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2004 Soap Box Archives Poor Johnny 10/15/04 Every night before we go on stage I do a meet and greet session with fans who have made prior arrangements to come back stage. I personalize and sign 8x10 photos and pose for pictures, shake hands, hug necks and spend some time with the folks talking and in many cases renewing old acquaintances. Many times we have teenagers in the line who are amazed that I can spell their names. I’m not talking about long names with complicated spelling, I’m talking about simple names. Now I’ve never been a serious scholar, academics is not my thing as I’m sure most of you who read this column with any regularity will attest to. The
simple truth is that I learned to read by the phonics method, Whatever happened to this time tested method of helping children learn to read? Unfortunately, it seems to have fallen by the wayside along with a host of other tried and true teaching methods. How do I know that phonics teaches kids to read? Because several of the children in my acquaintance are home schooled or going to schools which still use phonics and in most cases they are head and shoulders above the ones who go to regular schools in reading. We hear the phrase, ”Johnny can’t read” a lot these days. The sad and simple truth is that Johnny can’t write either, he can’t do simple math and probably couldn’t tell you what state New York City is in. America’s SAT scores are among the lowest in the free world and there’s just got to be a reason or reasons, why the most progressive nation the world has ever known can’t educate its children. Of course, there are reasons and for those of you who think that the total cause for the poor academic standards in this country is lack of federal funds you may as well stop reading right now. While I certainly know that there are some soft spots around the country where a little more money would help, this nation spends enough on education to give a college degree to kids in a lot of other countries. To me
the answers to our educational inadequacies can be summated
in just two words, phonics and discipline. No matter how complicated the world becomes two and two will always be four and the simplest way of arriving at that conclusion will always be to add the digits together and you will always come out with the same answer. This country needs to shake off the rotten dregs of the Dewey Decimal System and get back to basics. But you can’t teach without discipline no matter what the method. Kids who are chronic trouble makers should be transferred to another class where they are forced to behave themselves, then the rest of the class can learn. I know it’s not politically correct to segregate miscreants and punks but I believe it would bring amazing results. Children should also not be promoted just because the rest of the class is. You do them no favors when you advance them. They’re not getting what they came to school for and might as well have stayed at home. Which brings me to what I consider to be the ultimate answer which is school vouchers. Now can somebody tell me why they are not a good idea? Those who object to religious training of any kind could send their child to the kind of school they want them to attend. The Christian could send their children to a Christian school. The extremely gifted could be sent to schools which are far advanced, and the slow student could be sent to a school where they could learn at their own pace. It’s time to stop putting federal band-aids on our educational programs and do something meaningful. We owe it to our kids. Pray for our troops. What do you think? God Bless America Charlie Daniels
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