Our Country and Our Children: Improving America's Schools and Affirming the Common Culture.

AuthorBabbitt, Bruce

The Billy Pulpit

William Bennett is a Janus-faced educator. At times we see and hear the passionate reformer visiting classrooms, teaching students, taking an ax to the icons of the education bureaucracy, pleading for "standards, discipline, basics, strong leadership and high expectations." But then we are subjected to another William Bennett, organ grinder for the Reagan political agenda, cranking out grandiose proclamations on the decline of modern civilizations, pseudo-historical musings on the intent of the founding fathers, and schemes to save the soul of public education by bringing churches into the schools.

In a rough way, this collection of speeches(*) from his tenure as education secretary is assembled in a sequence that presorts the wheat from the chaff. The first half of this book shows us Bennett the Good; the last half should have been left on the pamphlet table at the Republican National Committee.

The easiest thing to admire about William Bennett is his clarity and directness. No bureaucrat, this secretary. He roams the country grading schools, handing out praise for effective principals and teachers while castigating the shoddy and ineffective. He's not afraid to name names or to tangle with the education establishment. When was the last time we had a secretary out in the classroom teaching the story of Cincinnatus to third graders, telling the story of Horatius at the Bridge, and pursuing the meaning of Federalist No. 10 with high school students?

Bennett's core message is that our schools have failed their obligation to teach values. It is a familiar argument, one that flares up again and again in American history. The traditional view, which held sway in the nineteenth century, is that moral precepts are not to be examined or questioned. The teacher's job, acting in loco parentis, is to drill virtue into students by word and example. But how far should they go--where is the line between teaching and indoctrination? Philosophy aside, most parents, including me, agree with Bennett that we have drifted a bit too far from the lodestar of values, confusing traditional social studies (like history, geography, and civics) with soft social science (like sociology and psychology) and cluttering the classroom with too much moral relativism.

He writes: "Many have turned to a whole range of values, education theories, and practice where the goal is to guide children in developing their own values by discussing, dialogue, simulation, and even games." With Robert Coles, he asks, "Are students really better off with the theories of psychologists than the hard thoughts of Jeremiah and Jesus?" A little less John Dewey and a little more original sin is certainly in order, and we can thank the secretary for using his bully pulpit to move us in that direction.

But then Bennett begins raking his finger nails accross the blackboard. His prescription for...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT