I educated my kids at home so they are ready for the subject at school and have no problem passing. I also teach them trades and sciences to help them be better prepared. I didn't have that support growing up because my parents didn't finish junior high..Separating the kids from parents, no thanks, no need to institutionalize them.
My parents same as yours...uneducated old farmers from Germany. Whatever I achieved it was my own doing and looking back today I can see how I might have had 50% more potential if I had involved parents. But today a huge portion of our kids don't have parental involvement or environments conducive to learning and studying and I don't see this changing. Which is why a good option for these kids is to be able to spend 24/7 in an environment not only for education, but also for nutrition and socializing...
One of the problems is that fads are so popular in education. I know fadism happens everywhere but this discussion is about education so I'll keep it there. I am an adult educator (second career). I see everyday the failures of our (this is in Australia) education system. I have adults in my class who can barely read and write and you can forget numeracy. I talk to these people, give them diagnostic tests, ask them if they knew they had specific learning difficulties and the answer is invariably no, no-one bothered to find out why they couldn't read or write or add simple numbers. I suspect most of their teachers didn't have the time to do anything about it. I can only go from what I'm told but here it seems teachers in all grades are buried in paperwork and accountability and all the rest of it that has nothing to do with education and is all about managerialism. Shakespeare said let's kill all the lawyers first, I'd change that to education bureaucrats. But the managerialism is in response to parental demand. It's understandable that parents want standardised tests, even if they aren't much use. We have something called NAPLAN here - I think we caught it from the States - which has absolutely corrupted primary school education. And I blame our politicians for this one. The problem with fads is that a new idea comes along and everyone plunges into it uncritically. I think the truth is that educational methods are a mix suited for the context. Take the fight between constructivism and direct instruction. In my experience with adults, both are useful but have to be applied in the right situation. I like to keep up with educational theory and I think research - particularly by educational psychologist researchers - is a great thing but I've learned from my own experience not to be bound by the latest theory, take from it what I can use, adapt it, be informed by it, but handle with care.
Agree. But until there is universal pressure from parents to do so, it will never happen. The reason it's still being used in other parts of the world (Asia, mostly), is that the parents will accept nothing less. 99.9% of such parents have high expectations of education, and will do whatever it takes to support their child and the school system to this end. What percentage of American parents have high expectations of education, and are willing to do whatever it takes to support it? If it's anything like my country, that figure would probably be no more than 80% even in the 'good' areas. And 80% of that 80% are migrants or the children of migrants. In the worst areas, it'd be less than 10%.
You simply can't take that approach to education without damaging the entire thing. There is never going to be enough resources or teacher time to accommodate little differences, and we should not really be even trying to do so. It's on parents (and ultimately, kids) to adjust their approach and attitude to the material and how it's delivered, not the other way around. One teacher, 30 students.
The most pressing issues in Western public education is a terrible failure of parents to take it seriously. I'm not sure how a 25 year old is going to add anything of value to that picture.
That would be because they spend as much time on non core material, as they do on core material. And I deliberately use a lower case c in 'core', because I'm referring to Literacy, Numeracy, Science, and History. Sport is fine (and should be compulsory) but NOTHING else. No music, art, drama, sociology, life skills, or anything remotely wishy-washy, philosophical, or 'recreational' should be in our public schools. All of that stuff is personal, and has nothing to do with academics. Our teachers should be teaching, not parenting.
PC wasn't how Taiwan ended up with the highest standard of education in the world. They got there by NOT pandering.
The production of a citizen is the PARENTS' job, not the schools. The school simply educates that citizen. And there is nothing futile about ensuring your kids are able to earn enough to support a mortgage and a family. Failing to do so would be like the wolf mother failing to teach her cubs how to hunt. A healthy and secure income is the modern human equivalent of hunting skills.
True then I suggest keep it simple K though 6th Grade should be general education by the time they leave this stage they should know a basic amount of general knowledge think of this as the old one room schoolhouse in the olden days reading, writing, mathematics, a bit of civics and history, science and so forth. Grades 7 and 8 more focused tracking into academics or vocational subjects more but well say one 40% of ones effort and 60% the other by now a students IQ and general talents should be known and accepted and they should have some ideas on what they want to do when out of school. Then in High School build on the former have academic paths for those going to college most likely, ones for vocational skills and the classes split should be more dedicated perhaps 30% in one and 70% in the other. Ignore classes of low value for ones path a person going to college won't need lots of automotive technology classes and the vocational path won't need ample classes in English and Literature. By the time the student is out of school they should be really ready for college or ready to enter the workforce at some level. Anything else is a waste of efforts. I still wouldn't waste time of the disabled unless they can benefit from the full thirteen years of study cutting them off or do something other than the above, some and I would say many would benefit if a disabled person can leave High School a qualified coder they could go right to work or if they are very college capable be ready to go to college.
