I AM TIRED... SICK AND TIRED!

I have grown completely and utterly sick of hearing about a decline in academic standards and student work... that overused, over-abused and utterly false statement is something I simply cannot tolerate anymore. I just got sent e-mail to the author of the Concord Review to see if some of my students work could be published in his journal. I like the fact that the review is dedicated to students producing high level academic work and I really value his contribution to academics (clearly a BUT is coming); at the same time, on his blog he references a the "decline" in student work. Educators since Socrates have made this claim. I cannot speak to the reality of these words in any other classroom or at any other period in history but I can say that my students do more work at a much, much, much (muchness anyone) higher level than I EVER did in high school and quite frankly at many times in college. I can say that half the courses I took in college had required reading (but did not require that you read it), had one major written work (if you can call 5 pages major) and gave two to three tests based entirely on notes from lecture. These tests were the most academically challenging, as they required on the spot generation of blue book essays. Rarely was I presented with reviewed, academic journal articles or primary sources outside of those I used independently for term papers. Now, I had a great college experience and am by no means complaining; as difficulty goes, my college experience was far more academically challenging and engaging than my high school experience. I graduated a mere (can I still say mere 10 years later?) DECADE ago and can say with certainty that my students work harder, are more motivated and possess greater skills than I ever did. I have gone back and looked at high school writing that I produced via emails from my parents and you know what? My students are doing more and they are doing it better. I recall writing one or two three page, five paragraph papers in all of high school; I wrote one as a junior and one as a senior and only in English class. (How dare I write in History!) Our students are better than we were, do they need to get better? Yes. Do they need pushed to do so? Yes. Do they need encouragement to make it? Yes. But they are not falling behind, they are in the lead and as far as I can see, they are pulling away from the pack.