Posted by
Waski_the_Squirrel on Friday, May 30, 2008 11:24:38 AM
A professor from a northeastern college has described for us what happens to the
student who is pushed into college without preparation. Not everyone is ready for college work. Some will never be ready. Students need options. This has been the thrust of my short series on
leaving no child behind. Not all students can or even want to go to college.
Why School?
We send students to school to prepare them to be successful adults. School isn't about creating happy children. It isn't about job training. It is about teaching basic knowledge and culture so that students can join America as citizens. It is also about teaching the skills needed to succeed in life and to improve one's condition if desired.
Slave owners in America's south kept their slaves from learning to read. By keeping the slaves ignorant it was possible to keep them from bettering themselves and thus easier to control. This is a desirable goal for slave owners or dictators or other such situations. We might imagine a place where the "peasants" are not taught to read. The peasant cleaning my floor can operate equipment from pictures. By that argument, how much education would really be needed. Such a school is depicted very well in the movie
Fahrenheit 451. (The book did not depict the school so well.) In this school we listen to children parroting empty phrases. We teach children to read so that they can learn things for themselves.
America is a land of "free men, not slaves," to quote the old song. We trust our citizens. In return, we expect responsibility from them. Knowledge is needed to be responsible. History, literature, science, math, and art are all part of that knowledge. Until our own experience can teach us, we must rely on the experience and the knowledge of others. I still do. I have no experience with city life. I rely on other people's experience to understand city life as they write about it or make movies about it.
School Structure
My vision for a school is, in many ways, quite traditional. In some ways quite revolutionary. I will outline it today and flesh it out later.
- As Kelly Flynn points out, students are responsible for their own education. This is where the rubber hits the road. There are things schools can do to help students to take responsibility, but ultimately, this is the area schools cannot touch.
- Up to about 8th grade, I believe in a common education. This goes all the way back to the one-room schoolhouse. This is also the time when students who are behind or weak need to be pulled into additional tutoring to catch them up. Negative feelings toward school often stem from a lack of ability.
- Beginning with freshman year, students should be given more choice. This is where they may start taking some vocational courses or some more advanced courses. However, these students are also immature and likely to change their minds. This age is too early to lock them into a career.
- Beginning with junior year, students should be making real choices. Some will choose the academic curriculum as a foundation for college. Others will choose practical work experience. A student who wants to be a mechanic should start some real work experience. He may still be taking academic courses, but a structured internship would be much more useful that filling the day with "fluff" courses.
I'll flesh all of this out in my next entry.