The "Theory" of Education

By: Aram Sethian
Aram.Sethian@lls.edu

Armenian schools have been available to students in the Diaspora of Los Angeles for over thirty years. They have provided at least two full generations of students with an affordable, private school education meant to preserve the vitality of the Armenian culture. The functions that Armenian schools fulfill are quite important, especially in an environment where much greater forces compel every immigrant to subscribe to a distinctly American way of life.

After these thirty years, the Armenian schools have failed to produce even one Armenian poet. Worse yet, there has not been one student from any of these programs who has attained enough of a facility with the language to be capable of keeping Armenian language programs afloat. These are two manifestations of a much more endemic problem within our community.

We have reached a precipice, where the Armenian teachers who have serviced this community for so many years have truly been irreplaceable. Furthermore, the failure to meet such a demand for Armenian teachers is indicative of this system’s trouble with fostering true academics.

This is not meant to be an attack on the Armenian elementary school system. In fact, these schools have been the centers of cultural activity, and an important way to ensure that American-Armenians remain active in our communities. However, this system has failed to foster a sense of academic purpose beyond the K-8 framework.

Though these schools provide the best education for their students within their means, their efforts are in vain since greater influences in public schools deter these students from the hopes and dreams their elementary school teachers may have had in store for them. There are simply not enough resources outside of the K-8 system that ensure that our students will reap the rewards of a rigorous academic track. A great many of our students find themselves in the public school system, where the graduation rates have dropped to 42% (according to statistics from the EPE Research Center, 2008).

The most pressing issue in this environment is a general disrespect of academia. The fact that our schools have not produced an Armenian poet is just a manifestation of a general lack of scholarship among Armenians. The values instilled in them through an Armenian elementary school education are lost in the confines of an anarchic public school system. Many of those who count themselves in the 58% that survive are then lost to community colleges that provide minimal incentives for their students to enter four-year universities.

The Armenian community has failed to recognize the full force of the university system. The university is the hotbed of scholarship, of policymaking, of progressive thinking. So long as Armenians do not prioritize building a presence within these campuses, there is no hope for considering our culture among the more vibrant.

In building a reverence for academia within our communities, we will soon begin seeing young Armenians penetrate the ranks of scholars in universities across the country. To support them, the communities will sponsor chairs for them in various departments. With enough chairs, these scholars will produce their own departments. With their own departments, they will build libraries. Those libraries will be the catalyst of a rejuvenated interest in the Armenian culture.

Armenians will not find a solution in cultural organizations, lobbyists, or even churches. These are tools for retaining people, not growing them. The solution is in academia.

Further generations of Armenians will only garner respect from individuals outside of their communities when they have the proper means to become productive citizens. The Armenian voice will only be heard through the mouths of a new constituency of professionals. It will not come from political rallies. It will come from academic departments.

The policy prescriptions for this situation are simple to recommend, but difficult to implement. We must encourage the growth of affordable, Armenian high schools to encourage higher education. In the meantime, there should be mentors for every single graduate who extols these virtues, demonstrating the importance of pursuing the arts and sciences within the universities.

On a grander scale, we need to mobilize our economic resources to promote this scholarship. We need an organization charged with the mission to establish chairs at every major university in order to direct research and build a presence. It is the most effective way to ensure that this anticipated wave of academics will find a home in major departments without the need to compromise their interests with the immediate needs of any university.

This is our movement. There are signs of its prenatal growth through the Armenian studies programs at UCLA, the University of Michigan, California State University of Fresno, and Harvard University. The newest addition to this growing list has been the Center for the Study of Law & Genocide at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. The potential for harnessing the power of a collaborative effort has yet to be realized. To see this system begin to feed back to the earliest stages of a new round of elementary education for Armenian students, however, is still a dream.