHS principal Dalzin talked about a rubric, but I’ll offer an algorithm for the schooling of competitive students: Read, Write, Speak.

There is no sound reason that competitive students should not focus on all three skills at each grade level, for all four years of high school. Placing an emphasis of writing beginning in tenth grade, rather than in each year of high school, is asking too little of talented students. In fact, it’s asking too little of almost any student. ‘Style and Rhetoric’ may be the course for college-bound students who ‘don’t especially love English,’ but should our program be tailored to a child’s preferences or an adult’s judgment of a fine education?

When I posted on “Choice in Education,” I had something like the following in mind. Here’s a challenge — establish an English program that’s a ‘great books’ program. Combine it, if you’d like, with a four-year great books history program. I know that’s heresy, but go ahead — set up one class — just one for now — that runs for four years, with an established list of great books. (Kindly set aside the tiresome debate about what constitutes a ‘great’ book. If a person can express a preference for a given beer or brat, then he or she can pick one book over another.)

In that class, over those years in each year, students will read, write, and speak about these books.

I am convinced that students will have better competitive results on standardized tests and — more importantly — as a matter of substantive knowledge, than any other English program our district now offers.

Where did we go wrong, when we thought that a canonical curriculum was too ‘conservative?’ for us, and that in substitution we needed any number of clinical-sounding course names and topics? It shows how captive we have become of bureaucratic thinking that the idea seems so radical. It is, really, just the foundation of a bold adventure. This curriculum would offer any number of creative possibilities.

It would do more, though. It would, I think, demonstrate that we’re not as competitive as we could be, and that we’re stuck in the timid belief that English cannot be taught substantively; instead, that it must be taught only through the language and manner of professional educators’ theories.

I would remind readers that many high school preparatory and college courses are not so constrained; it is not by necessity that teaching should be this way.

Somewhere along the path that saw school libraries become ‘instructional materials centers,’ merely to adopt a terminology that falsely seemed clinical and accurate, we lost our way.

Former New York Times columnist William Safire used to write an annual predictions column, with multiple choice answers to questions, each new year. Here’s my local, amateur version in honor of Safire’s efforts. My predictions will be listed below the questions.

1. In 2008, the biggest Whitewater event will be
A. July 4th holiday
B. Memorial Day Parade
C. Christmas Parade
D. Celebration of another UWW national athletic championship

2. Winner of the 2008 election for Whitewater Municipal Judge will be
A. one among challengers (Ben Penwell, Art Coleman, or Colin Cheever)
B. incumbent Dick Kelly
C. Steve Spear as a write-in candidate
D. no one will vote

3. Leading vote-winner of the City of Whitewater presidential election results in November will be
A. John McCain
B. Barack Obama
C. Hillary Clinton
D. Rudy Guiliani

4. Whitewater will see the resignation of
A. a Common Council member (other than Kim Hixson)
B. a City of Whitewater department head
C. the leader of a prominent community group
D. none of the above

5. Between now and year’s end, the unemployment rate in Whitewater will
A. drop sharply
B. drop slightly
C. remain unchanged
D. increase slightly

6. The challenge of housing for students will be
A. solved
B. unchanged
C. worse
D. students? They’re not supposed to be off-campus anyway!

7. Overall vacancies in our downtown, and across the city will be
A. up significantly
B. basically unchanged
C. down slightly
D. down significantly

8. A local dentist will be nominated for a Nobel prize in
A. medicine
B. economics
C. peace
D. crowd-control

9. Market-penetration rate of the Whitewater Regsiter will
A. remain unchanged
B. decline slightly
C. decline significantly
D. increase after a subscription drive targeting lunatics

10. In 2008, Whitewater will receive news on how many new, large commercial businesses will locate to our city?
A. one
B. two
C. more than two
D. none

Adams’s guesses:

1. In 2008, the biggest Whitewater event will be
A. July 4th holiday (although I think that UWW will win another national championship; my answer is based on attendance alone)

2. Winner of the 2008 election for Whitewater Municipal Judge will be
A. one of the challengers (Note: I have no preferred candidate at this time; I merely think it’s a hard office to hold.)

3. Leading vote-winner of the City of Whitewater presidential election results in November will be
B. Barack Obama (Note: I have no preferred candidate at this time; I do think Sen. Obama will be the Democratic nominee, and would easily carry the City of Whitewater.)

4. Whitewater will see the resignation of
A. a Common Council member (other than Kim Hixson) and
C. the leader of a prominent community group

5. Between now and year’s end, the unemployment rate in Whitewater will
D. increase slightly

6. The challenge of housing for students will be
C. worse

7. Overall vacancies in our downtown, and across the city will be,
B. basically unchanged

8. A local dentist will be nominated for a Nobel prize in
D. crowd-control

9. Market-penetration rate of the Whitewater Regsiter will
B. decline slightly

10. In 2008, Whitewater will receive news on how many new, large commercial businesses will locate to our city?
A. one

We’ll see how we did at predicting at year’s end.