Posted on 09/10/2009 12:02:48 PM PDT by ancientart
When my kids were younger, one of their favorite stories was Dr. Seuss' "If I Ran the Circus," a book that describes young Morris McGurk's dream for putting together the most amazing circus ever, a show that will be, in McGurk's words, Colossal! Stupendous! Astounding! Fantastic! Terrific! Tremendous!
I have similar dreams - only, rather than dreaming about a fantastic circus, I dream of putting together the ideal school.
I'd start by ungluing students from their seats. There would be plenty of movement in my dream school. Every K-12 student would have P.E. every day, with classes teaching swimming, dancing and other lifelong activities as well as the standard team sports.
“Hands-on” classes (ranging from carpentry and auto mechanics to painting and sculpture), would be valued as much as so-called college prep classes: no more “weighted” grades.
My ideal school would eliminate many of the well-intended but misguided educational “reforms” of recent years. No Child Left Behind would be left behind - well behind. D'Nealian handwriting would be banished to the dark pit from which it sprung, as would the “whole language” approach to reading and writing. I'd scrap most new approaches to math as well, going back to books modeled on Euclid's Elements - probably the best book ever written for teaching clear, rigorous thinking.
In my ideal school, teachers would be set free from artificial bureaucratic constraints. No more mandated grading scales (e.g., 94-100=A, 93-87=B, etc.). Instead, teachers could adopt the scale they think most appropriate to each assignment. It doesn't make sense to mandate a standard under which Michael Jordan's life-time 49 percent shooting merits an F, and that insists that Joe Mauer would have to get twice as many hits per at bat before he could earn even a C.
And it makes even less sense to think that what our plugged-in younger generation needs is even more time in front of computers. No laptop classrooms in my ideal school: instead, lots more emphasis on interacting with real, live human beings. Theater games, anyone?
In my ideal school, kids would get back their full quota of summer vacation. Classes wouldn't start until after Labor Day, and the school year would be done by Memorial Day.
And the most important feature of all in my ideal school: lots of school prayer.
Now it's exceedingly unlikely that I'll ever see anywhere anything close to my dream school, but of these reforms, there's one I'm pretty sure is possible: school prayer.
Of course I don't mean the formal prayers that, 50 years ago, were pretty standard public school procedure. But there's nothing at all to prevent kids and parents from offering up plenty of prayer for their schools.
What would happen if, every day, parents prayed with their kids, praying for their kids' schools, teachers and classmates? What would happen if they prayed together about homework assignments, class projects and extra-curricular activities? At a minimum, kids' attitudes toward school would change for the better. Improved grades and improved peer relationships would likely follow. Parents would likely find themselves more supportive of the schools and more involved in the educational process.
School prayer - Colossal! Stupendous! Astounding! Fantastic! Terrific! Tremendous! And absolutely free.
I encourage anyone to open their ideal school, just don’t demand that the government force you, me, or your neighbor to pay for it.
We should begin the process of privatizing all K-12 education.
In our homeschool, my children spent about 2 hours a day in formal, at the kitchen table, schooling. The rest of the time they played. But...Our homeschool was Monday trough Friday, with time off only for major holidays and their Dad's vacation.
well, it’s not that hard to have an ideal school environment for your kids. Just “do it yourself!” Any form of schooling that relies upon government funds is already corrupted, beholden to Caesar.
Sounds like University School, back when I attended in the ‘60s. Except for the grading.
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