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Many school districts in my state encourage competent students to start college after grade 10. The school district pays their tuition, and at age 18 they graduate with both a high school diploma and an associates degree. That doesn't shorten the K-12 course, but it definitely shortens the K-14 course for students that can handle it. I don't know if that's universal or limited to a few school districts. I think it is statewide in Washington.
Just because they're left behind doesn't mean the policies failed. More likely the schools failed to competently adopt the policies and make them work.
If some children should be left behind, that should be an explicit tenet of the policies, not an evaded issue becoming the "elephant in the room."
If rote memorization is the problem, that problem should be explained in better terms than that someone doesn't like it.
It was not. It was cheap bomb-throwing in an attempt to derail the rest of my argument. And I already responded to your points, by the way in a fairly substantive way. No, I didn't spoon feed it to you number by number, but I did indeed refute your points.
Let's get one thing clear. The words "School" and "Education" today are not synonymous with one another, no matter how hard you try to conflate the two. A school is a method to create educated citizens, but it's also becoming obvious to almost everyone that it is a method that no longer works. In an age of ubiquitous knowledge, in an age where one can buy Rosetta Stone and learn basic conversational French in a fraction of the time it takes to do so in a classroom, clinging to the tired pedagogy of the 18th Century is looking more and more stupid. Yes, I realize that you have a living to defend, but simply toeing the line on the blind orthodoxy that passes for modern education really isn't a meaningful argument.
Oh, for pity's sake! You have not responded to any of my points! You've made a big issue about this "his/him" thing, and that's all since I posted that.
Many school districts in my state encourage competent students to start college after grade 10. The school district pays their tuition, and at age 18 they graduate with both a high school diploma and an associates degree. That doesn't shorten the K-12 course, but it definitely shortens the K-14 course for students that can handle it. I don't know if that's universal or limited to a few school districts. I think it is statewide in Washington.
There were programs like this when I was in hs. Now the focus has shifted and everyone is suddenly college bound. They're just not as available as they should be.
There are many Career & Technical schools and they are funded by the DOE, our government funds. These monies are usually allocated to certain schools in the district It all depends on where you live too.
We had the academic and vocational side when I was in high school (79-81) which was College Bound and Career Ready. My son graduated with both a high school diploma and a technical certificate (2011-2014) His parent school was Fairfield High School, but during his last two years he could attend this school for the technical side: Butler Tech
Many students from several districts attend this school during their last two years and the students have two graduations. One from the tech school and one from the home school. We definitely need to return to this model for all students.
The semi-obvious answer would be to cut out things that waste time and accelerate the real education. Too many teachers seem to want to give worksheets instead of interacting with students, and there is too much obsession with standardized testing which results in too much "teaching to the test". Emphasis should shift towards sustainable learning - the kind that comes with new ways of thinking and understanding, not the kind that gets lost over the summer. Finally teachers should make more of an effort to gauge the levels of the students before choosing what to assign.
We can't even explain any kind to great reading list. What does anyone learn from Catcher in the Rye? Many teachers will say it's great but try getting one to explain why. Is this just a system to produce conformist thinking?
The semi-obvious answer would be to cut out things that waste time and accelerate the real education. Too many teachers seem to want to give worksheets instead of interacting with students, and there is too much obsession with standardized testing which results in too much "teaching to the test". Emphasis should shift towards sustainable learning - the kind that comes with new ways of thinking and understanding, not the kind that gets lost over the summer. Finally teachers should make more of an effort to gauge the levels of the students before choosing what to assign.
There are many vague comments in this post. What does "accelerate the real education" mean? What is "real education?"
I agree about too many worksheets. Students fill out worksheets today instead of reading textbooks.
It might be true that there is "too much "teaching to the test,"" but does anyone really know this to be factual? Where do you draw the line between teaching the subject and "teaching to the test?"
Emphasis to sustainable learning sounds great, but what exactly is "sustainable learning?" Some people retain knowledge and others don't. I remember the lines from soliloquy in Macbeth that I had to memorize in high school in 1972, but I remember little from the college calculus class I took in in 1974. So is one sustainable learning and the other isn't?
What are "new ways of thinking and understanding?" What subjects would this apply? I'm trying to envision new ways of thinking and understanding about calculus, geometry, chemistry, biology, etc.
I think it is a good idea that "teachers should make more of an effort to gauge the levels of the students before choosing what to assign," but if you have a class of 25 students in algebra II who have passed algebra I in your school district, should the teacher give a standardized test to gauge their level of understanding or should the teacher assume some minimum level of understanding?
We can't even explain any kind to great reading list. What does anyone learn from Catcher in the Rye? Many teachers will say it's great but try getting one to explain why. Is this just a system to produce conformist thinking?
psik
If it is a ridiculous problem what are you suggesting that educators do with these computers? What difference does it make if I have the latest, fastest state of the art computer available to me as an educator? How would you incorporate this extremely fast computer into your education curriculum in a typical high school classroom?
I agree with your opinion about Catcher in the Rye but I don't understand the comment about conformist thinking. I think it is important to have students exposed to works of literature to help improve their reading abilityand to help generate an interest in reading. I think there are are books written every year that are much better than Catcher in the Rye. Let's retire it!
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