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 Education Reform |
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| Pat Clark | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sunday, September 06, 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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All the hoopla surrounding President Obama’s speech to school children got me thinking about education. I hope to stimulate some discussion here, from our wisdom (?) of age, and our own experience. Many of The Daily Recap readers are former teachers, and all of us are former students, so there must be some insight out there, Let’s hear it! Here are my thoughts, radical though they may be. As has been said before, the country, meaning we, the people, has an interest in educating our children in the basics, a literate electorate being necessary for self government. Young children are unable to know what these basics are or why they are necessary, and so must be required to attempt to learn. While still young, this is not a problem. Those who cannot learn can be exempted, but all others must be given the opportunity to learn these basics. The basics include not only the three R’s, but also Logic, the most neglected. These must be taught completely and continuously until a reasonable proficiency is attained. Without a strong foundation in these, no further education is possible. No student should be allowed to slow down a class or to dominate one by going too fast – instead there should be classes available at the pace the student can handle. After that, we should provide an introduction to Medicine, History, Civics and Law, General Science, Mechanical and Computer Science, and the Arts and probably other subjects. These, too, should be required of all able students. That’s it for Primary Education. At this point, students may drop out, and should be encouraged to do so. It seems to me this can be accomplished, for most, before a person is a teen. A Secondary Education should be provided to ALL interested students, whether previous drop-outs or not, at any age, studying only what they’re interested in, for as long as they wish. As their interest waxes and wanes, as it will, they may drop out of a subject and into another at will. Its completely self-directed, subject to outside influences, such as parents, civic leaders, business leaders, peer pressure, or whatever. Schools of increasing complexity in any subject should be available, for free, even though it may not be local, for lack of enough students. (College, if you will.) Well-rounded education is fine, if the student is interested in being well-rounded, but a complete waste otherwise. The goals of Secondary Education should be to provide the resources for students to learn. What are those resources? Teachers, books, computers, buildings, time, and transportation are obvious. But there are others, I’m sure. People of all ages, from birth to death, are candidates for learning; but only those who are interested in learning at that time should be present in the school. Here again, no student should be allowed to slow down a class or to dominate one by going too fast – instead there should be classes or self-study available at the pace the student can handle. Some people, however, cannot learn some subjects, or cannot avoid being disruptive in a school. These people must be accounted for in any society – a non-academic path is required after Primary Education has done all it can do. If they cannot read or cannot sit still long enough to learn, for example, it’s a shame, but there are things they can do, and they should be provided with reasonable support for them to be able to learn to do those things. Schools should not be considered as, or used as, child-sitters. If a Primary student is not learning, for whatever reason, special accommodations can be provided, at the State’s expense. In no event, should “regular” students be deprived of their education by another student who is not interested in being there, or who is incapable of learning. Secondary students of that sort should be dismissed.
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