Education Reform
4/4/10 14:48![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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talkpoliticsEducation reform. For math and science specifically (what I teach). This is, by the way, how I personally do it.
Simple stuff.
Controversial/deeper stuff:
Simple stuff.
1) Higher teacher:student ratio. I taught a class once where it was 1:32, and that is totally insane. You're not even teaching anymore, just closing your eyes and spitting ideas into the hurricane and hoping one of them hits. It should be 1:10. Kids can get the attention they need. This is the most goddamned important one there is and none of the others really matter.
2) Divide kids up by ability. That way I can teach to those ten kids in a way they can more or less all understand. That 1:32 class had high achievers, low achievers, and the whole spectrum between. The high achievers got bored and started doing crazy hijinks. The low achievers got frustrated and started paying attention to the high achievers. The mid achievers were like wtf is all this madness and got distracted.
Don't gimme no bs about "oh just let the smart kids tutor the dumb kids". No, it's not their job to help me as teacher, it's their job to learn. Let 'em do so.
3) Stop dividing kids up by age. Just like soccer clubs overseas- have them be in this or that class because it's the class they're at right now, not because they're the right age for it. That way nobody gets left behind or put in a gap between the "smart" and "stupid" tracks.
4) Emphasize to kids- "You're not stupid, you're lazy. Work harder and you'll get it." Giving them that sense of personal efficacy makes them feel they can own their performance. Internal locus of control.
5) Hands-on work. Less focus on memorization, vocabulary words, worksheets. Science classes should be like 60% lab. Math should be like 60% practice. And fuck homework. You need ten minutes to teach the procedure, then let 'em DO IT for the rest of the class.
Controversial/deeper stuff:
1) Less time at school. It shouldn't be a full time occupation. There should be more time for community involvement, sports, getting a part time job, getting out in the world. Why? Because that's where they'll apply all that shit they learned at school.Social reform that'll make it possible:
2) Make that shit they learned at school applicable to their lives. Why are we learning the pythagorean theorem? Let's build some stuff to show you. Why are we learning polar coordinates? It's useful for making relative coordinates in a plane with no clear absolute origin. Shit ain't hard. Just make it applicable.
3) Robin-hood style funding. Rich districts just buy better football stadiums. With the money they spend divided on a per-capita basis, poorer students could have a better start. More importantly, poorer students could have more teachers. The extra funding would allow you to:
4) Have a penal school to send bad kids to. If I have 16 kids trying to learn and one being a maniac, you bet your ass I kick the maniac out and let the principal deal with him. He's not worth ruining their classes to. And he's not worth ruining their school for. If a kid spends all his or her time in suspension or detention, move them to an in-district boarding school. Military-style discipline. Usually kids with serious behavioral issues have either a bad family life or a neural/sensory dysfunction or both. The school gets 'em out of the former and would be equipped to diagnose the latter.
1) Less time at work for parents. It is awful that both parents need to work full time to have the same lifestyle that used to be achieved by one parent working full time.
2) Less huge corporations. I need groceries, where do I go? Wal-mart, HEB, places to eject dollars from my community and to eliminate local businesses. Who owns it? Nobody knows, and so people have no problems stealing from them, and see no connection to their community. These huge megacorps isolate people and make them have no sense of community, and that promotes disinterested parenting, criminal youth, and insecure lives. They also keep people from investing in and caring about their own communities. This'll also create more local jobs, because a mom-and-pop grocery store is less likely to be outsourcing labor and accepting telecommuters. And it'll mean people have more pride in their work (and thus less depression) because they're not just easily-replaceable cogs. It'll also make people's lives more stable (less anxiety).
3) More family planning- better sex ed. Yes, contraceptives and abortions. A parent who didn't want that child shouldn't be saddled with it, and they'll just pass that kid to the school system at the first opportunity. The school system shouldn't be saddled with unwanted kids with shitty home lives (see "penal school" above). The children of single mothers are more likely to be abused. And legalized abortion was correlated with a drop in the crime rate when the crime-committing demographic (18-24) hit afterwards. There'll still be shitty home lives. But they'll be less common. And here's a way we can reduce them right away with no doubt.
