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Barbara C.
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| Posted: Oct 30 2007 at 9:51pm | IP Logged
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My husband and I are watching the Democratic debate. They've gotten to education. And of course, it's the usual blah-blah-blah of educational reform, extending the school year, retraining teachers that you find in any political discussion of education, whether it be Democrat or Republican.
Let me translate for you: "We're going to blather on with a bunch of non-solutions to the disappointment that is compulsory education, because all of us are too blind or too scared to admit that we're re-arranging deck chairs on the educational Titanic when we really need to raze our entire method of education and rebuild it from scratch."
I told my husband that I shouldn't watch that part because it would just drive me crazy. 
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Macmom
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Raze? Yes. BUT... what would we do with all of those children in the meantime? While we were busy reorganizing the schools, they would be.... where exactly? Hanging out alone at home because Mom and Dad work? Overcrowding the day care centers? Stashed at the home of a SAH mom like me? YIKES!
Not sure what the answer is for this problem. I've been reading John Gatto lately ("Dumbing Us Down") and it seems there is no easy/ cheap/ effective solution to the government warehousing of children. Modern families depend on it. I don't think you'd get them behind closing down schools and having a period to reorganize. They would lose too much. We just had a big blow up in our school system because the school board and superintendent (very conservative types, we're blessed!) refused to implement all-day kindergarten. (Ostensibly to "teach" the little darlings more, but really to be free day care for working moms.)
And HOW could they be reorganized? Whats the solution? More teacher accountability? I don't think it's fair to base a teacher's evaluation on how well he/she can get 35 poorly-parented, literature-deprived, historically-ambivilant children to pass a standardized test. Kids come to school with too many problems to be "fixed" by the teacher. (That is why I no longer am in the profession!) Who decides the curriculum? The elites, who want to social engineer? They ARE the ones without children, so they can take jobs as teachers.
Good topic! :-) Hubby and I talk about this A LOT, as he is a public school administrator, as are 2 other dads in our homeschool group.
Peace,
Macmom
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Barbara C.
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| Posted: Nov 01 2007 at 9:17am | IP Logged
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Well, the first thing we need to do is get rid of the No Child Left Behind testing. Every teacher I talk to and every interview I read with a teacher complains about how the testing pressure interferes with their ability to teach and their students ability to learn anything of worth except how to prepare for the tests.
I know there is not easy solution to this problem, and I have read some John Taylor Gatto, too. And even if there was a mass movement to overhaul the schools many parents would freak out because it's not what "they're used to" and while they were freaking out they wouldn't bother to find out the reasoning behind each step. (I saw this in Kentucky with the Kentucky Education Reform Act; parts of the act were good in theory but weren't always applied well.)
I read a book a year or so ago about Edison schools,
Crash Course by the founder Chris Whittle. I found that the book had a lot of really good ideas that closely mirrored the social and academic positives of homeschooling. Now the Edison School concept was far from perfect (big on corporate sponsorship and testing). And I think most of the Edison schools flopped because each school system wanted to cut and slice the whole plan to whatever they felt comfortable with (usually the corporate money and the excessive testing).
If I remember correctly, some of the positives were mixed age classes, lots of free time for exploration of resources, private work spaces for kids who need a little alone time or fewer distractions, a work program where students are responsible for building maintenance and cleaning or help with tutoring younger children or administrative work, and internships and mentoring for older students.
I just really get aggravated when the political solution is more testing, more homework, more days in the school year, more years of schooling, etc. They just want to give the kids more of the same that isn't working.
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Barbara
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Macmom
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| Posted: Nov 01 2007 at 9:40am | IP Logged
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I agree! More of the same doesn't work! And test scores do not equal learning.
One of my concerns is how to attract moral, mature conservative teachers into the classroom. Face it, teaching does not pay the bills for a family. A single man or woman can get by on the salary, but not when it's the sole support of dad, mom, and kids. So many GOOD teachers are forced out once they start families. Leaving all the single/ homosexual/ childless adults to form young minds- and they are usually driven by a liberal agenda. Add to this the number of fresh-out-of-college 20-somethings who decide to teach, who still act (and party!) like they are in college, and there are so few stellar role models in the classroom! (We've had troubles around these parts with the sexual escapades of teachers- both between themselves and between teenage students and young teachers getting involved. The sexualized culture just doesn't keep that boundary very well!)
