Just say "No!" to school
John Taylor Gatto wrote an essay decrying our modern school system:
"It only takes about 50 contact hours to transmit basic literacy and math skills well enough that kids can be self-teachers from then on. The cry for "basic skills" practice is a smokescreen behind which schools pre-empt the time of children for twelve years and teach them the six lessons I've just taught you....
Institutional schoolteachers are destructive to children's development. Nobody survives the Six-Lesson Curriculum unscathed, not even the instructors. The method is deeply and profoundly anti-educational. No tinkering will fix it. In one of the great ironies of human affairs, the massive rethinking that schools require would cost so much less than we are spending now that it is not likely to happen. First and foremost, the business I am in is a jobs project and a contract-letting agency. We cannot afford to save money, not even to help children."
How do you "fix" something that works precisely as planned?
I agree with your agrument Will.We should all stop wasting our vauleable time and start learning what we really need to learn for our future careers.When students graduate out of highschool they forget almost 3/4 of what they learned in 12 years.Wouldn't it be better to only teach what the individual wants to learn so they can really prosper from it.In the time the children are indecisive of what they want to learn they can go to a elementry school to learn their basics which are important for almost anything-Rick Mendez
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with Rick, time is passing and well taking something that is not needed is just not right. Hundreds of unknown people hundreds of miles away make these rules for students that we must obey. "Taking certain classes to graduate..we do the best to suit all students..." for example. I'm one of those people that say you can't be good at everything; focusing on all (subjects for example) will get you nowhere. The wisest man in the world doesn't have to study calculus, ect to learn..
ReplyDeleteAnyways, I read that the Swiss don't send their children to school until age of 7. Well that is just amazing. At the age of 5, when I was first sent to school, I wasn't emotionally ready to cope with the dramatic changes of being alone with strangers, without my mother. Kindergarten is just school to pretty much socialize and learn to take orders from the teacher. I'm not saying this happens to all, but it happened to me, and it affected me dramatically. I had to be sent to kid therapy in kindergarten because of my severe antisocial attitude. Perhaps 2 more years would have helped me see the world differently.
Um.. maybe there was once a time when people wanted to become teachers because they loved to see others learn and grasp what they were being fully taught. Nowadays, or how I see it at times, most teachers are more worried about their paychecks than what their students are learning. Some people AND THIS IS TRUE become teachers for the 'easy money'. There are teachers as evil as snakes, bad with children, but are still kept in the job for working there for more than 20 years or whatever.
Aside, online independent learning is effective but LIVE teachers are there to answer questions. I mean wouldn't it be nice if we had an independant school system where minds that think alike could be grouped, taking classes suitable for likes, personalities, career choices..?
Sorry for off-topic.
And we should wear uniforms like in Japan! :D
School. This is the word that many students dislike. The word that teachers enjoy. Do teachers enjoy spending time in a class with students? Some do. Many don't. To many it's free money. I know that I've been in classes where the lesson of the day is talking about what we had for lunch. School can be helpful to some students, but as for the rest, it's just a time to hang out with friends and kick back. As for me, I have no problem with school. But it should place where learning should take place.
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