It all started because we were looking for Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Ballet for Catherine. She's dancing to the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy in ballet class this month and wanted the music so she could dance to it dance at home. While we were looking for Tchaikovsky we came across a bunch of other holiday music that we wanted to get too. (More than we could get on our card, as a matter of fact, so we had to put back a few that we really wanted.) We didn't have anywhere to be today, so we decided to hang out in our pj's and make cookies and tea while listening to all the crazy music we picked out. We started off the morning with The Brian Setzer Orchestra's Boogie Woogie Christmas, then moved on to a compilation of Doo Wop Christmas songs. Now we're listening to Dr. Demento Presents the Greatest Christmas Novelty CD of All-time.
I started swing dancing around the living room to Boogie Woogie Christmas, so in order to prove to my son that I wasn't completely insane we took a break from our premature holiday celebration to watch a bunch of swing dancers on youtube. We talked about things like prohibition and fashion for a while, then we talked about the changes in the way people dressed and wore their hair from the 20's to today and why some fashions that don't seem bad by today's standards were considered risque back then. We talked about women voting again (that's been a frequent topic the laste month or so) and racism. We talked about the way dancing has changed too, which brought up dance dance revolution and the kids' wish lists. (Cameron recently became hooked on DDR and it's at the top of his list.) That led us to talking about what they would like to get for other people, so Cameron called his friend's mom to ask some questions about what her baby brother would like. That sort of stuff went on for a while, then we put in Doo Wop Christmas and a similar thing happened. We stopped listening to it for a while to watch some Sha Na Na, Chubby Checker's The Twist, Elvis, and a few others. We talked about their clothes and hair again and discussed when Elvis went off to war, which sent us off on a tangents on the Viet Nam war and tuberculosis, then WWII, and several other things that I don't even remember anymore.
I've said many times and I'll say it again...ANYTHING can send us off on a learning streak, and this is a good example. We started out going to the library to get a book, ended up getting The Nutcracker Ballet on video, which reminded us we wanted to look for the music. We ended up with music we didn't even plan on getting, which led us to all sorts of questions and discussions on everything from history to the origins of words. It always starts off so simply. Something sparks a conversation or question, which leads to explanations and searching for answers, which leads to even more conversation and questions, etc. and before you know it...KABOOM! A learning explosion! This is just the way learning happens for us. Very naturally and effortlessly and based on whatever our interests are at the moment. Even though I've watched this process more more times than I could possibly count, it's always interesting to see where one will lead because you never know where they will lead. Who would believe that Doo Wap Christmas music could lead to a discussion on tuberculosis hopitals? LOL
I'm sure we'll be having lots more conversations and looking up many other things today as we listen to our music and go about our day. We've still got several Celtic Christmas CDs, the Bob Rivers Comedy Group's Twisted Christmas, and Windham Hill's Winter Solstice to listen to. (Oh, and New Wave Halloween too. LOL)
And yes, amazingly enough, we actually DID remember to get the Tchaikovsky CD!
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Friday, November 07, 2008
10th grade graduation?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20081107/us_time/shouldkidsbeabletograduateafter10thgrade
I read this article earlier and was completely befuddled by it. One the one hand I might be able to agree with allowing kids who are ready to move to do so, but on the other hand, I also think that the way they are proposing doing this will exacerbate an already out of balance educational and socioeconomic system. In other words, it won't change anything for most kids, it *may* change for the better for a select few, but it will very likely make it worse for others.
Lyonel Tracy, New Hampshire's Commissioner for Education, was quoted saying some things in the article that sounded good on the surface, but that didn't make as much sense to me when I really thought about them. First he said that those kids who were "ready and able to move on" should be able to do so. Sounds good. But then he said that educators could then "focus more on those kids who need more help getting there". Hmmm...that didn't sound quite so good though. It probably sounds good from the educator's perspective, but what about from the kids'? Imagine being one of the kids who "needs more help getting there" for just a moment. Not the ones who choose to stay in school so that they can go on to prestigious universities, but those who don't pass the tests in order to move on to community or technical colleges and are *STUCK* in school for another two years. I think it will perhaps have the opposite effect on those kids. (I also predict that universal pre-K will eventually add to our drop out rates as well, because kids will be so burned out by the time they reach high school. But that's a topic for another post.) Do they honestly think that most of those kids are going to just suck it up and stick out those last two years? I doubt it. Some of them will probably look at the situation and see no way that they can "win". They probably hate school in the first place and would love to move on, but they couldn't pass the test to be allowed to do so. They may also know that even if they stay in school they will never go on to college. If I were in that position, dropping out would be sounding like an awefully good idea.
There were a couple of things in this article that had me excited at first. One was when Marc Tucker, co-chair of the New Commission on Skills of the American Workforce and president of the National Center for Education and the Economy in Washington, stated that "most American teenagers slide through high school, viewing it as a mandatory pit to stop, hang out and socialize." YES! Yes, they do! But why is that, Mr. Tucker? Why do our kids consider high school a "mandatory pit"? Perhaps because it *IS*? Thank you for actually saying so, Mr. Tucker.
