Parents have to understand the teachers union are a power with little interest in education.
Then parents need to get involved and demand accountability.
In France children go to school on Mon/Tue/Thurs/Fri they have Wednesday off. They also work in 5week units with 2 weeks off between units. That is far fewer days in school which means they have tofocus on academic content rather than PC crap.
That might be a good place to start as well
Abandon the in-school lecture in favor of in-home online audio-visual (but not talking head) lectures.
Make each lecture short - and proceed to working short, few, examples.
Rinse, repeat.
Work longer problems which use old AND new information.
Privatize all education.
change where a teacher gets paid from.
if a teacher is answerable to parents and the school they are in because the ultimately understand that is where they get paid from, things will change dramatically and quickly. it will be about student progression (not progressive), student mental stimulation and building confidence and it will start to focus on what a student needs for life.
will it kill off the arts, no, but it will ensure that people who want to do the arts pay for it and are driven by an interest in it rather than just getting people who want degrees because someone else is paying.
a teacher who realises their pay and pay rises is directly related to the success of their students will become a driver of change but not change for changes sake but for improvements.
of course the fear is that our little johnny may not be allowed to become a nuclear scientist the parents want him to be. here is the thing every kid on this planet has a natural skill, that skill maybe nuclear physics or maybe dancing or plumbing. it will also force parents to set targets with a level ore realism. if you believe the teacher is wrong, goto another school, if enough parents think the teacher is wrong, fire the teacher and get another. this is not rocket surgery....
The public education industry is little more than a jobs program for those who have useless college degrees.
To bring back real education, you’d have to find teachers who know what they are talking about. That is, math teachers that actually know math, chemistry teachers who actually know chemistry. Some would say this is a radical concept.
In college too, the emphasis is on picking esoteric courses of interest, even within one’s major, rather than an emphasis on survey courses that would teach a lot of meaningful knowledge and facts. I love reading books on history and philosophy and such, so I just don’t understand the anti-fact educational philosophies that have become regnant. Also, I don’t think rote learning to some extent for younger pupils is such a bad thing. One will then have the knowledge to hand, and as one grows older, it will be useful to be able to recollect that knowledge and understand it as it is applied.
>> Here is the essence of progressive education:
>>doing nothing at all, or doing something
>>that’s intellectually perverted...
2+2=5
3*4=11
N.E.A.=L.I.F.E.R.
Learn another language by age 5, and even if you forget, you can learn many, many others.
Bring back traditional America and you bring back traditional education
Two plus dos am fo.
-PJ