I often
start these posts with a question, for I seem to have far more questions than I
have answers, but this time is different.
I don’t have any more answers, but I do have some solid opinions on our
educational systems and the desire to share them for what that is worth.
First, I
wish we would stop comparing our test scores with Finland, Norway, or
Japan. We are not those countries, and
our students are not their students. For
the most part, these are countries with a single predominate ethnicity where
all the families, all the teachers, and all the administrators share a common
expectation. We are a multi-cultural
society that is striving each day to accommodate the wants, desires, and
choices of a plethora of races, religions, and social beliefs. We will never achieve the standards they set
because of the educational choices we make.
Besides, Japan has a much higher suicide rate among students that don’t
meet expectations, do we really want that?
At the end of the day it has nothing to do with how much or little we
pay our teachers, or how many hours a week and weeks in a year we send our kids
to school. The belief we can be number
one is both delusional and unnecessary. According
to Aristotle, the purpose of education is to prepare the young to support the
state. The question we should ask is are
the children being prepared to meet the needs of America? To meet the needs of America do we need debt
ridden college graduates fixing our sinks, building our roads, raising our skyscrapers,
or building our homes? No. What about the
future mandates college? Nothing!
Next is the
issue of centralization versus local control.
As the federal and state governments control the funding for education
they exert greater and greater control of the curriculum. Setting demands and expectations that are
based on studies, formulas, and personal experiences of the people writing the
rules. I’ve observed that most of these
rule making efforts are based on the issues and needs of urban school systems
where the political and educational experts seem to reside. How well these translate to rural areas is at
best questionable. Each rule, each
demand, each expectation takes away from the local teacher and administrator's
ability to customize the curriculum to suit the community. Years ago schools could start and end based
on the growing seasons, so the kids could help on the family farm. Not that we should still be doing that, but
there are times when some district might benefit by starting later or ending
earlier, but again federal funding demands a certain number of days or they
lose their funding.
Training or
education. When I was a Captain in the
USAF, I trained young officers on the art of aerial navigation, or how to
operate the systems on the aircraft to successfully complete the mission
requirements for the aircraft they would fly.
We taught them basic dead reckoning, celestial navigation, low level
navigation, and global navigation using pressure and GRID. This was training – we didn’t expect them to
develop new theories, to think independently, or to translate one technique
into a new method. We wanted them to
know how to efficiently and effectively use the tools we provided. Education, on the other hand, strives to
provide the basic tools so people can solve complex problems and understand
complex relationships. Both forms of
learning are absolutely critical, but our educational experts seem to have
forgotten that. Drivers Education is
life critical training, just as are Home Economics and Auto Shop. The study of humanities is, in my opinion,
absolutely vital education we seem to sacrifice for this idea that Science,
Technology, Engineering and Math are all we need to know.
Speaking of training
and education, whatever happened to the idea we should worry about the whole
person, mind, body, and soul? Oh right,
we can’t worry about the soul because we are just animals and don’t have a
soul, or it is confused by the concept of religion. We shouldn’t worry about the body because
each of us is unique and may not feel comfortable with exercise. That leaves only the mind to worry about, but
of the three isn’t that the most fragile and dependent on the other two? So if we forsake training in those other
areas don’t we degrade education in the last?
Children
have a lot of energy. We now demand they
sit still in class for long periods to learn whatever is being taught. My memories of grade school, granted they are
now over 50 years old, seem to focus on the recesses much more than the class
work. I read today about a school in
Texas that has mandated four recess breaks a day, totaling 1 hour each day,
where the kids are allowed to vent that energy.
I think this is a great idea, and it should be the standard at least
through middle school.
Competition
in education is a good thing. Heck,
competition is the engine of life. We
have created a generation of youth who think they deserve trophies for showing
up. The animal kingdom doesn’t work that
way, why do we? I read an interesting
thing on Reddit today (my first experience with Reddit by the way), where a
group of interns thought the company dress code was too strict so they decided
to petition the company with their demands for a less formal set of
standards. All but one of the interns
signed the petition and all but one of the interns was immediately released and
told to pack up and go home. The person writing
this on Reddit was one of the interns released and thought it terribly unfair
of the company since she needed the work experience since she had never worked
before. It seems to be a “Special
Snowflake” world out there that we of my generation have created, but now we
want to eliminate all recognition of superior performance so no one has their
feeling hurt. Are our educational administrators
and parents’ crazy? Sorry I said I didn’t
have any questions so let me rephrase that.
If we do eliminate recognition of excellence -- we will destroy this
country faster than either of the two Presidential candidates can.
1 comment:
Paying attention...aren't you?
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