Internet entrance test
- Thread starter Brian D
- Start date
Agreed. Aristotle had the right of it: “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
If you prefer a more modern version, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.:
"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education."
This is a huge soapbox issue for me. There are failures in the system at every level. Those failures and the answers all start in the classroom, except, to address those issues at the classroom level, there needs to be support. That support is first learned in the classroom or it should have been. Our primary and secondary education institutions have shot themselves in the foot by reacting to the wrong customers. Not only are the teachers and administrators of today, of yesterday, raising the teachers and administrators of tomorrow, but they are also raising the supporting community that surrounds them. No other industry is in as perfect a position to mold their political environment for the future. Yet, our schools react to politicians and businesses as though, that's who they work for.
They work for the Democracy and its citizens. The original idea of providing a free education to our nation was to encourage informed participation in the Democratic process. When the industrial revolution hit, that idea was expanded to developing a basic skill set for the work place beyond the family farm.
The results of our unique approach to a basic education was a very active and capable nation that was soon emulated by all other countries.
Now, we are being left behind because we have become concerned with providing a uniform education that anyone is capable of achieving. Only, not everyone is capable of achieving it. Everyone wants their piece. Businesses want entry level employees that can manage projects, colleges want freshman that can build robots, parents want their children to get into a good university and have their future assured and everyone, especially a politician that is looking to get elected, will promise that all this is possible and more. Where the federal government was generous to even offer basic schooling through high school. Now, we want job training at the technical level and college paid for because it isn't fair that only the intellectuals and the wealthy should have that advantage.
As a Maths and science teacher, I have seen what Singapore Math can achieve beyond our own western approach. Their great success is founded in their stress of the fundamentals, not in pushing to reach higher and higher technical exposure. It's in mastery of the basics.
There is a lot that can be said and I could go on and on. Be thankful that I won't. I am, in fact, encouraged by the current movement in education. To establish well designed lesson plans around "Big Ideas" and "Essential Questions" to establish clear rubrics that students are given access to and to use testing as formative assessments that direct future lessons. While these ideas are not new to education. Their systematic and wide adoption into all classrooms is new.
- Will (Dragonfly)
They work for the Democracy and its citizens. The original idea of providing a free education to our nation was to encourage informed participation in the Democratic process. When the industrial revolution hit, that idea was expanded to developing a basic skill set for the work place beyond the family farm.
The results of our unique approach to a basic education was a very active and capable nation that was soon emulated by all other countries.
Now, we are being left behind because we have become concerned with providing a uniform education that anyone is capable of achieving. Only, not everyone is capable of achieving it. Everyone wants their piece. Businesses want entry level employees that can manage projects, colleges want freshman that can build robots, parents want their children to get into a good university and have their future assured and everyone, especially a politician that is looking to get elected, will promise that all this is possible and more. Where the federal government was generous to even offer basic schooling through high school. Now, we want job training at the technical level and college paid for because it isn't fair that only the intellectuals and the wealthy should have that advantage.
As a Maths and science teacher, I have seen what Singapore Math can achieve beyond our own western approach. Their great success is founded in their stress of the fundamentals, not in pushing to reach higher and higher technical exposure. It's in mastery of the basics.
There is a lot that can be said and I could go on and on. Be thankful that I won't. I am, in fact, encouraged by the current movement in education. To establish well designed lesson plans around "Big Ideas" and "Essential Questions" to establish clear rubrics that students are given access to and to use testing as formative assessments that direct future lessons. While these ideas are not new to education. Their systematic and wide adoption into all classrooms is new.
- Will (Dragonfly)
I agree with almost all of your thoughts Will. However, don't forget that a) we don't live in a democracy, we live in a republic; and b) the public school systems get their monies from we citizens through the state governments. Public school employees will always work for the politicians - that is who pays them every month.
Roland, I don't know what it is about Florida, exactly, but it has had some of the worst public schools in the country. That is, in fact, the primary reason my family moved to New Hampshire just as I started high school in 1978.
The politicians who leverage their power over the funding of the public school system to seek re-election or an improved bottom line, are rarely doing this country any favors. However, let me point out, once again, that most of those politicians are, in part, a product of the public school system. They learned or failed to learn part of what makes a politician from that system.
Of course, if we can just convince public education of the vast benefits to growing a strong sailing program, our future politicians would be much more self-sufficient, math and technical savvy, environmentally conscientious, community minded and altruistic. They would be paragons of quiet strength and honorable leadership. So, I say, get our kids on a sailboat early in life and sit back and watch our world grow and prosper as one.
- Will (Dragonfly)
Thought you would enjoy this photo.That explains the misplaced apostrophe.
I took a test to become an emergency substitute teacher in a nearby school district and in doing so I corrected numerous spelling and grammatical errors on the test. And unlike every other job I ever had I didn't have to take a drug test. The reason given was that it was too expensive. I did very much enjoy the teaching though...anything from K-12.
Well...just for the record, I grew up and attended K-12 in CT and MA. Yes, I taught K-12 in Fl. for 32 years. I hear what you are saying but we need to look at the bigger picture. Funding! Not so much a priority here.
Funding without a good working system is just theft.Funding! Not so much a priority here.
Sailboats, now that's a good working system that needs a lot of "FUNDING"
And,
! Hey, it's in the emoji selection now
, cheers Sorry, I got excited. It won't happen again.
Now we just need that 'yum' emoji.
- Will (Dragonfly)
I'd be thrilled with a sailboat that was only 4 years old. But I'm happy with one that is fifty years old. What exactly DOES "ancient" really mean?
-Will
-Will
Nothing wrong with resurrecting an old thread. As I was re-reading this thread, I couldn't help but think how relevant it still is. Maybe even more so considering the current political atmosphere. I've often thought about going back to the classroom here in Florida just to get into, to quote the late John Lewis, some "good trouble".
Something I seem to be approaching at an alarming rate.