Another point that excited me was when the author asked "But can less schooling really lead to better-prepared students at an earlier age?" YES! Yes, it can! The author goes on to mention that outside the US the idea isn't as radical as it sounds and that some of the very countries who are passing us by in the education department expect their children to be college ready at 16. But that was the end of my excitement because the author then goes on to quote William Brock, one of the chairs for the New Commission on Skills of the American Workforce and a fromer US Secretary of Labor. Brock said that "40 years ago, the United States had the best educated workforce in the world. Now we're #10 and falling." That may very well be true, but how is more testing and a more rigorous curriculum going to put us back on top? If US education was so much better 40+ years ago, why not go back to some of the fundamentals of that era? Or better yet, why not go back even further to a time before mandatory education when literacy rates were at their highest. (Since the implementation of mandatory education, literacy rates have declined fairly steadily. Check out this link for some more reading on the subject of literacy rates: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/3b.htm)
It was the last line of the article really irritated me though. "We're simply telling students that it's okay to go at your own pace", Mr. Tracy says. That part sounded really good...too good to be true, as a matter of fact. Maybe that's because it WAS too good to be true, because Mr. Tracy then went on to add "especially if that pace is a little quicker than the status quo". Grrr! Arrrg! *gnashing my teeth in frustration* It's okay to go at your own pace AS LONG AS YOU GET THERE QUICKER???? Why did he even have to say that? What about those kids who will NEVER be "quicker"? Not every child is going to go on to college, or even trade school, but EVERY child is important. Why not let every single child in our educational system go at their own pace? Get rid of all your useless "standardized" tests, your one-size-will-never-fit-all curriculum, and your mandatory education policies and meet the children's INDIVIDUAL educational needs. Then maybe you'll start to get somewhere close to an educational system that really does work for everyone.
The way I see it, the so-called "experts" in education are still focusing on the wrong area. They continue to focus on the teachers - how much training they should have, how much they should get paid, etc. They focus on the curriculum - what should be taught, when it should be taught, how it should be taught, etc. They focus on the tests - what should be on the tests, how often they should be administered, what are the consequences of failing said tests, etc. They aren't focusing on the REAL issue, which is THE CHILDREN. As long as our education system is focused on TEACHING and EDUCATING (things that are done TO the children) instead of LEARNING (which is an internal process that can not be controlled by another), it will not succeed. It will continue to decline because they aren't addressing the REAL problems with our education system.
More money, more tests, more time in school, more teachers, more schools...none of these things will ever be able to change the APATHY in our students, which is what I consider to be the real problem in American education. Continually re-creating slightly different, more extensive version of the same failing system will never fix it. Adding more and more of the very policies that created the conditions in which student apathy took root in the first place will never fix it. Getting to the source of the apathy is the only thing that will. I believe that apathy takes root when a person (no matter what their age) is put in a situation in which they feel they have little or no control over their own life. They may fight it at first, but eventually most of them give up. They give in. They stop caring. They may continue to go through the motions because they feel they have no choice, but they don't actually care about what they are doing. That pretty much describes most of the public schooled children in America, doesn't it? They have no control over where they have to be, when they have to be there, what they get to do with their own time. They have no control over what they get to read, watch, listen to, see, etc...most of them don't even have control over when they get to go to the bathroom. They go through the motions of "learning" but they really don't care and only truly *learn* when a topic or a very special teacher brings to life a spark of their innate desire to learn. (It's rare, but it does happen in public school.)
Imagine spending your every waking moment under the control of other people - being told when to eat, when to sleep, when to work, when to rest, when to have fun. Imagine being told that you don't have to right to even complain about the way you are treated because you aren't capable of understanding. (Not that they would explain it to you anyway.) And then imagine being told that they are "doing it for your own good". ("Someday you'll thank me for this.) Ugh. I don't know about the rest of you, but the very idea of living life like that is sickening to me. No...there's no way that more of THAT will never fix our education system. The way I see it, giving students more control over their education, not less, is the only thing that will fix this system because that is the only thing that will fix the apathy that is at the core of the "educational crisis" in America.
I read this article earlier and was completely befuddled by it. One the one hand I might be able to agree with allowing kids who are ready to move to do so, but on the other hand, I also think that the way they are proposing doing this will exacerbate an already out of balance educational and socioeconomic system. In other words, it won't change anything for most kids, it *may* change for the better for a select few, but it will very likely make it worse for others.
Lyonel Tracy, New Hampshire's Commissioner for Education, was quoted saying some things in the article that sounded good on the surface, but that didn't make as much sense to me when I really thought about them. First he said that those kids who were "ready and able to move on" should be able to do so. Sounds good. But then he said that educators could then "focus more on those kids who need more help getting there". Hmmm...that didn't sound quite so good though. It probably sounds good from the educator's perspective, but what about from the kids'? Imagine being one of the kids who "needs more help getting there" for just a moment. Not the ones who choose to stay in school so that they can go on to prestigious universities, but those who don't pass the tests in order to move on to community or technical colleges and are *STUCK* in school for another two years. I think it will perhaps have the opposite effect on those kids. (I also predict that universal pre-K will eventually add to our drop out rates as well, because kids will be so burned out by the time they reach high school. But that's a topic for another post.) Do they honestly think that most of those kids are going to just suck it up and stick out those last two years? I doubt it. Some of them will probably look at the situation and see no way that they can "win". They probably hate school in the first place and would love to move on, but they couldn't pass the test to be allowed to do so. They may also know that even if they stay in school they will never go on to college. If I were in that position, dropping out would be sounding like an awefully good idea.
