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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zoltan! who wrote (18439)	5/8/2000 8:03:00 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Sure, it is just that the fundamental decisions will be coerced.....Really, the biggest reform, after vouchers and charter schools, would be relaxing teacher certification requirements. There are plenty of liberal arts graduates who would find teaching a suitable occupation for the first several years of their career life, and perhaps longer, if they did not have to spend an additional six months to a year taking education courses in order to be certified. Also, education should always be a minor to a substantive major. There is not enough content in education courses to make them either useful or intellectually stimulating, from examples I have seen, and too frequently the minor course work on the subject areas to be taught later is shallow. The single most useful thing that education majors speak of is the apprenticeship in a classroom, and most think it should be lengthened. This should be the only requirement for certification. Of course, the education schools would probably empty out, as prospective teachers majored in math, science, English, history, and so on, but if those who minored in education were given a slight preference, they might preserve education departments......

To: Zoltan! who wrote (18439)	5/8/2000 8:38:00 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

More on education: essentially, there is a core of knowledge that no one should leave school without. For example, everyone should know the multiplication tables, the difference between a noun and a verb, where to locate the equator on a globe, and the two houses of Congress. We should be defining that core, and ensuring that it is learned. Since, in the end, the only way of explaining things is by moving from known terms to the unknown, we should be finding the best methods of explanation available for different ages, backgrounds, and abilities, and apply them; and since there is, finally, no other very reliable way of getting people to remember except the repetition of facts and skills, we should be determining various ways of going over material without being utterly boring, and figuring out mnemonic aides when possible (Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November, etc., for example). But the main thing is to come to some understanding of what is indispensable, at various appropriate ages, and not letting anyone out without being sure they know it. After that, it is gravy. Instead, the curriculum is full of confused and inessential material, and there is no longer even an effort to ensure the timely acquisition of the multiplication tables, much less the continents and oceans, the basic parts of speech, or the simple structure of an atom. Until there is general agreement on ensuring basic knowledge, reform is severely hampered.......