Thank you. Not all of them are particularly original ideas though.
I would like elucidation on point 8.
Do you think that state (public) schools should be secular? If not, why?
State schools should be secular, oops. I should have been more specific.
But I believe that people should also have the option of sending their child to a private religous school, or as we all know my opinions on this, homeschool them and include religion in their schooling if they want.
The problem with private education is that it creates entrenched wealth in the long run. Consider Eton in the UK. It is enormously expensive. It performs relatively poorly, especially in comparison to the better state and grammar schools. Yet the connections that are established there ensure that a fairly mediocre student may end up at Oxford or Cambridge. Of all the students that I studied with the publicly (in the UK the term means something completely different, it identifies a non-selective private school) educated ones were by far the weakest. How is that meritocratic?
I think it actually goes along with a larger issue, which is that, IMO, the wealth is often so generational, that people like my family never have the chance at all. I am bitter, admittedly, at the attorneys that are sorrounding my cube, in their offices, that never had to work a day to get through college, law school, etc. That had every chance handed to them, while I had to fight for the chances. But that opens up a whole other can of worms, should things be made to be equal (which I am not too educated about, but would this be communism?) or should the people who worked really hard 5 generations ago be enough?
Those thoughts are not all well formed, and are a bit of a bitter rant.
But I still think that removing the choices is not the way to go.
Good for you wondering1
Korrigan - why do you think public education is not entirely a natural idea?
I know a reality of experiencing a good education - an education with some fall backs and I know personally the experience of a bad education.
Honestly, I am gonna have to get my research out on this one, and I am at work and do not have it handy. I will do my best to put it into words, but it may not be as well formed.
Basically, in the "natural world" a child is taught by their parents, by their grandparents, by older siblings, by other people in the tribe or village, but it is not a case of sending your child away for 8-10 hours and hoping for the best. Your child would possibly leave for a smaller period of time with one of said persons, and then would return to you, the parent, to talk about their lessons and you would give your input, etc. It was a much more proactive thing. Does that make sense?
As far as the reality of it goes, it all depends on the kid. So I think it will be great for some, and not so great for others. The system seems weird to me, and again I need the research to back me up on this but do not have it in front of me (I am at the office) but the current school system that I have dealt with really works on the "train your children to work in a factory" mentality.
I wish I was processing better, but my darn kitten kept me up half the night. He is very infant like. Yawn.
Korrigan, we were typing at the same time, I guess... LOL
That we are. LOL!
Yes, I was searching for a better word, but we are on the same page. Seriously, get the book I am ranting about, it was amazing to me. Family Matters, by Guterson, David (I think).
Are you at work Korrigan?
Yep, at work, at my office, where I am blessed, currently, to have minimal work. It always makes me nervous, like maybe they do not need me, maybe I am not valuable, but I sure hop to it when they do need me. I love my job.
Today the Olympic torch is going through town and the whole place is a mess because of it. So funny, I live in a big city and stay in half the time because of tourists, events, and protests.
Free Tibet!
Yep, Free Tibet, but at the moment, just free poor Korrigan who just wants to take the subway and get back and forth from work in order to fetch her child before they start charging me $1.00 a minute at afterschool care. Selfishness at its finest. Giggle.
I don't think I said that state education is natural, did I?
Nope, you said you thought it was an excellent idea.
I said it was not natural.
No. I think honestjohn may have misread my original post. I am aware.
My opinion?
I think that it is fairly natural. State schools are today the closest approximation to the tribal group. The problem arises where most anthropologists say “Well, that tribe would have been inclusive. People would not have divided themselves into families. Just look at the palaeontology/archaeology.” etc. People just don't seem to be able to accept that, for whatever reason, because monogamy and the nuclear family are so entrenched in the occident. In that sense, then, the state school comprises a community of teachers and learners. The great difference is that you have one tutor teaching say, 10 or 15 pupils. It's scale. In an evolutionary sense? It's logical and relatively natural. Admittedly the institutions themselves are man-made...but if you consider the community as being macrocosmic of the tribe, and that knowledge is being diffused...I don't see as to why it's so unnatural.
I think it's far more natural than, say, consumerism or capitalism.