There were a couple of things in this article that had me excited at first. One was when Marc Tucker, co-chair of the New Commission on Skills of the American Workforce and president of the National Center for Education and the Economy in Washington, stated that "most American teenagers slide through high school, viewing it as a mandatory pit to stop, hang out and socialize." YES! Yes, they do! But why is that, Mr. Tucker? Why do our kids consider high school a "mandatory pit"? Perhaps because it *IS*? Thank you for actually saying so, Mr. Tucker.
Another point that excited me was when the author asked "But can less schooling really lead to better-prepared students at an earlier age?" YES! Yes, it can! The author goes on to mention that outside the US the idea isn't as radical as it sounds and that some of the very countries who are passing us by in the education department expect their children to be college ready at 16. But that was the end of my excitement because the author then goes on to quote William Brock, one of the chairs for the New Commission on Skills of the American Workforce and a fromer US Secretary of Labor. Brock said that "40 years ago, the United States had the best educated workforce in the world. Now we're #10 and falling." That may very well be true, but how is more testing and a more rigorous curriculum going to put us back on top? If US education was so much better 40+ years ago, why not go back to some of the fundamentals of that era? Or better yet, why not go back even further to a time before mandatory education when literacy rates were at their highest. (Since the implementation of mandatory education, literacy rates have declined fairly steadily. Check out this link for some more reading on the subject of literacy rates: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/3b.htm)
It was the last line of the article really irritated me though. "We're simply telling students that it's okay to go at your own pace", Mr. Tracy says. That part sounded really good...too good to be true, as a matter of fact. Maybe that's because it WAS too good to be true, because Mr. Tracy then went on to add "especially if that pace is a little quicker than the status quo". Grrr! Arrrg! *gnashing my teeth in frustration* It's okay to go at your own pace AS LONG AS YOU GET THERE QUICKER???? Why did he even have to say that? What about those kids who will NEVER be "quicker"? Not every child is going to go on to college, or even trade school, but EVERY child is important. Why not let every single child in our educational system go at their own pace? Get rid of all your useless "standardized" tests, your one-size-will-never-fit-all curriculum, and your mandatory education policies and meet the children's INDIVIDUAL educational needs. Then maybe you'll start to get somewhere close to an educational system that really does work for everyone.
The way I see it, the so-called "experts" in education are still focusing on the wrong area. They continue to focus on the teachers - how much training they should have, how much they should get paid, etc. They focus on the curriculum - what should be taught, when it should be taught, how it should be taught, etc. They focus on the tests - what should be on the tests, how often they should be administered, what are the consequences of failing said tests, etc. They aren't focusing on the REAL issue, which is THE CHILDREN. As long as our education system is focused on TEACHING and EDUCATING (things that are done TO the children) instead of LEARNING (which is an internal process that can not be controlled by another), it will not succeed. It will continue to decline because they aren't addressing the REAL problems with our education system.
More money, more tests, more time in school, more teachers, more schools...none of these things will ever be able to change the APATHY in our students, which is what I consider to be the real problem in American education. Continually re-creating slightly different, more extensive version of the same failing system will never fix it. Adding more and more of the very policies that created the conditions in which student apathy took root in the first place will never fix it. Getting to the source of the apathy is the only thing that will. I believe that apathy takes root when a person (no matter what their age) is put in a situation in which they feel they have little or no control over their own life. They may fight it at first, but eventually most of them give up. They give in. They stop caring. They may continue to go through the motions because they feel they have no choice, but they don't actually care about what they are doing. That pretty much describes most of the public schooled children in America, doesn't it? They have no control over where they have to be, when they have to be there, what they get to do with their own time. They have no control over what they get to read, watch, listen to, see, etc...most of them don't even have control over when they get to go to the bathroom. They go through the motions of "learning" but they really don't care and only truly *learn* when a topic or a very special teacher brings to life a spark of their innate desire to learn. (It's rare, but it does happen in public school.)
Imagine spending your every waking moment under the control of other people - being told when to eat, when to sleep, when to work, when to rest, when to have fun. Imagine being told that you don't have to right to even complain about the way you are treated because you aren't capable of understanding. (Not that they would explain it to you anyway.) And then imagine being told that they are "doing it for your own good". ("Someday you'll thank me for this.) Ugh. I don't know about the rest of you, but the very idea of living life like that is sickening to me. No...there's no way that more of THAT will never fix our education system. The way I see it, giving students more control over their education, not less, is the only thing that will fix this system because that is the only thing that will fix the apathy that is at the core of the "educational crisis" in America.
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