No life skills? Would you remove that from a child whose parents couldn't give a stuff about training their child to be a functioning adult? I can see the point being made about resources and time but apart from the academics and the physical I think children should benefit from formal learning of life skills if we want them to become functioning adults. It could be a good social investment.
Precisely why nothing changes...do you think it's society's problem to remove ghettoes? To resolve crime? To create every education facility with the same level of equipment and books and computers and educators? To provide every student with a secure environment? To assure every student has appropriate transportation and nutrition? Yeah right...society has no role...
Life skills are personal, not academic. Schools should not be involved in ANY of that stuff. If they weren't, we would get a much higher standard of numeracy and literacy, because more teacher time and resources would go into same. Schools teaching life skills (whose idea of life, the teacher's? see the problem?) is like schools teaching religion. It's none of their business. People need to have a close look at the absurd expectations they put upon schools. They are institutions for teaching ACADEMICS. That's all they are and all they should be.
1) no. other than to make sleeping on streets and squalor illegal. 2) crime is govt's business to punish, and the individual's business to avoid. 3) all public schools in my country are funded and resourced virtually identically, as they should be. 4) safe as in, secure from the weather, crime, and other physical threat, sure. they already are. 5) free public transport for school students already exists. nutrition is nothing to do with schools/education. SOCIETY is PEOPLE. So yes, I believe society is (PEOPLE are) responsible for themselves, and for their children.
When society allows ghetto conditions to creep into neighborhoods do you actually believe this is not a societal problem? When bullets are flying through the air, into the walls of a house, you also believe this is not a societal problem? In my country they are not! Not in my country! Many school districts charge to ride the bus. Nutrition has everything to do with learning...
The PEOPLE (society) who live in them are responsible for 'allowing' those ghetto conditions, and such PEOPLE are responsible for improving their own corner of it, or not. Bullets fly through the air as a result of PEOPLE shooting guns. PEOPLE who make irresponsible choices. The GOVT is responsible for prosecuting them. In my country, all students are entitled to free public transport to school, when they live more than a certain distance (reasonable walking distance) from school. Schools teach academics. Feeding children is the responsibility of the individual PEOPLE in their family - it has nothing to do with schools.
It's not a comeback...it is the truth...I do not agree with anything you say. It absolutely is society's problem to not allow ghetto conditions and you divert from this fact and imply people are responsible which is false because people do not have the authority to take these actions. Bullets flying through the air is also society's problem since people do not have authority to approach those firing guns. Whatever transit you have in your country has nothing to do with my country...many school districts charge for bus service...this is also a fact. It has been proven forever that kids need nutrition in order to grow and learn...a hungry or poor nutritioned kid with the side effects of hunger cannot concentrate on school work. Thanks but no thanks...
Ah but life skills can still incorporate numeracy and literacy, indeed the concepts of "numeracy" and "literacy" as opposed to mathematics and literature are contextualised in real life issues to be resolved using numeracy and literacy methods. It's some of the stuff my clients learn. And for some of them they can see purpose in method and not just abstract ideas as they encountered them in school.
SOCIETY is PEOPLE. Perhaps you'd best declare what you actually mean by SOCIETY? Are you saying GOVERNMENT? Meantime ..... Who created the ghettos? The PEOPLE living in them? Or did some outside agency come in and make them all ghetto-ish, like a sort of interior design exercise? Who is firing the guns and causing the bullets to fly around? Is it PEOPLE, or is it Govt Agents? I can only discuss my country, because it's my realty. Yes, kids need adequate nutrition. No one is arguing with that. WHOSE responsibility is it to feed children?
My wife went through it about every 4 years. Some phd consulting expert and enforcer team comes in from afar, explains why the previous five-letter acronym was entirely wrong, wrong, wrong, and that the new four-letter acronym is the answer from heaven to bring educational Utopia. The federal dept. of education should be banished from the face of the earth.
