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Pastimes : Science and Innovation from Around the World -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GPS Info who wrote (89)	7/20/2006 8:55:48 AM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149

He suggested that we needed to engage students in critical debate and hone writing skills so that a person could be persuasive during public speaking and in written correspondences. This talk woke me up about the styles of education, and how we might improve things in the US. Agreed. Unfortunately, I don't know what the elementary schools are doing these days. I doubt that there is any uniformity within a particular school, let alone at a county/state level. But what seems to me to be missing in all the debates on the failures of the educational system is "the student". Everyone but the student is responsible for the student's learning. We blame the teachers, the unions, the books, the parents, lack of money and there hasn't been a clear message to the children that it is their responsibility to learn. They aren't even responsible for showing up at school. The parents are responsible for getting them there, the teachers are responsible for taking attendance, etc. Back in my day [cough, cough], my parents/teachers made it quite clear, that I was taking the tests and it was my responsibility to pay attention, do the homework, ask questions, and get the questions answered correctly. A "poor teacher" was no excuse. Learning was my job and solely my responsibility. One of the few specific lessons that I recall from early elementary school was in history. The topic of the day was the traitor, Benedict Arnold. After going through what the traitor did, the teacher than made the point that it was perspective that determined who was a traitor and who was the patriot. From the British perspective, Benedict Arnold wasn't a traitor, he was a hero. It was Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, et al, that were the traitors. There was no particular judgment made as to who was right or wrong, just the lesson that it was perspective that made the difference. One has to be careful on national/standardized testing, especially when it's tied to funding. Schools, prinicipals, teachers all have the same greedy temptations as anyone else. While rewarding performance/improvment is a admirable goal, we need to recognize that when you tie it to funding you're going to get a system that creates the primary goal of obtaining funds instead of education. Human beings what the are, you should expect certain consequences. I'll mention three. Teachers will teach to the tests. Short term results only intended to momentarily show improvement rather than long term learning. Teachers who refuse to follow this approach will ultimately be punished in some manner. Principals will encourage poor performing secondary school students to drop out to increase the school's performance average. And expect that there will be schools/counties who will just fabricate data to increase the averages. Perhaps it's my bias, but I believe that education in science and technology are underemphasized in this country. During the 60's the education system was mobilized towards science and technology. In particular with the space program. It seems to me that sometime during the 80s there was a shift from science and technology to business. MBAs now rule with patent attorneys in 2nd command. What's the best/easiest way to make a buck? Technology is handy, but not necessary. The country seems to think that the US has a lock on innovation. It's not clear to me that is true or ever was. There are plenty of innovations that were invented outside the US that the US could bring to market because of its economic power. Some months ago, I heard a member of Congress say that we have to reform our immigration policy [1Bs] to import people strong in the sciences so we can continue to innovate. jttmab