No child left behind in American society?  It is an impossible dream from where I am, at the margin of a middle class community.

If you’ve read the previous post, No Child Left Behind in American Society, you know that I’ve been tutoring M, a 5th grade girl, again.

Am I pessimistic because I’m not getting any positive result at all?  No, her progress is fantastic within less than 3 months.  The problem is just how fragile this result is with my efforts alone.

First of all, how great is M’s academic performance?  M received the perfect score in every subject she had been tested in her school under my tutelage.

What is the recipe?  I drive a sound academic discipline, rather than delivering knowledge on a silver platter to my student.

With the school work, M used to review only the summary notes that her school teacher offered before each test.  They might be effective to pull a certain level of class average.  However, this tactic so often conditioned children to do their bare minimum.

My goal has been to maximize M’s comprehension of the subject matter.  Therefore, I’ve compelled M to read the assigned chapters of the textbook.  Before each of her school tests, I prepared a questionnaire that M couldn’t answer without having understood every word of the designated material.  Answering my test was more difficult than that from the school.  In effect, this step has become the insurance for M to ace her exams in school.

For each tutoring session, completion of the homework, assigned by me, is the prerequisite.  If she doesn’t for whatever reasons, she receives no lesson on that day. She is allowed up to 3 delinquencies of such.

With Math, M needed to be oriented to its rule of accuracy, instead of speed. Unless she showed me two sets of calculations for each question, she wasn’t finished by my standard.  This precondition has considerably reduced mindless errors, stemmed mostly from not reading the questions or faulty memories of certain calculations in her mind.

Then, I could concentrate on where M had the difficulty mastering the material. With such, I made up more questions to practice.  For each wrong answer, she was asked to solve ten more similar problems.  Until she answered over 90% of them correctly, she didn’t move on to the next concept.

English homework had been a sore point for M initially.  As magazine reading is recommended for 5th graders, I have given her a variety of short articles from reputable publications.  With each piece, she had to look up the vocabularies she didn’t know.  M had to compose 2 sentences for each.  She had to summarize the essence of the article.  As this assignment took her long time to complete, she tended to do it last.  As a result, its quality suffered.  She often didn’t finish.

What I’ve looked for in M’s homework was the sign of struggle.  Many times, her sentences needed work.  Her summaries were nowhere near what I had hoped for. However, without having done this process alone, M had no way of knowing where she was with and without the guidance.

English takes a long time to see any improvement.  However, I ended up confirming that a higher expectation indeed delivered a better performance.  With the last test in my tutoring session, I asked about the implication of the pieces she had read.  I had expected M to leave these questions blank.  If so, I was going to encourage her to study even harder going forward.

To my surprise, she deducted the in-depth lessons out of most articles, which I had barely mentioned or didn’t discuss at all.  For example, she understood that if the solution of the current adult generation wasn’t good, it was the next generation that had to come up with a better one.  It was the information about existing resources that stood in the way of solving world hunger and malnutrition.  There was so much unknown about organic materials that had yet to be discovered. The technology industry’s drive to make electronic devices more convenient made the public further addicted to them like junk food.  M was able to conclude in this manner on her own.

If she maintains her study habit, she can be on the promising path.  Although M enjoys the progress she has made, she so easily falls off from the prescribed course.  A case in point, she is maxed out on 3 delinquencies already.  And, I’ve come to realize that her difficulty with following instructions isn’t unique at all.

Within a month after I began to tutor M again, I accepted another 5th grader, who would be referred as S in the rest of this post.  I had hoped he would offer a healthy rivalry for M.

Upon my initial examination of where S was academically, he was nowhere near M.  I could see how much of a difference it made for M to have been tutored during her second grade.  S was the untouched version of M for 5 years.

It was a revelation that those who enrolled in regular English classes could be more neglected than those in the ESL.  I was horrified by S’ grammar, which was almost non-existent.  S often mixed up cause and effect in his sentences.  S didn’t differentiate between his opinions and facts.  Yet, he was proud of having completed this kind of work.

