Two little stories, make of them what you will:

Jack is in seventh grade and is taking the required Health class. It includes the dreaded Subject One Does Not Speak About With One’s Mother, but apparently covers other stuff like exercise and nutrition and so forth as well. He was feeling chatty after school yesterday and was telling me that they were covering why people eat the foods they do. For example, your religion may ban certain foods, your culture may have its own foods, certain foods may be convenient, etc. I asked him if they talked about economics – why you might make food choices based on how much some foods cost. Nope. Never mentioned.

As I watch the economy imploding in front of our eyes (you can’t even trade dollars for euros in Amsterdam anymore, as the dollar is falling so fast), I daresay that foods of economy should have been covered. Oh wait, we’re in Ann Arbor, which is naturally immune from reality.

And on the flip side:

Sam was cleaning out his backpack this morning and pulled out a little cardboard box, hideously decorated with purple felt and red & green plaid Christmas ribbon. I hesitantly asked if he made it (normally he has a fine sense of color and would never perpetrate such a crime of clashiness), and he said no, he bought it with pretend money on their ‘business day.’ Business day? Oh yes, the kids are split up into groups and they each have a business. His group makes things out of duct tape and string and sells them.

I asked him when this ‘business day’ was and he said they do it every other week. On the alternate weeks, they have auctions of items kids bring from home. I didn’t know whether to applaud or cry. On the one hand, I think it’s cool that they’re teaching kids about basic business concepts in a hands on way, especially for Sam, as he takes to it like a fish to water.

On the other, what about the basics? Sam *hates* reading – he struggles a bit with mechanics, which doesn’t help, but mostly he’s bored to tears by the material. When I was in fifth grade, we read cool, engaging books like A Wrinkle in Time (I remember it vividly*) and The Phantom Tollbooth. But because of this ‘integrated curriculum’ idea where math is supposed to cross over into social studies and social studies into reading and so on and so forth, round and round, the books they read are these boring things meant to teach them about time periods or locations or whatever. I’ve read some of his assigned reading – dull and turgid, to say the least. (He approves of the current read-aloud book, however; it has cat warriors and describes in detail how they kill things. Not sure how that fits into ‘integrated curriculum,’ but at least he likes it.)

So is it ok that there’s no time to teach lively novels but there’s time for commerce? I don’t know. If nothing else, it seems to prove that schools are meant to create employees (and consumers), not thinkers.

* In fifth grade, we read A Wrinkle in Time, and being the kind of child I was, I read ahead in the book. When called on in class to give a summary of events in the previous night’s reading assignment, I went farther than I should have – giving away events to come in chapters that hadn’t been assigned yet. I didn’t mean to, but the teacher was so mad. I was mortified and horrified and embarrassed beyond belief. Skipping ahead had never gotten me in trouble before.