(no subject)
Date: 4/4/10 20:11 (UTC)That was my HS experience. Avg class size was prolly ~30; some as high as 34. Smallest was maybe 20. Best class was ~25, but that's cause the teacher was very bright and very able to control the students as well as make the material interesting (if you had the slightest curiosity about criminal law/constitutional law, that is)
(no subject)
Date: 4/4/10 20:14 (UTC)I especially agree with teaching the kids how this is going to apply in their lives after school. There's no point in learning it if you aren't going to use it, and kids probably won't learn it if they don't think they'll use it. In order for them to find an interest in it, they need to be told exactly where its going to come in handy.
(no subject)
Date: 4/4/10 20:14 (UTC)Don't gimme no bs about "oh just let the smart kids tutor the dumb kids". No, it's not their job to help me as teacher, it's their job to learn. Let 'em do so.
I wish more schools and teachers believed that. I spent way too much time being bored, especially considering that they could've just handed me a book and told me to go learn something new.
Rich districts just buy better football stadiums.
An enormous chunk of our local school budget goes to special ed programs, meaning that even though the per capita budget is pretty high, regular classrooms are still overloaded.
(no subject)
Date: 4/4/10 20:20 (UTC)1) Less time at school. It shouldn't be a full time occupation. There should be more time for community involvement, sports, getting a part time job, getting out in the world. Why? Because that's where they'll apply all that shit they learned at school.
I think communities like the idea of longer school days, because (1) OMG they're learning! and (2) they're not cavorting around town causing trouble. What sports? There's no funding. What jobs? The PT jobs kids used to get are being held by displaced adults.
2) Make that shit they learned at school applicable to their lives. Why are we learning the pythagorean theorem? Let's build some stuff to show you. Why are we learning polar coordinates? It's useful for making relative coordinates in a plane with no clear absolute origin. Shit ain't hard. Just make it applicable.
Makes sense to me. But they aren't tested on it in a real-world situation. The gov't is the one who says that in order to prove they know it, they need to take a pencil-and-paper test where they bubble in letters, so that's how schools are going to teach the material. Plus hands-on requires supplies (= money).
3) Robin-hood style funding. Rich districts just buy better football stadiums. With the money they spend divided on a per-capita basis, poorer students could have a better start. More importantly, poorer students could have more teachers.
Who would divide the money up? Would it be divided by district, state, or equalized across the country? I wonder how states with high per-student spending (http://empirezone.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/the-highest-per-pupil-spending-in-the-us/), like NY, would feel about sending their money to Utah and Mississippi.
4) Have a penal school to send bad kids to.
Yeah, I love this idea. In my district it is practically impossible to expel kids from the district because the district doesn't want to lose the attendance money. There needs to be a place to send the little shits who don't do anything but disrupt the class for everybody else.
(no subject)
Date: 4/4/10 20:20 (UTC)Could you do an LJ cut?
(no subject)
Date: 4/4/10 20:22 (UTC)Better Ratio, Grouping, Federalized Funding, More Middle Class, More Community, Pro-Quality vs Pro-Quantity Life!!!!
(no subject)
Date: 4/4/10 20:42 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 4/4/10 20:47 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 4/4/10 21:06 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 4/4/10 21:37 (UTC)It's like, yeah you can get 400 pickles for a dollar at Walmart... but by doing so, you are asking SOMEONE to work for nothing SOMEWHERE... and they're probably shitty pickles anyway. Quality vs Quantity.
(no subject)
Date: 4/4/10 21:43 (UTC)OK
Date: 4/4/10 22:05 (UTC)The Wal-mart vs ma and Pa stores issue is a whole other discussion, and even tho I'm with boring family today, I'd just as soon save it for another time.
I would gladly link you to the last time it was discussed on one of *ender's* posts, but I don't bookmark anything, and can't find my way thru the archives.
(no subject)
Date: 4/4/10 20:47 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 4/4/10 20:57 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 4/4/10 21:51 (UTC)And the social advantages accruing to a well-educated populace are immeasurable.