I had seen the same trait before.  For example, the 12th grade boys in the Bible study class I had taught almost 15 years ago and a couple of the male subordinates in my previous profession were the grown-up versions of S.  All of them used to be the puzzles I didn’t care to solve at all.

As a combination, S possessed the seeds of everything that women detested in a man. Unfortunately, many of them discover such in their spouses after having built families. Do you recall the staples of clueless husbands who paraded the Oprah Winfrey Show in its hey days? They sat silently next to their wives who passive-aggressively announced their unhappiness on the national television.  And, I came to see how it all began.

I was surprised that a male prerogative was something that could be exerted from a very early age.  S didn’t want his mother to supervise his academic work, which she honored initially.  Over time, however, she didn’t dare to review it as she was afraid to confront the magnitude of his shortfalls. I could finally understand why women, after the feminist movement, often said there wasn’t enough eligible men in this country.

The most challenging thing about S is that he is even worse about listening to and following instructions than M.  Every tutoring session has turned out to be about addressing S’ stubbornness. Although he himself experienced the benefits of the academic discipline I introduced, he was nonchalant about defying it in his school or homework.  Within a month, he used up 3 delinquencies as well.

Ever since I began to tutor M and S, the typical greeting from others is that I’ve aged or I look fatigued.  They also have said that it is quite typical for children not to listen to authorities.  And, this tendency becomes worse during the teenage years.  That generalization may apply to this community or the current crop of children.

I didn’t have that problem while I was growing up mostly in the middle class.  Neither did my college and graduate school friends.  My quandary was what had made us different.

I’ve once heard of a governmental research that children studied better if their parents did as well.  In the middle class environment, most children don’t see adults who study at home.  Most of the latter work for jobs to make a living, rather than for self-fulfillment.  I’ve found that many adults of this group, especially men, feel entitled to relax and entertain themselves when they return home.  Children would like to join their fathers rather than to study in their rooms.

Even in the public library, there is a definite cultural difference in the afternoon when the school is over.  In the two of the economically affluent neighborhoods near where I live, children are quiet and busy doing their academic work.  In the two of the less privileged ones, children treat libraries as social-gathering places.  One of them even has the police to keep the young minds quiet at times.

During my early childhood, I lived in the house where 3 generations of my father’s families lived together.  My role models were my aunt and uncle, both younger siblings of my parent.  They were those with the highest academic accomplishments in our family.  My grandmother used to hush everyone in the house once either of them returned home from school.

Even after my parents moved to a home of their own, I accessed my uncle, the youngest brother of my father, occasionally if I had any difficulty with my academic work.  So, I studied as much as possible on my own.  I asked him only after I’ve exhausted every avenue possible.

Most of my friends had fathers with professional careers.  Just knocking on the parent’s study was intimidating for most.  I am certain their experiences are no different from mine. We all tried to follow the footsteps of those whom we looked up to.  We tried not to be the nuisance to those whom we wanted to emulate. Most of all, we were accustomed to the long hours of solitude with academic work.

In the absence of the role model each child could identify with and the supportive environment, it is very difficult to motivate today’s children, especially in the middle class community, to concentrate on their academic work.

The two I am teaching right now are barely 10-years old.  They are already exercising the freedom of what to follow or not based on their limited perspective.  Meanwhile, their academic foundation barely exists.  I can’t imagine how much worse off they will be during their teen years when they rebel against the authorities even more, while academic building blocks become weightier.  It is evident that these children won’t absorb much in higher educational institutions, either.

Is there any way to reverse this tendency?  It is impossible while there is absolutely no consequence whatsoever for academic delinquencies with children.  No matter how a child behaves, he or she is made to fit in at any cost by his or her parents. Regardless of how a child performs in school, he or she still gets all the latest clothes, toys, technological gadgets that other children have. For the children who don’t put their honest day’s work, teachers will do the work for them so that their pupils can pass.  If not, tutors or private schools are the solutions that parents often employ.

In short, children of the middle class are so accustomed to accept what is easy and sweet to their taste immediately. And, they are shaped in this manner as their parental and school authorities have striven for equality of children at any cost.

