I retired from electronic and software engineering after 43 years in that career. All along I have been a woodworker and a metalworker. I have even made rockets from scratch as a hobby. After a short time in retirement I became very restless. I mentored the school's robotics team while my boys were there and a couple of years after that. I heard that the school was going to offer an Embedded Computing class; however, the teacher scheduled for the class had a heart attack and had to go on extended leave. I called the principle of the school and offered to teach the class.
In order to teach the class, I was issued a permit that put me into the classroom under the condition that I work toward earning a teaching certificate. Ok, off to the races. The school allowed me to purchase $12,000 worth of equipment and materials.
Teaching was very rewarding, but it is very difficult. One is expected to teach dullards through geniuses in the same class. That actually doesn't work, regardless what the pedagogy says. It had a good time, the students loved my class, and they learned things that were way outside their preexisting mindset. Numerous students told me that mine was the best class they had in all of high school and several told me that their life's goals became set upon taking that class. I really couldn't develop the horsepower to get a certificate, so after three years the certificate expired.
I learned some very important things. A teaching job is very difficult; and, teachers take a full workload home with them every night. Teachers are usually very competent; however, state and county rules interfere with their ability to teach effectively. The major thrust of administrative intervention is mitigating parental anger and readjusting continuously from lawsuits. Parents almost never get angry because the schoolwork is too easy or the state mandated curriculum is content-less. Parents sue because their baby thinks the work is too hard, or they didn't get a fair grade. Parents are the ones who push the educational standards down. After all, how is their pride and joy going to get that football scholarship if he gets kicked of the the team for having terrible math grades?
Another thing I observed was that curriculum is established at the state level and then mandated down to the schools. Those in the education department have doctorate degrees in education, but have no knowledge in the subject areas. That upper hierarchy is an interesting set of interlocking fiefdoms, quite impenetrable from down below. This is the source of the degradation in the quality of our Nation's educational system.
My question to you is, "How do we fix our Nation's educational system in order to maximize the quality of education for all?". (After using compiled computer languages for so long, nested punctuation marks for normal grammar bewilders me.) For the sake of this argument, please assume that homeschooling is off the table. Most parents couldn't do it.
You have outlined an evil and toxic system that **HURTS** children.
Can we agree that those who cooperate with evil and are the agents implementing the evil **are** evil, stupid, or both.
Congratulations to you for having the good sense to quit.
The fix:
Literally,....Within seconds of our state’s governor closing the schools, texts notifying parents of “pop-up” camps for working moms and dads from my grandsons’ karate and boxing studios appeared in my daughter’s text stream. Yes! Seconds!
If government schooling were to suddenly disappear how long would it take those studios to hire teachers and offer extended daycare? My guess?... About 1 minute.
The fix is to begin the process of privatizing K-12 schooling beginning with tax credits and vouchers. The ideal would be to work toward having no government involvement in schooling.
Do you think that there could be robotics teams and science fairs organized privately or by the departments of parks and recreation? Could the county parks systems take over the responsibility of running children’s orchestras, theater, and team sports? Yes, of course they could!