Comment to Lindsay Lorson on EWEG

I think you have great ideas to help better the middle school. I agree with most of the ways you choose to spend the money. Things I might have a disagreement on are maybe the professional development workshops once a month. I'm not sure if there is going to be enough money to hold a workshop once a month. Also, it might be tough having teachers agree to having workshops monthly. Otherwise, I really don't have any other disagreements with your plan. I think it sounds like an efficient and safe way to help the students.

Week 5: Part 2 Budget

Title I:

• Put together a team that helps students for test readiness.
• Pay teachers a stipend to keep them after school working with the students to get ready for test.
• Create better benchmarks.
• Hire a test specialist teacher

Title II:

• Bring in speakers for professional development to help teachers deal with economically disadvantaged students.
• Have mandatory math workshops for teachers.
• Create as much professional development necessary for teachers with money left. They can always get better.

Title III:

• Purchase more materials for the bilingual products. Use new technology to help with the program.
• Hire a part-time teacher if possible to help with struggling bilingual students.
• After-school bilingual programs.

Title IV:

• Hire a motivational speaker about drug abuse and have seminar for students.
• After school drug abuse programs.

Title V:

• Purchase new technology for students. Give them as much as you can to help them out in the classroom. Smart Boards are a great start.

Pink Assignment

As we head into the conceptual age, like Pink says, we need to change our way of thinking. During the past few eras, we used our left side of the brain more, for our blue-collar jobs. Then we started to use more of the right side as we had more and more white-collar jobs. Now, we need to use them both equally. We're going into an era where we need to think outside of the box. We're losing jobs to overseas and computers that do it cheaper and faster. We should not think more r-directed though. That is not the answer. We need each side of the brain just as much as we need the other. This picture illustrates a passage from Pink's book about how we need each side of the brain equally. The passage is:

"Human beings somehow seem naturally inclined to see life in contrasting pairs. East versus West. Mars versus Venus. Logic versus emotions. Left versus right...... In the end yin always needs yang.

This is especially true when it comes to our brains. The two sides work in concert-two sections of an orchestra that sounds awful if one side packs up its instrument and goes home."

E.D. Hirsch

After reading about your ideas and philosophies for education, I would have to say I disagree with your overall view. There are some concepts that I just can’t agree that it will make the children better and more prepared for real life. I agree with some of your ideas. For example, I do think children should master the simpler elements of content before they can move on to the more complex ones. How could they learn more about something if they can’t understand what it is really about? The rest of your concepts though, I have an issue with.
On classroom issues, you feel students should learn by memorization and rote memory, and that constant testing is the way to make the students learn. I’m very anti-memorization tactics. I feel students do not obtain the information if they just memorize it and not comprehend the information. I side with the progressive educators on this one. Also, I do feel over-testing is an issue we have to look at as a concern for the students.
I do not understand how you feel that a child’s race and economic background does not account for problems for many schools in the inner city. I don’t feel that a unified core curriculum will help out with this problem. The difference in backgrounds of each child makes for diversity. Therefore, a curriculum has to be able to adapt to each child and school district. When you say, “the children of the poor… should learn the value of hard work” do you mean that only poor children should learn that value, or all children. Either way, it sounds like you are blaming the poor children for being poor. Yes, they should work hard, but they must be educated the same way, as you would teach a wealthier child.
I think you have a lot of knowledge and you have done your research to back up your statements, but I do not agree with you. I think we need to teach the youth of America the concept of “How to” and not just use memorization tactics. The words the students should all know aren’t all necessary for everyday life. They need to know how to problem solve and use all their sources of technology to guide their education. You seem to be a little too much “old-school” and should get up to date. Education is always changing, and show should the teaching philosophies.

The Sabertooth Curriculum

1. Yes, students should be taught what is needed for everyday life. We need to prepare them for what is ahead. Education is always changing. We are discovering new things all the time, and we never know what the world is going to bring. The "Saber-tooth curriculum" shows proof of that. The tribe in the story thought they had everything figured out and life was going to be paradise, and then they were thrown a curve ball, and life became miserable all over again. If they did not adapt to new ways of thinking and problem solving, they would have not survived. The radicals knew they had to change the education of the children. The students needed to be taught the new skills. The only reason New-Fist started the schools was to teach children useful information, not useless information. I bet, if New Fist was still around during this changing of time, he would have told the old wise men that their intentions were good, but the education of the children needed to adapt to everyday life.

2. Yes, students be taught about life today. They are our future and it is our job to prepare them for that. By doing this, we should teach them about the past and lead them into what is ahead. They should learn new ways to think and problem solve. Their are going to be many more and new problems that we will face in life, and they are going to be the ones who will become responsible for solving them.

3. I think curriculum should teach the students both skills and content knowledge, but mostly content knowledge. The skills still are important, but as Pink says in his book "A Whole New Mind," we are entering an age that involves more thinking than ever. Our world is changing and the students need to be able to adapt to it. A curriculum that focuses more on teaching the information about what it is and how it is, will better lead our students into the future.