As a society, however, we are paving the road for anarchy as we validate unlimited standards of narcissism.   By cultivating it in each child, parents are fulfilling their own sense of equality with other adults.  Furthermore, equality isn’t even what our system endorses.  It stands for equal access to opportunities, which is the foundation for meritocracy.

Why is there a mass confusion of how our system operates?  It is due to civil rights movements.  It has made as if we’ve achieved the complete level of equality.

In reality, what the civil rights movements did was to extend the principle of meritocracy to minorities who hadn’t had the chance even to prove themselves at all. This political initiative was for those who knew what our system stood for and were qualified to deliver the results immediately that the society expected.

From the viewpoint of the majority, civil rights movements plucked out a small percentage of minorities with privileges, especially through the affirmative action. Most marginalized Caucasians, especially men, were left behind.  So were ordinary minorities.

That was the scope of democracy American society had achieved during the 1960s and 1970s. The irony is that this political achievement was largely due to the liberals’ support. Given how conservatives firmly support meritocracy, they should have been the ones to have backed the popular movement of that era.  Unfortunately, conservatives consider accessing opportunities as entirely individual responsibilities.

Our society hasn’t reached the level of democracy where it informs all citizens of what our system indeed stands for and helps them be qualified for the opportunity of one’s desire.

Why not?  Both conservatives and liberals assume that the public is intellectually different from the elite.  And, they believe the gap can’t be bridged.  In response, conservatives’ choice is indifference.  Liberals’ position is offering pity.  On the surface, the latter may come across as more compassionate.  In reality, pity is imposing a giver’s low expectation of the recipient regardless of what he or she wishes or is capable of. Therefore, sympathy can be much worse than being abandoned when it is institutionalized.

Meanwhile, as the population assumes that American society has reached the full degree of democracy, people have various discontents with entitlements, which the public doesn’t have in reality. Whatever their frustrations may be, the establishment handles such with propaganda, what pleases people’s ears right away but doesn’t amount to any concrete results.

Based on my own experience, I do agree with the establishment that ordinary Americans are different from the elite.  However, I beg to differ in how.  The cultural elites think that the population inherently lack comprehensive skills.  I have seen that ordinary Americans refuse to use their minds from very early on to understand their surroundings.  And, the public is perpetuating its own misconceptions every day.

Is there any difference between the establishment and me?  With the former, it is about genetics.  Mine is about one’s will.

If the public recognizes this fact I’ve discovered and reorient their minds, they can give themselves far much more possibility for greatness and growth.

Elevating American society to the ultimate level of democracy through meritocracy is something that should interest the Republican Party.  It cherishes this principle above all else.  That political platform can galvanize not only the core base of this party and the rest of the population across the board.

If the Republican Party indeed takes this vision seriously enough to embrace it, this party will embark on a political journey that no other societies on earth had gone before. Even the most egalitarian society could at most achieve economic comforts for the entire population.  No country has ever striven for the public’s happiness.

In order for that potentiality to materialize at all, the public will have to exhibit its humility of past ignorance and maturity of asking for the party’s help.  I don’t see why the Republican Party will reject that offer, especially when it is desperate to reclaim the glory.

No child left behind in American society?  That can’t be done until the adults realize how half-baked our democracy is how maladjusted they are.  Without the desire to enhance our base at all, most children in the past, present, and future are destined to settle for less.

But, who would listen to a marignalized elite’s rambling?

In the meantime, I’ve devised a different way for M and S to pay for their consequences out of delinquencies.  These two weren’t aware of the fact that abandonment was far much worse than punishment.  Therefore, I needed to come up with a penalty that both of them dreaded enough as children, but was close to a dismissal.  They were more desperate not to lose their privileges with game playing and I-Pad.  So, they are what I’ve asked the parents of M and S to take away.

Are these two worthy of these efforts?  S had 30% accuracy with Math homework initially. When I forced him to show me two sets of calculations, his accuracy went up to 70%.  While reviewing magazine articles, I came to discover M’s keen interest in science, which was unusual for a girl of her age.  These potentials are worth nourishing in spite of the aggravations I experience.

I just hope our society will have changed by the time they reach their adulthood.