Hey! Teacher! Leave Them Kids Alone!
Jun. 29th, 2006 04:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jamesqCaution: Unorganized ramblings ahead.
A few years ago, some friends and I were discussing education. One friend pointed out that to fix education, we had to know what we wanted education to do. We had to ask what education was supposed to accomplish.
I've asked myself this and I have a few answers.
Point two and four are really about the so-called three Rs of education: reading, 'riting and 'rithmatic (and whoever coined that phrase was either a moron or had a well-tuned sense of irony. Maybe even both). Point two is of course what the child needs and point four is about what society needs from the child's future adult self. They can overlap, but don't need to. Your ability to read, write and do sums is certainly needed by both. Conversely, a consumer-driven society like ours might not want children to have skeptical skills.
A West Virginia mining town might decide that high school is there to produce more miners and anything more then that is a waste of time. Or worse, it might serve to falsely raise hopes to people who are likely to be trapped in a bad situation for their entire lives. That's why I think point three is important - there'll always be folks to fit that mold, but you don't want that fact to stop the few rough diamonds from standing out. Watch this movie to understand why this is so important.
By the end of elementary school, the kids should be able to read a newspaper, write a letter, do basic research in a library, complete "four-function" math without a calculator and use that ability to do basic bookkeeping. Their life-skills should include the ability to cook a healthy meal and clean up after themselves having finished the cooking. They should be able to use a hammer, saw, screwdriver, scissors, glue, needle. Home economics and shop should be taught to both genders equally, because young women need to know how to fix things exactly as much as young men need to know how to cook things. Basic hygiene, nutrition and exercise should be understood in so-called "gym" class. They should understand how there bodies function. They should know the basics of how their government operates.
For recess, give them some equipment to play with, then stay out of their way. Give the kids a chance to be kids without adult interference. Keep an eye on them though so it doesn't devolve into Lord of the Flies territory.
Junior high would refine these early abilities, and also give them a taste of high school and the choice they'll have to make then. Having graduated from high school a student should be able to formulate a hypothesis and design an experiment. They should be able to operate a computer on the internet for research. They should be familiar with the existence of cultural touchstones like Shakespeare. They should be able to design and build simple structures and be able to function without adult supervision in the unlikely event of no further education (i.e. if they drop out). They should know where their initial aptitudes lay.
High school would have three streams. One would be the technical/scientific stream leading to the "hard" professions. The next would be the trades stream, leading to the trades naturally enough. The final would be the liberal arts leading to the "soft" professions. I think our society tends to devalue tradesmen to it's detriment. Europe does this sort of thing much better then we do. Students would not stay exclusively in their stream - it would be a concentration only.
I'm glossing over or ignoring a lot of things in this short stream-of-consciousness blog. Things like the learning disabled, or the the trouble makers or the super-smart kids who need to be given things to do or they'll be bored. But we need to get things right for the base case before we have a hope of helping these others. I'm also ignoring the huge amount of inertia in the system that would resist any changes for good or ill.
I'm neither a teacher, nor am I up on the current philosophy of teaching. I'd be interested in hearing from actual teachers how this gibes with current theories.
A few years ago, some friends and I were discussing education. One friend pointed out that to fix education, we had to know what we wanted education to do. We had to ask what education was supposed to accomplish.
I've asked myself this and I have a few answers.
- It socialize children so that they know how to behave as adults.
- It should give them the tools to function in society.
- It should provide them with the opportunity to do better.
- it should provide society with the future citizens that society needs.
Point two and four are really about the so-called three Rs of education: reading, 'riting and 'rithmatic (and whoever coined that phrase was either a moron or had a well-tuned sense of irony. Maybe even both). Point two is of course what the child needs and point four is about what society needs from the child's future adult self. They can overlap, but don't need to. Your ability to read, write and do sums is certainly needed by both. Conversely, a consumer-driven society like ours might not want children to have skeptical skills.
A West Virginia mining town might decide that high school is there to produce more miners and anything more then that is a waste of time. Or worse, it might serve to falsely raise hopes to people who are likely to be trapped in a bad situation for their entire lives. That's why I think point three is important - there'll always be folks to fit that mold, but you don't want that fact to stop the few rough diamonds from standing out. Watch this movie to understand why this is so important.
By the end of elementary school, the kids should be able to read a newspaper, write a letter, do basic research in a library, complete "four-function" math without a calculator and use that ability to do basic bookkeeping. Their life-skills should include the ability to cook a healthy meal and clean up after themselves having finished the cooking. They should be able to use a hammer, saw, screwdriver, scissors, glue, needle. Home economics and shop should be taught to both genders equally, because young women need to know how to fix things exactly as much as young men need to know how to cook things. Basic hygiene, nutrition and exercise should be understood in so-called "gym" class. They should understand how there bodies function. They should know the basics of how their government operates.
For recess, give them some equipment to play with, then stay out of their way. Give the kids a chance to be kids without adult interference. Keep an eye on them though so it doesn't devolve into Lord of the Flies territory.
Junior high would refine these early abilities, and also give them a taste of high school and the choice they'll have to make then. Having graduated from high school a student should be able to formulate a hypothesis and design an experiment. They should be able to operate a computer on the internet for research. They should be familiar with the existence of cultural touchstones like Shakespeare. They should be able to design and build simple structures and be able to function without adult supervision in the unlikely event of no further education (i.e. if they drop out). They should know where their initial aptitudes lay.
High school would have three streams. One would be the technical/scientific stream leading to the "hard" professions. The next would be the trades stream, leading to the trades naturally enough. The final would be the liberal arts leading to the "soft" professions. I think our society tends to devalue tradesmen to it's detriment. Europe does this sort of thing much better then we do. Students would not stay exclusively in their stream - it would be a concentration only.
I'm glossing over or ignoring a lot of things in this short stream-of-consciousness blog. Things like the learning disabled, or the the trouble makers or the super-smart kids who need to be given things to do or they'll be bored. But we need to get things right for the base case before we have a hope of helping these others. I'm also ignoring the huge amount of inertia in the system that would resist any changes for good or ill.
I'm neither a teacher, nor am I up on the current philosophy of teaching. I'd be interested in hearing from actual teachers how this gibes with current theories.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Us evil teachers.
Date: 2006-08-14 09:25 pm (UTC)Anyhow since I'm back at work now and you can't keep a political scientist quiet about anything here's my 2.12 cents worth.
Point one is the general point of modern elementary education (K-6). It is to teach the basic skill they will need to:
a) promote further learning (so reading, writing, basic arithmetic, some basic study habits).
b) socialize them, so that the can interact with other kids and adults in society.
In this sense these two things address your first two points, with the exception that nowadays you need more than elementary education to get by in our society.
Moving to Junior High or Middle School, the framework that is learned in elementary is filled in with more information as the children advance in their cognitive development. Unfortunately, most children don't reach the abstract thinking stage until about grade eight or nine, so this limits some of the system's ability to teach critical thinking skills until then.
High school is where, in our modern society, we actually teach the so called field skills that will let them find jobs, go on further in education or what have you.
I would agree that we short change the trades. There must be better streaming in high school, though there also must be a way to change streams from academic to trade and vice versa, because some children may be miss-streamed. To eliminate the stigma attached to the trades is a societal problem that can't be successfully addressed in the school system.
Again just my view of things as someone who puts food on the table by being in the teaching profession.