(no subject)
Date: 4/4/10 21:59 (UTC)Kids need less book learning and more hands on, I wholeheartedly agree. If you take them outside to do it, even better. Show them, don't chalk and talk. Talking about trees? Go meet them, touch them, identify them in the forest. I think schools should be torn down, and kids should learn a) real world tasks b) in a natural environment.
If schools encourged comradery, mandatory sports teams, mandatory participation, team-building, and extra programs for those at risk (or who are still) disruptive, then there wouldn't be so many of them around. When the family life sucks, then school and friends should be family, not as rejectful as the family. There is the one in some very large number that has a brain issue (autism perhaps) where those things will not work, but that is the exception, not the rule.
I agree with everything else you said, to some degree or another at least.
As for your last point, I agree with that the most. That would solve many problems for the reasons you state. Abortion in young mothers should be encouraged unless they have one helluva good support system.
LJ Cut Reform
Date: 4/4/10 22:31 (UTC)Re: LJ Cut Reform
Date: 5/4/10 02:31 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 5/4/10 10:51 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 4/4/10 22:41 (UTC)I LOL'd because it's true.
Also we should probably emphasize a little more that progress isn't always linear. Sometimes you just have to beat your head against a wall for years until things finally click — that doesn't necessarily mean you're not getting anywhere.
(no subject)
Date: 7/4/10 07:18 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 4/4/10 23:11 (UTC)Fallacy. The lifestyle is not the same.
I disagree with your reasoning here, and I oppose any legislation that would do what you want here, but I also oppose the current legislation which has enabled it to happen.
(no subject)
Date: 5/4/10 00:15 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 5/4/10 00:49 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 5/4/10 03:17 (UTC)2) Divide kids up by ability. Agreed. Mainstreaming feels good, but it costs too much.
3) Stop dividing kids up by age. Agreed. Mixing some classes, like reading or math, especially in grade school would be good for everybody.
4) Emphasize to kids- "You're not stupid, you're lazy. Agreed. Making the point early and often that hard work on dull subjects has a utility beyond the bare facts that are learned. School should have parts that are more like mental boot camp than a never ending garden party.
1) Less time at school. Or, more time, depending on the student's particular interests. It is already hard enough to address a subject in a standard 180 day format. Perhaps fewer subjects and more time per subject would be the answer.
2) Make that shit they learned at school applicable to their lives. I am kind of ambivalent about this. I think there is a utility in school taking kids out of their everyday lives into a more abstract world. Ceteris parabis, and all that.
3) Robin-hood style funding. I am pretty ambivalent about this, too, mostly because I think we put too much of an emphasis on money as the key to improving education instead of education itself. We can do much more, with less, if we approach schooling differently than as a therapeutic exercise.
4) Have a penal school to send bad kids to. You don't need a penal school, you just need a discipline in the class and the school and a place in the school for rowdy kids to get the punishments they so richly deserve. Of course, I agree you should kick their ass out of the classroom.
1) Less time at work for parents. I think this is a fallacy. If you look at the workload of your average person and compare it to the workload of someone 100 years ago I think you'll find we have much more free time today than we ever have had in the history of history. Too many high achieving kids come from hardworking immigrant families who never have time to hug them, but have put such an emphasis on doing well in school that junior grows up to be a doctor. What we need more of are parents dedicated to raising well educated children.
2) Less huge corporations. Pbbt. This is hogwash from start to finish. Why should I and my family pay >10% more to the Mom and Pop Family Market just because they live in my neighborhood? I want the best value for my dollar, if that means WallMart, it means Mom and Pop go out of business. This kind of sentimentality is totally elitist.
3) More family planning- better sex ed. Wow. Abort the poor? Why not just go in for a little retroactive abortion while you're at it? Scary stuff.
(no subject)
Date: 5/4/10 03:29 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 5/4/10 19:24 (UTC)Homework: I disagree that homework isn't useful. It teaches students how to manage their time; allocate resources for long-term projects and provides enough repetition to make facts and basic procedures second nature. If you have to stop to count on your fingers when asked "what's 12x12" then you haven't hit the multiplication tables hard enough. The basics should be so ingrained they are second nature.