I think if it were approached more that way, it would work better. As it is, the way that I see the people in the US living today, school is often a very "hands off" place where they send their kids, the kids do their work for 8-10 hours, return to them, and the next day, the pattern repeats. This is a failure of the society as it is today, right? Most families have two working parents, the kids are in a before school and/or after school care program so that the parents can put in their time 8-5 or so, and by the time the parents pick up the kids at 6 pm and get them home, you eat dinner at 7 pm and the kids are in bed at 8 pm and when do you get to be a parent. For an hour? Wait, they need a bath time somewhere in there. You barely have time to talk to them at all. And the employers will not allow you to come in earlier, and even if they did, who would take your child to school? Some parents are able to spend more time in the schools, but it is few and far between. Again, those are the parents who choose public school so that Mom can stay home, or that choose public school as a principle rather than as the best choice for their kids, as the private school, which they could afford, could teach their kids better, as they have more resources.
The unnatural part is that the parents have very little to do with it. They wish they could, but you cannot survive well in this world and accomplish what you need to and have only one parent working.
Does that make sense?
(And I KNOW that some families are able to achieve the better end of this, but not most, that I see.)
Maybe we need a new thread.
We need a new thread. Blushing....my fault.
Korrigan, you and I disagree, I see from a more thorough read thru.. I think education (if state run) should be, must be secular. I don't think there is anything wrong with secular, many of the human races natural lofty ideals of fairness etc., run parallel to religious tenets - of course, a parent must alway have the inherent right for their kid to be there or not to be there - and a parent can always teach religion(s) to a child (I would say, I hope they would!) To be or not to be, that is the question!
Oh no, I think state schools should be secular. Totally. Separate that church and state! I am sorry if I misstated.
But I think that you should have the right to school your children in a religious private school if you like, or at home however you choose, as long as the education is an adequate one!
10.Children should be streamed according to ability. This need only apply to academics. Children are free to move up or down a set, depending on how they are performing. This would mean that the subject matter and teaching would both be consonant with the child's ability.
Thoughts?
I worry about this one. Separatism based on ability - also feeds into heirachachial thinking - classrooms should express diversity in a way reflects and promotes the acceptance of diversity of societal groups.
I wonder, though, if that is not a "necessary evil" in order to keep the kids thriving and learning at their own levels. Perhaps if it were done regularly and with no stigma attached as it was the "norm" it could work. It would be a much more "free" school environment. Like, you are really great at english but no so great at math, ok, well you can hop over to Classroom 8 at 10 am for your math, and over to Classroom 6 at 1 pm for your English, as all the children ran to different classes, depending on their abilities? To be reassessed regularly to see where they should be?
Just a thought...
How important is
a. the quality of the school in learning versus
b. how hard the student works and
c. the student's non-school environment
in what the student actually achieves?
I suspect if students don't achieve, part of the problem is that they are not working hard enough. No pain no gain.
If I could kick you square in the bottom for this statement I would.
My daughter works so hard she cries when she tries to read. She has been hearing how stupid she is and has been fully aware of how behind the other kids she is since mid-kindergarten.
She has an awful lot of pain, but I am not seeing the gain.
This signifies difference. I should imagine that your daughter is intelligent. I should imagine that she is not receiving the help that she needs. I have wondered as to whether there should be different classes for different children, and that these classes should correspond to their 'learning styles'. Thoughts?
She is so incredibly smart. It has been so funny, since I have told people that she was getting help from special education services, they keep saying "but she is so smart."
She just learns things differently. She is getting help from the school, but it is a small portion of her time there. She is not the only one who has these same issues. In her class of 20, 5 kids are in the special ed program.
I do not believe that it would ever really be possible to get all the kids what they need while they are in the public school system. They are all so different.
Korrigan, my husband and I are part of a "freinds of different learners" parents /professionals group. Do you have one of these groups near you? It is these kinds of groups that will be the answer - a sort of grass roots - movement for the eventual acceptance that some peopl just learn and act differently... not that we are against making the lives of our children improve, but acceptance all the same...
I can certainly research that. I run up against some time issues that are pretty severe. And it would have to be all me, as my hubby does not do things like that.
I am apologizing for the unintended slight against your daughter and my prejudiced imagination that a lot of (disproportionately inner city) students are not working hard enough in school at the middle and high school levels. I am beginning to hate hearing about student achievement so much I talk to the TV set, "work the kids".
Thank you for the apology. Honestly, I think that a lot of kids do not work hard. But I think a lot of it is borne of frustration that they do not fit the "mold" that public school requires. Even if they work hard, they still fail. Add to that, that many parents do not know how to fight the system, and you have a huge mess.