The Educational System 6

Fixing the Message in Stone

The situation of our youth is not mysterious. Children have never

been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed

to imitate them.

James Baldwin, “Nobody Knows My Name” (1985b: 208)

Education is commonly understood to be the key to success of all kinds,
and formal education is built on the cornerstone of literacy. School is first
and foremost the place where children learn to read and write.
The majority of children in the United States are educated in state-run
and financed schools, where attendance is mandatory and the curriculum
goes well beyond reading and writing. We hold schools responsible for
turning the children in their care into a productive body of citizens capable
of critical thought. The goal is an informed electorate, one which will
accept and perpetuate the values of the nation-state.
The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) explicitly links
goals in literacy to those of citizenship: “Standards [in language arts
education] can help us ensure that all students become informed citizens
and participate fully in society” (National Council of Teachers of English

1996).^1 Thus the primary educational goal in our schools equates the
acquisition of literacy with the adoption of both a spoken and written
*SAE.

Teaching is a difficult profession, a particularly challenging way to
make a living, undertaken by people who are for the most part deeply
dedicated and truly wish to do well for the children in their charge. A