pendennis wrote:
Classroom education is vital. However, it can only be one part of the overall education of a child. Children start learning at birth. Parents should be reading to children and teaching them to read as soon as they're able to learn.
Kids need to be prepared at home for school. They can't be sent for education without a home base first.
We also need to change the model for education. The Dewey/Prussian model, still used, needs to abandoned in favor of the way Socrates taught. The teacher needs to be in the position of a mentor, among others, and he/she needs to be there for more than one "school year". Smaller class sizes, on the order of 5-6 students would be ideal; no more than 8. This concept comes from a person's ability to manage others. Encourage children to challenge each other in order to learn. Encourage independent research; find out just how eager they are to learn.
Eliminate the "grade" level concept. Children can't learn on an annual calendar. Some learn very quickly, others not so much. Bring in specialists in deeper subjects such as advanced math, science, history, etc. They should be subject matter experts, not necessarily teachers; and they need to be able to communicate to the student, a must. Those subjects need to be taught in the same way as the basic stuff, by ability to learn among peers. Peer-to-peer is the best way to learn.
Eliminate numeric grades for at least three years. Kids need to socialize to learn, not regurgitate "See Dick and Jane run." Grading should come later, but is essential for preparing the student for adulthood, when grading and competition are important.
Finally, privatize the entire process. Education is something that government has totally botched. Too much bureaucracy, too top-heavy, to repressing. Parents can decide just who should teach their kids, not a fat, overstaffed bureaucracy.
Classroom education is vital. However, it can onl... (
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Agreed. Especially about getting government out of the process. Education is run by politicians who have little or no knowledge of education and think every school district is just like those in Washington D.C. Thirty-five years teaching special education showed how ridiculous and onerous federal and state education bureaucracy rules are.
Have an IEP meeting? You have two hours to email the paperwork to your state Education Department (Montana - I should add that might have changed since I retired.) Reviews of how a teacher writes goals and objectives every three years. First review my goals and objectives were to long, the next review they were too short, three years later they were too long again. I quit worrying about it and wrote what made sense to me. A referral process that kept students from receiving the help they needed for a majority of the school year. Then came No Child Left Behind. Happily retirement came before Common Curriculum was rolled out. That was predicated on the idea that every community and school throughout the United State had the same needs and population. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In short, government involvement in education is really an impediment to education.
Note: I registered to comment here. I'll introduce myself in the appropriate forum.