Avoiding False Choices

1) I would prefer that my children read Cicero, Vergil, Ovid, and Horace in the original Latin rather than in English translations. The advantages of knowing ancient languages are legendary: insight into sentence structure, awareness of parts of speech, and understanding of the roots of modern languages. Kids who learn Latin achieve a sense of mastery. In short, Latin beats English, manus down.

The problem is that my kids don’t know Latin. So I can yell at them, threaten them, berate them, and punish them waiting for them to become fluent. Or I can encourage them to read the Aeneid in translation. Insisting that students read ancient languages rather than translations completely misses the point. It’s a false choice.

 2) I would rather my child sit still in class, take notes, attend to her ninth grade science teacher, and perform well on each written evaluation. This tried and true paradigm of learning is preferable to what she currently does which is sit in her teacher’s swivel chair occasionally bouncing and rolling.

Sitting still she learns nothing. Moving around a bit allows her to understand everything. The choice isn’t sit still versus move around; the choice is move around or not learn. If you are a kid who can sit still in a traditional classroom and learn, more power to you. I admire your ability to focus on the lecture, take accurate notes, and perform well on exams. If, on the other hand, you are a kid who needs to move around a bit in order to concentrate, I hope you will have the opportunity to have your needs met.

3) I would prefer that my daughter’s science fair project involve “Analytic and algebraic topology of locally Euclidean parameterization of infinitely differentiable Riemannian manifolds” rather than “Our Friend the Beaver.”*

Ignoring for a moment the vast majority of science fair projects undertaken and completed by parents in which the children take no active part, I will suggest that children seldom choose between these two topics. It’s the animal-in which the child is interested and can write eloquently-or cheating, disappointment, and failure when she is thrown into a topic with which few of us would be comfortable.

4) I would rather my child attend Princeton University and be successful rather than have her enroll at North Cornstalk State Drooling College and do well.

Agreed.

However, positive outcomes at Princeton versus success in the classroom at NCSDC is a false choice. The actual alternatives are matriculating at North Cornstalk or sitting around forever feeling bad about not going to New Jersey.

The lesson “accept your children for who they are rather than for who you want them to be” is clear. Loving your kids for who they are is the only real choice.

* I am indebted to Tom Lehrer for the first title and to Gary Trudeau for the second.