As for funding, I think you'll find the administrations and parents have a lot to do with school failures. In any system where basic discipline has broken down you'll never achieve good results no matter how much money you throw at it. Respect for authority can't start and stop with the school day.
The end of public schools != the end of universal education. You can still have funding via local and state taxes with the parents deciding which schools get the money. If a school has to attract you tax dollar instead of merely demanding them they'll be much more responsive to parental concerns.
As far as kicking out kids who don't want to be there: a-men! I routinely send kids out of the classroom who are being disruptive. They're stealing from the other kids. :/
Education in the UK
Date: 5/4/10 19:56 (UTC)Part I
Date: 7/4/10 03:38 (UTC)2) This I agree with. Good students should not penalized and dragged down by students who don't pay attention or give a shit. Moreover, while we're at it, the jocks should get less funding for sports and more funding should be given to the nerds who actually do well academically.
3) I'm mixed on this one. One way to interpret your suggestion is that we abandon NCLB and actually have kids fail when they do poorly; on that I agree totally. I also think that age is poor qualifier, but there comes a point when its just inappropriate, when a student who is 4-5 years older than everyone else shouldn't be in the class. I'm assuming there would be some cut-off point on this, yes?
4) Totally. A book I haven't had a chance to read but find very interesting is The Case Against Adolescence (http://drrobertepstein.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=10&Itemid=29), being updated to a second edition and retitled Teen 2.0. It's major point is that teens should be given more responsibility and treated more like adults, rather than just bigger, more physically capable children. I think this is the right direction we need to move in, because I remember as a teen desiring more individual responsibility and a helluva lot more freedom. In education, treating them like adults and saying that "Yes, you're capable," will probably make education that much more efficient and eliminate those pesky hellions every class seems to have.
5) I also agree with this. I would also add that there should be less "classwork" and more "dowork," maybe something along the lines of unschooling be added as a supplement. Sitting in a class and listening to someone talk about the subject for an hour doesn't really help; it's about as boring as church and you know damn well nobody listening there either. As for homework, I'm mixed; homework has its down sides, but RH does have a point in that it teaches better time management, which is something we cannot ignore.
Part II
Date: 7/4/10 03:40 (UTC)2) EXACTLY. Although I would change this up a bit; instead of high-level math like calculus and stupid musty texts like Shakespeare, let's give students things that really are applicable, like balancing a checkbook, understanding how the law works, some basic civics lessons, a foreign language (particularly Spanish, considering the demographics of our country), and maybe how to write the material that you read in your English class so you too can make money off of novels or screenplays or what-have-you. Give them things that they can actually use in real life; a few may need calculus or maybe the pythagorean theorem, but the majority certainly do not.
3) With this, I would just dramatically de-emphasize sports and extracurricular activities. Right now, the love that sports gets is ridiculous and I think damaging, especially when there's a "win at all costs" sort of mentality. Not to mention out-of-control parents at football games... Also, there is too much focus on money and not, you know, the really important thing: the kids. Why don't we forget the money and focus on what we should be focusing on?
4) I kinda like this idea, just as long as they actually receive some sort of education rather than just sitting in front of a wall and doing nothing, like the one in my district seems to be.
Part III
Date: 7/4/10 03:41 (UTC)2) Again, this isn't going to help anybody, just drive up prices. While I encourage repealing legislation that gives giant corporations a protected position in the marketplace, I'm not going to get rid of them either via government fiat. Moreover, you want to see kids employed? Well, lower the minimum wage. The minimum wage is so high now its priced youth out of the job market, since with their lack of skills they're not worth the money (http://mises.org/daily/3696)--especially when there are college graduates available. Lower the minimum wage, or institute some sort of graduated scheme, and you'll see more youth get jobs and stay out of trouble. (At least that's what I think the main thrust of this paragraph was.)
3) No arguments here. Something like 1/5th of the girls at my high school had the preggers at any one point, and it was absolutely batshit insane.