Improving Education?

Shepherd Book asks: "Not long ago there was a spirited discussion, in the usual Slashdot style, about education, touched off by an article about the value of homework. Even more recently, there was a discussion about the value of grammar. This inspires the following Ask Slashdot question: What, in your opinion, would make primary and secondary education as good as possible? I have no experience of education outside the US, but I can say confidently that public education in my country sucks. And it may always suck. However, what can we do to make it suck less?" "For the purpose of this question, the following are givens:

1. I know that there is a strong libertarian faction in this community, who might like to see public education disappear. Let's assume, though, that that isn't going to happen any time soon, and that there will be a public school system for the foreseeable future.

2. Similarly, many Slashdot readers are brilliant people who have educated themselves to a large extent. Let's further accept that most people are not capable of doing this, or at any rate need help reaching that sort of educational self-sufficiency.

Thanks in advance, folks."

Comments

Start with the return of the "C."

[BackInIraq]

-Get rid of grade inflation: Bring back the bell curve. I've seen people get A's in high-school level American History who can't tell you who can't name 5 presidents...including recent ones. How can you tell if kids are learning if ALL of them get A's? This is worse than social promotion...at least if you pass the kid with a D he knows he's not performing...if you pass him through with a B he thinks he's "above average" (according to most schools' grade scales).

-Scale back athletics and (somewhat) the arts. Sports are great, but gyms are for athletics, schools are for learning. When every teacher is a coach, that's just that much less time being spent making sure kids are learning. Personally, I'd like to see organized sports out of public schools entirely, but I realize that's probably extreme to most people...and that it would never, ever, happen. As for theatre and band, they aren't nearly as bad as athletics, because they have some educational quality...but they still take away a little too much focus from academics, which is bad for the kids who aren't going to go into acting or music.

-Teach the darn teachers: First off, my wife is a teacher, and I respect almost anybody who chooses to go into the profession. That said, the teaching program at her university (and I've heard this is not the exception, but rather the rule) is a -joke-. I've seen the classes she had to take for a primary education degree, and seen some of her fellow students. It frightens me. How can you teach what you don't know? Now I realize why I sometimes felt smarter than my teachers (especially in late elementary/junior high)...I think in some cases I WAS. And high-school teachers should be required to have a major in their field of focus, and a minor in education, not the other way around.

-Tracking: I'm a believer in it...simply having AP classes and normal classes isn't good enough. I went to two high schools, one that did it and one that didn't. Face it, some kids are smarter than others, and when the whole class has to go at the pace of the slowest student, everybody loses. The only requirement, in my mind, is that parents should be able to move their kids to a higher track on request, but perhaps have to sign a waiver saying the school is not responsible if their child fails...since nowadays failing a student can actually bring legal action, or so I hear.

The school I attended that used tracking had 3 different groups for each core class. One for honors, one for general college prep, and one regular (though really it was usually remedial) class. The idea being that not everybody is college material...and this district had a pretty decent vo-tech program to go with it. So you had 3 different American History classes, 3 different algebra classes, etc. Granted, this is only feasible in larger schools.

Bring back the basics: Okay, I love multicultural education. I love finger painting. But the first several years our kids spend in school have one (academic) purpose...teach them to read and do basic math. There's a reason it used to be called grammar school. Most of the problem isn't at the high-school level...you can't build on a crappy foundation. Kids are getting there without basic reading and math skills, partly due to social promotion and partly because they aren't a focus anymore. How can you read your history textbook if you can hardly read? So now you're failing English AND history. Great. By 8th/9th grade it's far too late...might as well just let them drop out.

Focus on Vo-Tech: Not everybody is college material. Especially university material. As soon as we realize this, and as soon as universities stop accepting damn near everybody (ever look at the freshman dropout rate for state universities?), we will be better off. We can start focusing on giving those that aren't going to get a bachelor's some usable job skills, or prepare them for some form of trade school. There is nothing wrong with being a mechanic...we need them, and

Re:You don't drill them, you test them.

[mwalter.nl]

This is what drove my crazy this year. It was my first year as a substitute k-6 teacher, and I hated going to a class and seeing some kids that could barely recognize letters in a grade 1 class vs others who could complete math designed for Grade 3 children. I wish the education system was more fluid, particularly in the younger grades, so that children with the same abilities could be in the same classes. Nothing is more difficult than trying to teach kids on a topic when everyone is not on the same page. I mean why the hell do they need to stay in the same class just because they are the same age? In almost any other activity you partake in you are assigned a group based purely on your achievement level, not based on your age. Groups created that way are more fair to those learning, and to those teaching.

Re:the bell curve has a left lobe

[the_weasel]

Damn straight. Not everyone is the same. Things that are easy for some people are damn hard for others. I have a twin sister. She cannot read a map. Period. You won't be able to teach her - for some reason the whole idea never worked.

Now my sister isn't dumb by any means, in many respects she is frighteningly bright. You would be lucky to read as fast as she does, or retain even a quarter what she does from what she reads, for example.

You can tell my sister a 30 digit number once, and mention that she should remember it. Don't mention it again for a month. Ask her what the number is and she will have it dead accurate 9/10 times.

But for some reason graphical representations of data leave her completely unable to comprehend the material.

She almost failed statistics entirely because the course was so reliant on graphs. Her professor for that course was completely unable to understand the source of the problem until we discussed it with him in a special meeting, and demonstrated literature showing the problem isn't unique to my sister.

At that point he allowed her to complete her exam without a time limit. That gave her the time to translate the charts into tables she could actually work with.

It took a long time for me to believe my sister was not faking it. I would have said that understanding graphs is intuitive - but here is a case of a very specific learning disability that proves me wrong.

So is it suprising that some students are better at math that others? Not to me.