Obama Lauds Korea’s Education of Children
AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
NNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Are you kidding me?! Who the hell is informing this guy. While I do admire the drive to educate students (young and old) here in Korea, I do not admire the way it's done and most Korean don't either. Kids learn almost entirely in after (or before) school programs. Do we really want U.S. education to be outsourced to institutes? I'd home school rather than subject my kids to that.
Additionally, he's a fool to think that education is will or should look the same in 10/20/30 years. I don't want my kid in school longer. Schools can't fix the problem, schools ARE the problem (to paraphrase Reagan). I want more efficiency and flexibility in education. I don't want 2 months a year of testing and test prep.
I want my son to have an excellent foundation in maths, sciences, history, civics, and English as well as have the opportunity to pursue interests and healthy living through electives such as art, autos, phys ed, and more. You say that takes more time than they have in school now....DUH! Be a freakin' parent and participate in your kids' education. Do it yourself or get them help. BUT, DO NOT extend the school year. I don't want to give the school more time to mess up my kid's education.
The real problem with American education is that society and families only pay lip service to it.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
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I completely agree, Dan-o. My husband (who works for the state Dept of Education - ironic) and I agree that if they lengthen the school day/year (and perhaps even if they don't), we are going the way of homeschooling. Punishing the attentive, involved, informed students and families for the nonsuccesses of the rest - what's next? Is there no childhood left? Our daughter is in kindergarten and comes home at 3:30 completely exhausted. She is reading independently, learning math facts, and learning about scarcity (I don't think I had that concept until high school economics)! Let's see, kindergarten in 1977 involved building blocks, finger jello, "The Wheels on the Bus," and naps with the occasional "Best Rester Award." And I think I still became a relatively high-functioning contributor to society. I am sick and tired of the bar being set ten inches off the floor and the expecation that my kids will patiently remain a part of the herd that holds them back. My daughter actually has a class called "Enrichment," which is the school's meager attempt to throw a bone at the kids who need more challenge. It's forty minutes out of a seven hour day. That is supposed to make a difference? How about I, as a parent, take on the task of challenging and inspiring my kids before the school system completely squashes what natural motivation and love of learning my kids bring when they show up at school. My husband is a strong believer in differentiated instruction; until our schools shift in that direction, the educational environment will always cater to the lowest common denominator. A longer school day and/or year will not change that. It's not the amount of time - it's the focused education of each individual student that will result in success. Whew. Sorry about the rant!
ReplyDeleteDon't apologize. It was a beautiful rant :)
ReplyDeleteI very much agree. While I do believe that pushing kids academically a little more than we were in '77, I (1) don't really see the schools doing this effectively and (2)don't believe that this should come at the cost of fun, physical, and expressive activities (all can be done).
Schools these days spend more more time on test prep (on average) than on any 1 topic in the curriculum. They are primarily operating on shoveling the information in as fast as possible, then testing the hell out of the kids on their retention of useless information, as any programmer will tell you, "Garbage In, Garbage Out."
I'm not really against a longer school year. I'm actually all for it. My point is that I don't trust the schools to do the job (generalizing here because some are excellent and some rebel teachers are excellent at those schools which are not). I trust myself, more than them.
Differentiated instruction on the small-scale, teacher by teacher, is probably practiced more than any of us can tell. How deeply and effectively is also an unknown. As a curricular and organizational model, it's nearly unheard of. There is so much push-back on this from the public and old guard academics (and many teachers) in addition to it being wholly underdeveloped in regards to techniques and materials. Unfortunately, the new administration has not signaled that it's willing to make the changes needed to move into this direction. They are focusing on extended hours and school years, as well as more performance pay (or, do more test prep so they do better on tests pay) and charter schools (some bright spots here, but not scalable on a country-wide level).
Ok, time to do work that I'm paid for :)
Dan
If we could get away from pampering children so as not to damage their "self esteem" we could actually separate them into groups or classes based on their abilities. But no, that might damage their little psyches! And make them repeat a grade? Heaven forbid! Poor little things would be scarred for life. NOT. Frankly, i think self esteem needs to be built by the individual based on their accomplishments, not handed to them by society, their teachers, or anyone else.
ReplyDeleteHi Linda,
ReplyDeleteI agree that age-based tracking is the wrong approach. My comment got quite long, so I made it a post. Check it out here.