Posted on 12/18/2005 11:51:04 AM PST by SJackson
I see that there's a move afoot to increase the math and science requirements in our public high schools because jobs today are more high-tech and require more of those skills.
So everyone's jumping through hoops, concerned that developing countries are eating our lunch on science and math and saying it's time our kids start cracking the whip. Businesses want high school grads with those skills, and business in Wisconsin usually gets what it wants. So legislators are introducing bills that would require kids to take three years of both science and math courses in order to graduate from high school. The current requirement is two years of each.
That's all fine and dandy and, obviously, as our major industries farm out what's left of our blue-collar jobs to cheap labor abroad, there's a need for U.S. high-schoolers to be able to deal with this new computerized and technical world out there. I sometimes think I could've used that extra year of math and science just to deal with the remote control on my television.
But let me add a word of caution here.
Preparing our high school students for the rough and tumble of the job market is a noble cause, but I hope it isn't being done at the expense of making sure our graduates are prepared to do their duty as U.S. citizens, too.
It's so important that young people understand the importance of citizenship in a democracy, the need to be politically literate and involved.
High school graduates need to understand the history and workings of American government and why they need to participate in a healthy debate of ideas and beliefs if that form of government is to survive.
All too many young people don't know who their representatives are or how they got to be where they are and, frankly, couldn't care less to know.
High school students need to experience citizenship through activities in school. They need to be given opportunities to experience governance, debate and the importance of moral and social behavior and be able to understand how they all can play out in their adult lives.
If we continue to graduate young people who don't care about being citizens, who are turned off at the very thought of politics and government, then it won't do us much good to have them know everything there is to know about math and science.
They won't have a country in which to practice their technological skills.
Ever get the feeling that liberals' main motive is to drive sexual standards so low that they will get some?
Not before their latest elected President, but now I contemplate their motive.
#6 Music one year Drama next and Art the next
If Civics-Law-Literature-History are done right you'll get Latin, French, Spanish, Russian, German, and Italian. Ceasars Conquest is best in Latin and El Hombre de La Mancha in Spanish, though a childrens story Peter and the Wolf is better in Russian.
The ballet school that a friend's daughter attends has recently incorporated as a non-profit and has the goal of turning into an arts-focused charter school. Even in education, competition is now rampant.
I'm old enough to have gone to high school when there was a track system. "A" track was for kids who were definitely college bound; they got advanced courses in everything. "B" track was for kids who probably would go to college - they got a solid education, but less rigorous than "A". "C" track was for kids who would probably go to work after school. They got plenty of office skills. Bookkeeping, office machines, and the like. "D" track was for those who were somewhat struggling - the girls got home management, cooking, sewing, etc., and the boys got mechanics, carpentry, etc. "E" track was for the kids (mostly boys) who were disruptive and one step out of the legal system.
It didn't have as much to do with IQ as it did with a work ethic. Some of the kids in the "E" track were much brighter than kids in the "A" track.
It also wasn't uncommon for kids to switch tracks (someone in the "A" track might decide they didn't want to work so hard and move to "B", or someone in "C" might decide to go to college after all, and move to "B")
The combination of ability and willingness to work kept the classes moving at an appropriate pace - very few were hopelessly lost, and very few were too bored to bother.
I'd love to see that system again.
"Every effort was made to encourage the children at the public schools to "think for themselves." When they should have been whipped and taught Greek paradigms, they were set arguing about birth control and nationalization. Their crude little opinions were treated with respect. Preachers in the school chapel week after week entrusted the future to their hands. It is hardly surprising that they were Bolshevik at 18 and bored at 20." -Evelyn Waugh
I'd concede that you have a point - up to a point, though. Once upon a time in my distant youth, in a different realm beyond the seas there was a special school with selective admission, which would probably be designated as "AA" in your setup. Children there were doing things like topology and 5-dimensional geometry while in tender 6th and 7th grades. That school was organized by university professors mostly for their own kids, but they had to open it to outsiders - and did so in the form of open competitive admission. I have VERY SERIOUS doubts that work ethics alone without at least "bright" IQ level would have sufficed there.
Not all children of bright parents are bright or motivated themselves. It takes both. In the system I remember, kids who weren't able to keep up with the "A" track had to move to the "B". Some of them couldn't keep up because they weren't bright enough, and others because they were lazy.
Not a bad curriculum -- but you need to add some more
In sciences, geology, astronomy, and a course in applied science (engineering, technology or just "how things work").
In social sciences, some psychology, theory and practice of management and the dynamics of group behavior, media and manipulation of behavior, introduction to microeconomics of the firm, and basics of financial systems (e.g. they should understand interest rates and what they do with time).
I'm reluctant to recommend calculus for high schoolers -- analytic geometry and some good instruction in probability and statistics would be more generally useful.
You need a language -- Chinese, Arabic, or Spanish should be preferred.
That is one of the major problems in secondary education--one of many.
They are going to hate your guts for it. Thinking HURTS!
We're homeschoolers. For political literacy I teach ancient Greek thought, and I teach it hard. :)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.