> Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 14:50:45 -0800
> From: John Clogg <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: OT: knowledge on youtube
>
> The United States has free public education for everyone. In fact,
> children in a certain range of ages are required to attend. All
> teachers are required to have college degrees, and most have
> postgraduate education. All are certified in education. Why then do
> we fail to educate so many of our citizens? I'm sure there are many
> answers but one big component is that a lot of the students don't WANT
> to learn. How do you force them to do so?
>
> I am convinced the primary reason private schools are generally better
> than public schools is that the private schools can kick out the students
> who won't perform or who are disruptive. They also have the power to
> flunk a student who does not learn the required material, even if the
> parents want their child promoted for social reasons.
>
> What is the solution, then? Public schools are required to accept any
> student. Also, many of the idiots shown in the video are older people
> whose education is probably not much of a factor in their ignorance of
> geography and politics. If they would occasionally pick up a newspaper
> or watch the news on television, they would know more than they
> demonstrated in that piece. The problem is apathy. It's not that they
> are incapable of understanding that Iran isn't an island in the southern
> hemisphere, it's that they don't want to know.
>
> John Clogg
>
>
There is much that is cogent to the problem of public education contained
in this missive. However, there are many conclusions drawn that do not
withstand close scrutiny.
The primary difference between public and private education lies not in
who can be kicked out for lack of performance but rather in whom the
private facilities choose to admit on the basis of probability of success.
The secondary difference lies in the difference in goals between the
private and public institutions. The private institution exists to
service the demands of the parents of the children, to provide visible
improvements in the academic and social performance of individual students
to a consumer who can, and will, shop for the best value.
The public institution exists to fulfill public social policy, which
involves raw academic improvement as only one metric out of many.
Further, the consumer of public education is not the student, nor the
parents of students, but rather the educational ministries that control
budgets who are subject to political whimsy no less than any other public
body.
There are no ready solutions to the problem of public education because it
is not a single problem of having better SAT scores or fewer dropouts or
graduating functionally illiterate and innumeric students. The off-heard
clamour for charter schools will benefit only a small number of the upper
middle class (who are already fleeing the public systems in vast numbers
without this encouragement) at disproportionate expense to the lower
economic orders, heightening an already growing perception of the
injustice in the distribution of wealth in western societies. This is not
a good thing politically and will probably never be widely implemented in
consequence.
If you have more than a passing involvement with state run education you
quickly come to realize just how little EDUCATION matters to them in their
pursuit of public docility. Program after program is announced and
implemented to provide the public with the appearance of much activity but
what is seldom revealed is that the new program has no new money and that
previous initiatives are left to wither and die as their funding is
diverted into the next public splash. Yet, programs aside, teachers now
spend, by some estimates, 65% of their classroom time arbitrating
behaviour problems and their consequences. That leaves very little time
for instruction and may partially explain the present over-emphasis on
homework.
Further, the public system, and I include state sponsored religious
systems under this rubric, is riddled with special interest groups milking
the public purse for all it is worth. From frequently superseded
textbooks that are overpriced, underdeveloped, and generally poor
products; to school uniforms made in East-Asian sweatshops; to
over-crowded and poorly ventilated buildings, excessive administrative
salaries, excessive administrative and specialist staff, poor fiscal and
property management, unreflective technology purchases, and over-ambitious
social policy goals; in matters of expenditures the public education
system is rife with, if not outright corruption, a degree of coziness
between teachers, suppliers, administrators and self-appointed social
activists (advocates) that is unsavoury to behold when encountered first
hand.
To give an example. I once purchased a complete set of textbooks for my
youngest who was in grade V or VI at the time. On the used market these
five or six books set me back just a shade under $900.00 CAD and I do not
think that I managed to get them all. At the same time my child's school
was "sharing" textbooks between children because there were not enough to
go around, principally because they had just been "upgraded" to a new
edition and the new supplies were insufficient because of budget
constraints.
Now, my school board has a full time "textbook" evaluation and selection
committee, whose budget allocation is considerable while textbook
acquisition is itself a major annual expense for the board. I have
therefore asked them why, with all of the talent resident in the board's
employees, the board does not instead strike a committee to produce its
own textbooks and also provide these on-line so that parents and the
public can have complete access to them. I received no sensible answer
other than the board was not in the business of producing textbooks.
Apparently they are whole-heartedly in the business of purchasing them
however.
I have my own strong opinions about what is wrong with the "system" but
the fact remains that the "system" does not exist for me or my children.
It exists because the modern state depends upon a social consensus to
exist and the public education system is where that consensus is forged.
That this consensus is engendered in the minds of people too ignorant to
comprehend what is being done to them, or for what purpose, or at what
cost, is a fact that too few citizens even consider, much less reflect
upon deeply. Education, in the sense of reading, counting and thinking
with accuracy, precision, and insight is really not much more than an
accidental by-product of the entire process and one that relatively few of
its subjects experience.
Have you ever considered just how much effort it takes to make a child
hate to learn? I mean, these are creatures that learn to walk upright
simply by watching the example of their parents and who master their first
language without much, if anything at all, in the way of formal
instruction. These are individuals who, before we warehouse them in state
run detention centres, find joy and mystery in everything that they
encounter. They absorb knowledge like sponges.
Yet, by the age of seven most of this native inquisitiveness and curiosity
has been killed by the steadfast efforts of those to whom we entrust our
children. Discipline, which usually means silence and sitting still and
suppressing every expression of exuberance, takes the place of virtually
all else. There are only certain state approved forms of learning and
those are largely geared to mob control rather than the discovery of
knowledge. When a child consequentially exhibits that they do not want to
learn then the first question in the mind of a responsible adult should
be: who killed the desire and how did I contribute to this disaster?
--
James B. Byrne mailto:[log in to unmask]
Harte & Lyne Limited http://www.harte-lyne.ca
9 Brockley Drive vox: +1 905 561 1241
Hamilton, Ontario fax: +1 905 561 0757
Canada L8E 3C3
* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *
|
