Education Matters:

As a teacher I understand the value of repeating an idea or concept that I want to impart to my students. The long-term goal in that repetition is that they will cement something in their minds that will serve them in their years ahead. The short-term goal, which they are far more attuned to, is that they will score well on a test.

Repetition is sometimes the key to their retention, short or long term.

Advertisers and politicians understand this concept and use it to the maximum effect to gain profit and garner votes.

Pound away at the message and don’t let up because people’s attention is easily distracted. Their memories are notoriously short, and their commitments are short-lived in the absence of constant prodding. We are thus inundated in every aspect, every facet, every spare moment of our lives with words and images repeated over and over again to compel our attention.

And people do remember things that are delivered with more passion and force. Harsh words, angry argument, strong rhetoric are more easily called to mind than bland pronouncements and weighty logic.

That’s a rather long-winded introduction to my revisiting of a few past topics in this space. Topics that might benefit from a slightly more strident tone. And so I repeat, with a little more emphasis:

 One-third of our nation’s children are overweight.

Our schools in Glendale have made great strides to offer more healthful foods to our children, but at the same time we’ve fallen in line with a national trend to de-emphasize their physical education, especially at the secondary level by cutting in half their requirement for physical education.

At some point we have to ask ourselves a question because future generations looking back on us inevitably will. Are we educating the whole child, body and mind, or have we become fixated on the latter to the great detriment of the former?

Presently American schools are out of whack, with an emphasis on test performance that supersedes all else that we do in the name of education.

From kindergarten through the 12th grade, our kids should learn early and they should learn well that there is a balance between their mental and physical selves. Neglecting either imperils both.