So you can design a GREAT plan to reform education, and still not have anyone to implement it in the classroom. THAT will take a major overhaul of society- and a great debate on what the purpose of education is- the role of a teacher- the importance of moral as well as academic formation. WHEW! Can we get the American people to unplug themselves long enough to think about these things? Or will the lure of anesthetizing entertainment keep us from having ANY thoughts?
I'll have to look up Crash Course.
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Mary G
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My worry is that in trying to fix the PUBLIC setting, they'll get their fingers in the private and home-learning pies   !
There's already been mutterings from Hillary and others that home-education should be stopped which would be virtually impossible but could happen and then ....
Prayers for a logical, reasonable answer for this problem -- maybe stop trying to fit a one-size fits all, all over the country, all across ethnic groups, all thru differing economic classes ....
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Barbara C.
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| Posted: Nov 01 2007 at 3:23pm | IP Logged
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Of course what I find funny is how some public schools have started "stealing" ideas form private schools. Just before I moved away from Kentucky, many of the public schools had switched to uniforms and there was one junior high having so many problems that they started segregating the sexes during class time.
Not that I want to get a in a big political thing, but I must admit I don't totally understand the Democrat anti-homeschooling position, and I'm a Democrat. That's one of my sore points.
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Barbara
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lapazfarm
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Mary G wrote:
Prayers for a logical, reasonable answer for this problem -- maybe stop trying to fit a one-size fits all, all over the country, all across ethnic groups, all thru differing economic classes .... |
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I couldn't agree more.
We all know that there is not one perfect curriculum that fits the variety of educational needs within our families. To think that there is one perfect solution for all of the children in a country is just plain ludicrous. But until our leaders realize this and stop trying to force round, square, oval and star-shaped pegs into the same triangular hole we will never have a system that works.
The only solution I see is to downsize schools, offering a wide variety of learning opportunities for children. Instead of one large local elementary, have several small ones--an arts-based school, a Montessori school, a traditional school, a classical academy, a year-round school,etc. Similar to magnet schools, but more widely available.
Some schools have begun to think this way by having smaller "academies" within the larger schools, and some charter schools are offering a bit more school choice, but it just isn't enough.
And the testing just needs to go.
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lapazfarm
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Barbara C. wrote:
Not that I want to get a in a big political thing, but I must admit I don't totally understand the Democrat anti-homeschooling position, and I'm a Democrat. That's one of my sore points. |
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As a fellow democrat I agree. I think it is just so ingrained in the party that "it takes a village" that they just refuse to see that there are cases where it doesn't!LOL! There is a difference in offering help when needed (which is a good thing and a Christian ideal) and requiring it whether needed or not, kwim?
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Mary G
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You also have to remember that the NEA (which is obviously opposed to homeschooling) is a BIG supporter of the dems ...
Another issue is the hoops that many states make folks go through if they want to teach ... even if they're proven teachers in the classroom and have the knowledge base, if they don't have the education classes (some call them "bulletin board 101") they can't get certified ... even if they're willing to take the HUGE pay cut that going from corporate to education would be!
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lapazfarm
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Both good points, Mary.
I used to be a classroom teacher and a darn good one, actually. One reason I quit was that due to NCLB my school could no longer employ me without a teaching certificate and I was not willing to go back to grad school nights for 2 years to get one. One moronic education class was all I needed to convince me it was a complete waste of my valuable family time.
So, despite the fact that for years I was a successful classroom teacher by any measure (excellent peer, student, and admin reviews, parental support, high student test scores, fundraising, grant writing, etc) I was deemed by my government no longer qualified to teach.
That's when they lost me for good.
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Mary G
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lapazfarm wrote:
Both good points, Mary.
