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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Grainne who wrote (25008)	9/21/1998 1:32:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

>I am not sure it needs to be pounded in. There is a whole lot I learned in high school and college that I have never, ever used again, and I think that is a common experience. < Okay, I won't advocate "pouding" knowledge in. But allow me to make the point that school is a place to learn a long string of facts, not just ideas. My experience is different from yours, and it inspires my belief in the primacy of knowing stuff. In school I had to learn a whole bunch of facts in a variety of labeled disciplines - math, geography, English, yadda yadda. At the time I had a hard time believing that there was a better or even different purpose to this than to keep a schoolchild busy and "in his place". But now a fact (whose distinguishing merit used to be poor or incorrect recall during an exam) might be jogged by something I might read or hear - and suddenly it has and provides context! I'll extend the benefit of the doubt that Briana's new school concerns itself with the method of learning without messing with the subject matter. When a "school reform" movement swept thru the German high school system in the 70s, it was not so benign. Until then there had been a single nationwide syllabus of what material was taught and required for the award of the diploma. After that reform, the preferences and self-guidance of the student allowed for the specialization of the basic baccalaureate. This is good for those students who have narrow talents - but bad for everybody else. No longer was the possession of a diploma the guarantee that when you spoke about the treaty of 1848, Schiller's "Die Buergschaft" (a great epic poem in German) or Fermat's last theorem - the assurance that your opposite number would recognize what you're talking about. The bottom line has to be literacy. This means more than being able to read and write. This means having a working understanding of the history of Man and Nature - as revealed in math, physics, history, literature and all the subjects of schooldays past. Only with a solid foundation of commonly held knowledge can we discuss some of the pressing topics of our lives. Nothing can be more heartbreaking than meeting a supposedly educated person, talking about stuff we learned in junior high (like how a bill is passed, or that a car engine gets its oomph from the controlled burning of fuel and air) and getting a blank stare. Or worse - annoyance because you're "talking over" someone's head. A nation of illiterates cannot be a democracy. The first step in casting a meaningful vote is knowing something about the issue. Otherwise we vote on a combination of passion and remembered ads. I very much agree with the folks who say "education, education, education!!!" At the same time that education needs to be useful - which means a diploma should carry standards of knowledge and achievement. The stupid, lazy and just plain sclemazels should fail. The achievers (intelligent as well as self-motivated) should get the brass ring. These are the folks we want building jet planes and filling judges' benches. Hoo boy. Where was I?