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Teachers Union Opposes Virtual K-8 Charter School
theodp writes "'You can't sit a child in front of a computer and expect him to learn things he needs to succeed in society,' said unimpressed Chicago Teachers Union president Marilyn Stewart of the Chicago Virtual Charter School, which will open to Chicago elementary school students this fall if approved by the state board of education."
First post!
(an essential skill...)
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Will it run Linux? Duck time, I know.
Why not? Back in my day, I sat all evening in front of the computer, and I learned all I need about functioning in society. Don't ninja-loot, don't let your pet aggro the whole room if you're a Warlock, get your shield from the vault before joining a raid if you're a Warrior or Paladin... err... ok, I see what you mean.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I have had, as a home-schooler in the late 90s, exposure to this sort of thing and let me tell you it is utter CRAP...rife with bugs, quirks and holes. You are essentially guided through a cheesy Fla sh animation then quizzed over it (assuming the quiz doesn't crash Internet Explorer which I was required to use); plus if you have a question not covered in the material, you would have call a helpdesk or know how to leave full screen mode to use yahoo.
It was utter crap that I would never put a kid through...
I'd give that little rant a C.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
You can expect similar arguments from the Teachers Unions and those who are held in its thrall to any advance in education which leads to a loss of their power and influence.
Seriously? You really think there is a cabal of educators out there that are spreading FUD in order to scare their thralls back into line in order to avoid a loss of power and influence? You, sir, are AWESOME! I would tip my hat to you, but you and I both know that is exactly what they want...
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
How do you get the liberal arts student off of your doorstep? Pay him for the pizza.
Bah, you kids. In MY day, we didn't have any fancy "automatic weapons", we had to use pointy rocks tied to sticks, called "spears", and we liked it! We had to walk to the school cave uphill both ways! Over glaciers!
Teen pregnancy? In my day, if you didn't have kids by the time you were 15, you were out of the tribe (either you're sterile, or you don't put out - either way, we don't want you). Science class was learning how to bash rocks together to make fire, shop class was learning how to make our pointy rocks sharper, and sex-ed was a matter of learning the difference between a mammoth and a woman (you mate with one and kill the other - the people who got it wrong were violently beaten and had to marry the mammoth).
Of course, comp-sci was done in COBOL even back in those days. Now there's something truely primative. I can't tell you what a pain in the ass it is to make a database using only COBOL language and piles of rocks. God help you if the rocks got out of order...
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
I've started paying much more attention to these topics in recent years, since I have a kid of my own who is about to start preschool.
What I've observed here in St. Louis, Missouri, anyway, is that our public schools run the gamut from excellent to horrible, depending on where you happen to live. Our schools in the city itself are largely in the "poor to horrible" category. In the "inner hub" counties closest to the city, they're only 1 step better in most cases. As you move further west of the city, into the more affluent counties, the public schools generally improve.
Unfortunately, the kids at the highest risk of getting a substandard education are often the same ones with parents who simply can't afford to stay home and homeschool their kids. So what you typically see are kids of well-to-do upper middle-class parents being homeschooled because their parents just believe they "know better" how to teach their kid(s) than the school districts do, or because they're a little overprotective.
My thinking is, by homeschooling, you're *already* denying your kid(s) a lot of opportunity to build social skills. If they're using a virtual school on the computer while they're at home, vs. only interacting with the same parent(s) they always interact with anyway, how much difference does that really make? What's important is that homeschoolers get their kids involved in extracurricular activities so they're getting to interact with their peers in other settings.
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The ony winning move is not to first post.
As a response to the numerous posts that basically all say that you can socialize your kids outside of school as well:
I agree that you can teach them some social skills, but how will they be able to form lasting friendships and relationships? I'm sure some will be able to, but it took me 8 years in school with my friends to get really close to them. Friendships don't just happen on a trip to the zoo for some. If I'd try to homeschool a child, I'd be afraid it'd turn into either a socially reclusive or an overly social person. (you know, the type that is friends to everybody and yet nobody)
Friends are one of the most important aspects of life and you should give your child every opportunity to find real friends you can!