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.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Wow...so many similar thoughts. I looked at this argument as a case of "old-school" vs. "new school" too. I found myself getting a little fired up, and really felt as if I was defending my own teaching practice through my response. My reply was definitely more general in terms of teaching practice, and I think that you made some really powerful specific references that I overlooked in my response. Education IS always changing...in the few years that I have been in the field, I can't count how many times practice and policy have been rethought.
ReplyDelete