more obama, same old nonsense
news has it that our illustrious president has come up with a way to catch our lagging students up with pretty much everyone in the world. he has put forth a suggestion to lengthen the school year, as if longer is better when it comes to education.
as if more of a bad thing is good. as if substandard times substandard equals substantive. as if spending more time, mopre money, and more resources has paid any dividends thus far in public education.
in fact, public education may be the only industry that makes more money the more it fails.
how about this: try teaching kids instead of wasting precious time and squandering scarce resources trying to indoctrinate them into political correctness. imagine how much more math kids could learn if they didn't have to learn not to subtract because it hurts people's feelings. i wonder how much more reading kids could do if they didn't have to attend assemblies on embracing bobby's 3 daddies. could teachers have more time to plan exciting and engaging lessons if every word did not have to be censored in fear of Offending some protected class?
how about this: make education about education instead of indoctrination. or at least avoid momentary/transient fads like sex ed for kindergardeners and ethical relativism for middle schoolers. maybe we should put more emphasis on actually using the hours that children are already held captive by mostly boring and ineffective teachers (who can often be hamstringed into being boring and ineffective by having to teach to the mid level of mediocrity instead of being encouraged to be innovative and inspiring). maybe we should figure out why our system isn't working, rather than assuming that we just don't do enough of this poor tecahing...
if a company turned out substandard widgets, would the CFO propose that they should just make more? if a family has their children taken away by social services for neglect and abandonement should they just have more kids so they can do better? will they beat the odds that way? if i am burning batch after batch of cookies should i just keep putting more in the oven, or cook them longer??? perhaps i should adjust the temperature of the oven or check the recipe to find out that i forgot the margarine...
the point is that public education needs to be re-evaluated and re-designed, not just lengthened and dragged out.
but what do i know? i'm just a right wing wacko.
and, by the way, i homeschool.
as if more of a bad thing is good. as if substandard times substandard equals substantive. as if spending more time, mopre money, and more resources has paid any dividends thus far in public education.
in fact, public education may be the only industry that makes more money the more it fails.
how about this: try teaching kids instead of wasting precious time and squandering scarce resources trying to indoctrinate them into political correctness. imagine how much more math kids could learn if they didn't have to learn not to subtract because it hurts people's feelings. i wonder how much more reading kids could do if they didn't have to attend assemblies on embracing bobby's 3 daddies. could teachers have more time to plan exciting and engaging lessons if every word did not have to be censored in fear of Offending some protected class?
how about this: make education about education instead of indoctrination. or at least avoid momentary/transient fads like sex ed for kindergardeners and ethical relativism for middle schoolers. maybe we should put more emphasis on actually using the hours that children are already held captive by mostly boring and ineffective teachers (who can often be hamstringed into being boring and ineffective by having to teach to the mid level of mediocrity instead of being encouraged to be innovative and inspiring). maybe we should figure out why our system isn't working, rather than assuming that we just don't do enough of this poor tecahing...
if a company turned out substandard widgets, would the CFO propose that they should just make more? if a family has their children taken away by social services for neglect and abandonement should they just have more kids so they can do better? will they beat the odds that way? if i am burning batch after batch of cookies should i just keep putting more in the oven, or cook them longer??? perhaps i should adjust the temperature of the oven or check the recipe to find out that i forgot the margarine...
the point is that public education needs to be re-evaluated and re-designed, not just lengthened and dragged out.
but what do i know? i'm just a right wing wacko.
and, by the way, i homeschool.
posted by BlogBlond @ 8:48 AM
1 Comments:
At Sunday, October 03, 2010 12:13:00 AM,
Kelly said…
Or, um, he could pony up the $$ for more teachers to promote smaller class size. Longer school year = VERY bad. Nothing to be gained there. The only way the sinking ship of American education is going to be saved is by overhauling the system.
Have you read John Taylor Gatto?
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