Lots of picts from Morgans of Maine

Ike and Professor John Frary, running for US Congress (and unknown woman)

Lee, Lindy, and KennyLee with his 2 prom dates, Becky and AmieLee and Amie on prom dayThe extended clan on prom dayLee receives diplomaDad and graduate LeeLindy, Lee and DadLindy and Lee

The Fallacy of 'Relevance'

Public schools in America lack many things but one thing is for sure, there is no shortage of silly ideas propagated by silly adults to the detriment of young people.Among a slew of inanities to emerge from the 1960’s, one of the most damaging is the notion that everything a student studies must be ‘relevant’ to their life experience. The ‘relevancy’ movement is just one of many pathologies we endure because of modern liberalism’s infatuation with unlimited individual rights.

Imagine for a minute, Abraham Lincoln, the epitome of a self-taught man, only studying those things that were ‘relevant’ to his immediate surroundings. Growing up in a cabin in the woods of Illinois in the 1800’s I’m sure his surroundings did not require him to study Greek philosophy, Latin, and many of the great books of Western Civilization. It never occurred to him that everything he studied needed to be ‘relevant’.

Educators who have bought into the idea that everything must be ‘relevant’ to students are in effect, limiting the growth and future prospects of their students. Ironically, most of these same educators are in fact beneficiaries of a broad-based education that did not have ‘relevancy’ as its focus.

Making ‘relevancy’ the ultimate goal in a child’s education is harmful on many fronts. When adults stress the need for ‘relevance’ in a student’s education they send a clear message to young people that everything they study must connect with some aspect of their life.

Forget the fact that young people have a limited life experience with which to connect. The real damage comes from legitimizing an attitude that says the only important things to learn are those that are ‘relevant’. Students soon learn that its OK to quit something because it lacks ‘relevance’.

It should come as no surprise that allowing young people this sense of entitlement empowers them far beyond their years. Serious educators who know the value of providing young people with a rigorous education find it more and more difficult to engage students in so called ‘non relevant’ material.

High school mathematics is loaded with material that most students think is without ‘relevance’. Rarely does a week go by that one of my students questions why they have to do math. Admittedly, it’s difficult for them to comprehend the eventual importance of mathematics in their life. A lot of mathematics can be abstract and somewhat foreign to an adolescent. It’s a natural reaction for many of them to rebel against having to study math.

What is not natural, nor good for the future prospects of the child, is for an adult to enable this rebellion and allow only ‘relevant’ material to seem important.

The unfortunate truth is that it is very difficult for anyone, let alone a young teenager, to determine what will be relevant in later years.

Relevancy, by its very nature is something that reveals itself after the fact. It is not something that can be predicted.

Adults in charge of educating our young people should know that.