Posted on 07/25/2006 5:31:48 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
Experts have consistently misdiagnosed and misdefined the problem of schooling to serve their own pocketbooks. The difficulty is not that children don't learn to read, write and do arithmetic very well - it is that kids don't learn at all the way schools insist on teaching.
When we strip children of a primary experience base - as confinement schooling must do to justify its very existence -we destroy the natural sequences of learning which always put experience first. Only much later, after a bath of experience, can the thin gruel of abstraction mean anything. We haven't forgotten this, but there is just not much profit in it for the people and the businesses who make their bread and butter from monopoly schooling. Indeed, you can't hire people who can handle primary data well as teachers because there are so many other things they can do - that's why science teachers are seldom scientists and other teaching "specialists" are seldom very good practitioners of what they presumably "teach".
(Excerpt) Read more at spinninglobe.net ...
bttt
mandatory schooling of children is slavery.
They are forced at gunpoint (ultimately) to go to government buildinhs where they are physically confined and made to do the work assigned to them, or they get punished if they dont.
for 8+ hours a day these kids are child slaves.
Compulsory schooling is as obviously "legal" today as slavery was in the 17th century.
Another excellent article by John Taylor Gatto, who avoids managed debate and tired cliches to get to the heart of the problem.
sigh...
Yeah, well, whatever. Another "let's change teaching" piece, like the ones in the 1960's that advocated New Math and Open Concept Schools (yes, I got both in the 1970's).
Utah is at the bottom of the money scale, but at the top of the achievement scale, because the communities there (mostly) strongly encourage marriage, wholesome living, traditional values, hard work, stay-at-home moms, etc. Nothing good happens (educationally) when single-parent households, or grandma-headed households, are the norm.
I cringed at the hijacking of the term "It takes a village" by Hillary because it is really true. However, it doesn't take tons of social programs funded by tons of taxes, but rather it takes a village that makes a great place to grow up.
I'd settle for mandatory schooling up to the age of about 11. Make sure they can read and do basic math, and then... let 'em go. Repeal the child labor laws and if they want to come back later in life, fine. If they're inclined to continue, fine. Otherwise, get out there and get a job, kid.
AMEN!!!
Kid across the street will be a "senior" in high school in less than 6 weeks. He says Math is his strongest subject, and is VERY proud of getting B+ grades in math.
He CANNOT do multiplication tables verbally, insists he needs a piece of paper and a pencil to do 7 x 8, etc. I gave him a couple of verbal math tests, multiplication, squares of numbers, and make change from a dollar bill for a 72 cent purchase. He couldn't do 7 x 8. He couldn't do 12 x 12. He took 2 stabs at 11 x 11 to get 121. He couldn't count the change back to me for the 72 cent purchase from a dollar bill, and he took 3 tries at it.
Pitiful. Just plain pitiful. I learned my multiplication tables when I was in 4th and 5th grade. I still know them at age 66. "teachers" today think it is ineffective and insulting to teach these things by rote. I can ride my horses a given distance in a noted time and calculate the MPH I am traveling in my head while I am riding. I say they are wrong.
As a taxpayer, I am getting an inferior product after spend 13 years producing the end result. A high school "graduate" today is basically unemployable.
We need a "Lemon Law" for the rotten methods these "teachers" keep insisting on using.
When I was in high school I wondered why we weren't paid for our school time. I really didn't feel like I learned anything. It felt more like a job.
I don't remember being taught to count back change in school. I remember being quickly taught at my first job. Just couldn't get it. Years later, my husband taught me just so I could teach our children. Took less than a minute and I felt silly for not knowing all these years.
"or they get punished if they dont. "
Actually that is not true. There is no punishment for failure or even acting badly to kids today. There is no real punishment for kids at home either. Sorry, but standing in the corner is not a punishment in my book.
Every student in America would do better to have a Nun with a ruler to 'encourage' learning :).
just my 2cents
Especially when the schools herd them out onto the streets on Earth Day to pick up garbage. If it is a brainwashing tool, forced child labor is just fine "for the children".
"When I was in high school I wondered why we weren't paid for our school time. I really didn't feel like I learned anything. It felt more like a job."
To me, it high school felt more like a prison sentence.
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Interesting article, like all of his stuff. But I'm curious - what happened to Chris Whittle's Edison project that he cites favorably?
D
If the govt paid you to go to elementary school, they would feel the need to dictate where you could work.
Oh..hmm..
No wonder this story sounds DIZZY - it's from the Spinning Globe...
Good question. I Googled it, with little success. There is an Edison Schools out there, but I can't find out anything about it.
I'm inclined to think it's still in the early stages and he's still working on it.
but rather it takes a village that makes a great place to grow up.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
It takes a village of intact, two parent families.
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