Posted on 03/31/2021 10:04:52 AM PDT by Jim Robinson
Yes I’ve paid for private school
Few are much better
Unfortunately there is little momentum to reform education, it’s a major failure of the GOP not to truly lead and demand and make changes.
A simple fix. Run for school board or attend meetings, re-activate the parent/teacher organization, be the squeaky wheel, become a classroom volunteer or write to the editor of the newspaper or other social media.
Most problems can be solved with a 5 minute well placed phone call. BTDT.
Remember, you are still the parent.
I went through an accelerated teacher education program for career changers in 2011-12. Since it didn't cover subject content, we didn't see that type of indoctrination. What we were subjected to was the corrupt, ineffective pedagogy that prevails in American schools. Constructivism is demanded of teachers, along with many types of inclusion and differentiated education. While I agree that students learn better when content has some relevance to them, results are very mixed. There is still a place for memorization and for studying that which has been created by others. Direct instruction and memorization are very much looked down upon, but the new educrats haven't come up with an effective or efficient way for students to re-create the vast knowledge and skills developed over millennia of human endeavor.
Differentiated classrooms can be another mess. School administrators load up your classroom with students who have vastly different learning abilities, profiles and cultures and expect you to adapt to each of them - successfully. They want the best of both worlds - individual tutoring with economies of scale. They don't say it that way, but effectively it's what they seek. Teachers who care about their students are exhausted by the effort. Other teachers do a few high-profile projects so the students have something hands-on and project based to show parents. The body of knowledge that they fail to learn while doing their projects is another matter altogether. Many of our high school students are barely literate, let alone numerate.
“You were my queen in calico
I was your bashful barefoot beau
And you wrote on my slate, ‘I Love You, Joe’
When we were a couple o’ kids”
We used to sing that. Boy, writing “I love you” to a classmate today would be grounds for arrest.
What is Constructivism?
It is not really hard at all to fight this. The school board members are the taxpayers agent. Elect the right school board members, so they can enjoin the principal to clear up the school curriculum or get rid of the principal and find one who will.
Of course, the state educational bureaucracies who will mandate the stupidity from on high, all of them, are foursquare for critical race theory, so the fight will also have to go to the state capitals.
2nd grade, in-class teletype between boy - girl - boy - girl . . . ran hot.
Teacher at the board, would either pause on occasion, as if thinking about what she was writing . . . but more likely judging the level of traffic.
She would either turn around slowly, which brought the wires to a halt . . . or she would briefly excuse herself from the room, and thus let the heat pass.
She was smart.
Girl to my left, very cute - no need for passing a written message.
Ahh..the innocence of children. The perfections of Puppy Love. I’m sure it still happens. The kids have just learned to say NOTHING to any grown ups about it. Especially don’t tell any teachers!
It actually is hard. Board members are elected in off year elections when turnout is low. The teachers unions dump tons of money in the campaigns of their preferred candidates and union members turn out to elect them.
“I’m sure it still happens.”
That would be nice. Sadly, WuFlu lockdowns killed just about everything, including seeing puppy love play out in the classroom.
Lazy parents have ceded their kids’ educations to perverts and hard-line Leftists for decades. They were too busy building their careers, playing golf, drinking and watching TV to give a damn about what these evil psychos were teaching their kids.
It is about time for some pushback against woketardism.
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I’m a public school teacher and I can tell you...it’s waaaaaay past time.
School districts , esp. in rural areas, don’t have the resources to launch million dollar law suits. Legal resources in the budget are rather limited. Many goofy mandates come from state regs & the feds.
School Board members can “make public meeting noise” about these vile laws, but it’s the state legislatures that need to undo them.
Take it from someone who knows — I served on a local School Board for 5 years....
The State should not be involved in the education of the young.
—— Plato. c. 375 B.C.
Where I live, the School Board hires and fires the principal. They love doing that. I am not talking about lawsuits, since they are totally unnecessary.
Nothing will change. Parents must be willing to pull their kids out of the government schools. The only thing that might have an effect is if the government schools dry up from lack of funding.
The concept underlying constructivism is that we learn about the world by experiencing things and reflecting upon them. In the world of education that means an emphasis on hands-on and project based learning. As a retired science teacher, I’m all for lab work and hands-on learning as part of the educational process. Where it falls short in my experience, is that it is not a very efficient way to transmit information. Administrators today are so negative toward direct instruction that teachers can be penalized if they are seen to be lecturing and students are asked to take notes or to drill any basic facts. I think a balance needs to be found between mastering basic facts and finding connections through projects, essays, lab exercises, etc. When we fail to provide our students with the basic knowledge that informs higher-level analysis, we are handicapping them.
It started with that nasty evil woman Jane Elliot and her Blue eye Brown eye garbage.
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