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Why isn't there a similar push to get men into kindergarten education or nursing?

But there are similiar pushes.

Acknowledging it just doesn't fit your pre-ordained conclusions.

Read this: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/s... A very interesting read - Sugata Mishra left a computer with internet access in a hole in the wall near a slum. Kids flocked to it, and taught themselves how to use it, even surf the internet.

I'm surprised at the knee jerk reaction to technology in education. Technology is just a tool that is only as good as the teacher who uses it. Laptops, whiteboards, etc have been great tools in the project based learning area, and study after study shows that project based learning is better than rote learning. http://edutopia.org/project-based-learning-research

In my opinion, we need much better training for educators in how to properly use these tools. Putting devices into a classroom that uses the same teaching techniques as the 19th century will get the results we are currently getting in most schools, nothing.

Pointing to one specific school that has low test scores doesn't prove much about all alternatives being worse.

Numbers can help, but they can also mislead. If I say this school has high college acceptance scores, but this school has kids who are kind to each other, which school is "better"? Which school would you send your kids to? We lived for a time in a "top ten" school district (Chappaqua, thankfully before we had a kid, and at first before the Clinton's moved in and it went downhill faster), and the Realtor said, I don't know why he did unless it was to be nice, that we could tell the school district was in the top ten because the teen suicide rate was so high... It's a more general issue now, perhaps.
"Teen Suicide Rate: Highest Increase In 15 Years"
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070907221530.htm
And for every kid who does complete a suicide, you can be sure there are many, many others who are in deep distress. So, if you want an important quantitative statistic on modern schooling (and the system it is embedded in), that is one that is easily accessible (even if, like any statistic, it may have its issues, since sometimes things are covered up etc.).

Also:
http://www.edutopia.org/loss-prevention
"Suicide rates among youth have increased threefold in the past half-century, and suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people ages 10-24."

There they question whether schools should get involved in labelling at risk kids or offering prevention programs, but they don't ask whether school contributes to the problem, or whether a better wholistic education process would give kids deeper roots to help keep them from toppling over in life's storms.

And probably most schools approaches miss key points about improving health (vitamin D and whole foods), as well as the real psychological and spiritual side of all that:
"Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way Through Life's Ordeals" by Thomas Moore
http://books.google.com/books?id=RKZreNYKNHQC
"Surviving America's Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy" by Bruce Levine
http://books.google.com/books?id=bCuC2H-6k_8C

The first book is mostly about adults, but the second was written by a psychologist who has treated a lot of adolescent patients and has a lot to say about schooling in that context.
http://books.google.com/books?id=bCuC2H-6k_8C&q=school

Beyond those sorts of statistics, which you may rightfully question as to whether they are school's fault, the evidence Gatto cites includes that the USA had (ignoring the genocide against the natives, black slavery, women not voting, etc.) a very vibrant and literate democracy one hundred and fifty years ago, one that inspired the world, back before schooling, back in the time when private family business (usually farm) ownership was widespread and people had a lot more sense of control over many aspects of their lives (ignoring small town privacy problems, racism, sexism, lack of physical mobility, disease, famine, and bad weather, which granted, we have improved on in dealing with in many ways). Again though, correlation does not prove causality. But it can be suggestive...

Still, in general, I'd agree with you, as would someone like John Holt, that people learn best from some mix of guidance and exploration, so one can make a case that people should not just flounder. I'm happy to agree on that, and to the extent free schools deserve some criticism, I've heard people say that self-motivated introverted-leaning children often get more out of them academically (while feeling left out socially), whereas ex

IMO first aid should be a required class beginning in about the 6th grade, right along with household and small business microeconomics.

You might be interested in Ariel Community Academy, a school in Chicagoland. In it students, K to 8th grade, are taught to invest. Students "in grades K-8 hone math skills and learn practical, lifelong lessons in finance by managing a $20,000 class stock portfolio."

Falcon

It isn't just computers. There is a great chapter in the popular book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" that goes into detail of an Experience Richard Feynman had serving on a California textbook selection commission. He was delivered several tons of textbooks to review--what a great system.

From the other end of the spectrum there is a great article, "The Muddle Machine", which details a job writing this tripe.

Just how bad are textbooks in the US then? pretty bad.

Laptops are for homework, but I agree, they have no place in the classroom. At least not my classroom.

I find this sweeping generalization troubling. Teachers need to continually evaluate new teaching tools. We are essentially teaching classes the same way we did 1,000 years ago. Why don't educational institutions respond to societal and technological advancements in more progressive ways? See wonderful quotes from teachers organizations of the past. [pdf]

There are new and innovative techniques for teaching and motivating students i.e. putting students more in control of their own learning, letting them work on more authentic problems (rather than irrelveant examples like so many infamous "world problems") and becoming less of a lecturer and more of a facilitator. Students will rise only as high as the expectations we have for them.

If we assume that no student will use a laptop constructively, and we keep laptops out of the classrooms, then we are indeed correct, no student will use a laptop constructively in the classroom. Let's not congratulate ourselves for this self-fulfilling prophecy.

disclaimer: I am the Director of Educational Technology at a K-12 girls school where all of the students in grades 8-12 are required to have a laptop

An even more relavant essay of his is What You Wish You'd Known.

Also be sure to check out The Muddle Machine by Tamim Ansary, a school textbook editor who describes the apalling state of textbook publication today.

There are, of course, a variety of indicators of the malaise of the system; one of the more interesting I've seen recently is this commentary on how textbooks used in schools actually get produced.

Actually, I think Joel of Joel on Software has a parallel example of part of the problem with schools, which is that good teaching doesn't scale -- and neither does good programming. Chances are, most slashdot readers can remember a few really great teachers (I can) and can't remember a slew of mediocre or indifferent ones. That's because really good teachers can't be produced by an assembly line, and there is no good system for figuring out who the good teachers are; instead, we have a system today in which teachers willing to put in the time are kept in regardless of whether or not they're actually good (Insert political comment here regarding unions, depending on one's alignment).

We have two big problems: the system as a whole and the quality of particular teachers. The real question becomes how one solves the riddle; I don't know, but I suspect the solution is deeper than "throw money at it."