I used to be a classroom teacher and a darn good one, actually. One reason I quit was that due to NCLB my school could no longer employ me without a teaching certificate and I was not willing to go back to grad school nights for 2 years to get one. One moronic education class was all I needed to convince me it was a complete waste of my valuable family time.
So, despite the fact that for years I was a successful classroom teacher by any measure (excellent peer, student, and admin reviews, parental support, high student test scores, fundraising, grant writing, etc) I was deemed by my government no longer qualified to teach.
That's when they lost me for good. |
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Theresa, this happened to dh too ... he has a phd in biological sciences, taught in college and then 6 years in a parochial middle school with glowing reports from his mentor teachers (who were all certified, long-term teachers) and NC wanted him to go back for 30! units of grad level education courses to be certified!
That's one of the reasons we went to Austria for 2 years! 
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Barbara C.
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I know what you all mean completely. I took education classes in college with an eye at teaching high school. I eventually quit because I was overwhelmed with double majoring (in the subject I loved, Religious Studies, and the one I had to get certified in, English) and the education classes with all their hoops.
The thing that bothered me was that I really wanted to teach and help students. I really felt that was my calling, but the hoops really bothered me. Then there were all these people in my classes who would tell you that they were just becoming teachers until they could figure out something else to do. They were able to jump through the hoops even though they really didn't care and couldn't come up with an inventive teaching method to save their lives.
In the end, it looks like I'm going to be a teacher after all. And I will only have a class of three, unless God surprises me with more students down the road. 
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SallyT
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I know what you mean, Barabara -- I was a classroom teacher first on the high-school level, then teaching college undergraduates while I was a graduate student. Sure didn't know then that what I was really preparing to do was teach my own children. Wouldn't have believed you if you'd told me.
Sadly, I think that no educational system on the planet is going to work if the family, as a system, doesn't work. By the time a child comes to kindergarten, it's too late to recoup all the years of not being read to, not being spoken to in complete sentences, not being encouraged to look at the world, or at anything but a television. . . I'm probably a terrible pessimist, and undoubtedly there are kids for whom school makes a difference, but overall, I think that nothing that goes on in the classroom can make much of an inroad on a child whose mind is an unplowed, unfertilized field.
A friend of mine who's a high school art teacher told me that last year she had told her students to go out and paint tree bark, as an exercise in texture. They all came in with paintings of branches. She said, "Well, that's nice, but I meant for you to paint the bark." Blank looks. "What's that, Mrs. X?" She ended up taking all these high-school students outside to touch the trees, because they had not ever, in fifteen or sixteen years of life, noticed before that trees have bark.
What school reorganization can possibly address that? The best teacher in the world is only as good as her students' ability and readiness to learn what she has to teach, and too many kids are coming from too-compromised home situations for the scenario to look very promising, no matter what any government program throws at it.
Sally
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Mary G
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If you read the NEA's Annual Resolutions for this year, they talk about family and its importance but then, because they can't say what a family IS, they just recommend that schools do what they can to build family stability .... !
Then a few pages later, they criticize homeschooling .... but all the hs'ers I know have extremely stable home lives because of the parental commitment to their kids!
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JenniferS
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My dh is a public school teacher. He used to be very involved in NEA. He was adamantly against hs'ing. I had to do a lot of praying to turn his heart. We finally had a tough year with dd in second grade, and he said,"Okay, do it, but don't expect me to help."
Now, he is an adamant supporter of homeschooling.(We just talked about it lastnight.) He sees a lot of sad situations at his school. Situations where kids are not put first in their families, and the schools are seen mostly as babysitters.
He used to worry a lot about socialization, but our kids do fine. Dh jokingly tells people we will hs through college, and he is pretty involved in the kids' education.
I am so sad when I read and hear such negative things about homeschooling, but I heard and believed all of those things when I was going through the "hoops" to get my education degree. It's too bad the NEA and the anti-homeschooling politicians don't take the time to really be around homeschoolers and their families.
There are times I really pray that dh will get out of public education. It's, many times, a pretty negative business.
Jen
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4Real Forums : Philosophy of Education
Topic: National Education Debate
