The goals were different when we went to school

Post #169,861 by hnick 8/18/04 11:28:38 AM Reply	The goals were different when we went to school When I was in school, the goal was to educate students to either continue education in college or to be able to function in the labor pool. Now, schools are a day care center that incidentally attempt to teach some basics. The testing techniques are only a symptom of the problem. Parents used to encourage the completion of homework and assist in the teaching process, as they knew their kids better than the teachers could. Now the parent(s) have little time or energy to spend on their kids education. This assumes that in this day of children having children, that the parent(s) could actually understand the kids homework. I don't see this as a sinister government plot or evil business strategy. I see it as part of the system slowly failing and beaurocrats trying to shovel shit against the tide. The charter schools are likely being used as a type of triage. They appear to be a place to stick the real problem kids in the hope that the ones who have a chance won't be dragged down with them. And who knows? They might actually learn something. That would be a twofer. At the end of the day, though, the parents still need to be involved and with todays economic and social pressures, that isn't likely to happen. The tests will continue to be dumbed down, because the politicians can't have a 60% failure rate in schools. There will be less and less respect for learning. When the system fails completely, I don't know what will happen, but I doubt it will be pretty.
Post #169,945 by mmoffitt 8/18/04 5:27:10 PM Reply	Xcellent point. At the end of the day, though, the parents still need to be involved and with todays economic and social pressures, that isn't likely to happen. More is the pity. bcnu, Mikem If you can read this, you are not the President.
Post #169,953 by Ashton 8/18/04 5:51:50 PM Reply	Ah.. a non-digital, thoughtful answer - Nicely summarized and, and good reminder that we always Do project our own obv-much-earlier experience onto, trying to make sense of the unutterably-fucked chaos now spreading into every aspect of life, within the new Religio-Corporatocracy being accelerated for us all. Surely parental-input (most of all: Attention! of that sort you reserve for people you love) has been a basic component of all 'education', for all of life. My experience was a tad different, so I'm trying to guesstimate another difference in approach: I was in a private school for most of the grades + HS (econ. necessity, in the era when single-parent was aberration and there was no 'safety net' to speak of.) But there: each evening was study-in-room for x-hours. I think.. there was also "study hall" - either for the recalcitrant? or for those wanting to group-think re assignments. Never used it. I suspect that this system was poor(er) for those needing lots of parental complement to the teacher's ministrations [?] but on the other side of coin: my 'need' was merely to have some invisible Authority decreeing that, this WAS indeed, 'study time' ... and I completed assignments uneventfully. One might infer that on this side of coin also is: inculcation of finding the answers with minimal hand-holding. This could be called ~ 'learning how to think' in at least some form. I find it most difficult of all - to fold-in the information of there being today, a majority of 'parents' so pooped, so filled with residual anger/angst at the vast new intrusion into home-time, of the Corporate 24/7 expectations .. and finding themselves (as you suggest) probably incapable of actually helping with assignments du jour. To all teachers, everywhere in '04: Y.P.B. You Poor Bastards Worst of all: not ONE of us was ever prepared to witness, participate-in! the palpable, measurable Deconstruction of 'our society' overall. 'Progress' is inculcated as firmly as Jesus, the Puritans and Std. National Hypocrisy over all-Large-matters of the psyche. Who, remotely! could have envisioned the machinations of a mere 3.5 Years -- in the undoing of means of production, housing, concern for local and global environment [fill in one's Fav] and the instant-burgeoning of the Armed deCivilized Warfare State / with AK-47s now everywhere ?? (Fla news post-hurricane: unnecessarily heavily armed troops in retirement communities! Eye-witness interview this AM on NPR.) Who shall have time to address the school-parent-grades dilemma? while Not-becoming inured to the chaos which this tiny bunch of Neoconmen have wreaked -- so much of that directly from the perverse agenda of just a handful of nameable Troglodytes. Now THAT's the rilly SCARY factoid re our rate-of-Decline. There will be no magic turnaround in our wholesale manufacture of dumbth, much as one would earnestly wish otherwise. moi
Post #169,956 by deSitter 8/18/04 6:00:10 PM Reply	Re: Ah.. a non-digital, thoughtful answer - I didn't project shit - I saw the system collapse before my eyes, and got out of it. The touchy-feely arrived with the destruction of math and langauge classes, and Level 1-2-3 classification of student skills. On the part of the students, drugs and bomb threats. It happened in the early 70s and it was a CATASTROPHE. -drl

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