To be clear about something....
I personally loved school -- from kindergarten through college. When I daydreamed about having children I always pictured sitting around the kitchen table, helping them with their homework (having never heard of home-education). If I hadn't been stubborn and strong-willed, I would probably be a public-school teacher because that's what everyone said I should do.
My problem with public school is that I think the system is archaic. I believe the government has a legitimate interest in supporting education in order to have an educated populace, but I think for the price tag of education, we're getting robbed by the limited menu of courses and avenues through which education is being provided. One student plus one computer can accomplish more in a matter of a couple of hours than they can in many hours in a traditional school. We need more freedom to take advantage of the myriad of opportunities for learning that exist in our modern world. I guess I think the government needs to "support" education more and "control" less.
Why shouldn't a family be able to come in to someone in the school system and say, "My daughter wants to be a user-experience designer. We would like for her to come in to public school for her math and science, but we have a friend who's an author and illustrator who will teach her English and help her with design skills. Our pastor was a former nuclear engineer (one of ours actually was), and he will be teaching her physics and how to read and draw schematics, and she's going to take a psychology course at the local community college and AP US History online (check out hippocampus.com). Why not? And, why not let her continue to particpate in extra-curricular activities, health services, assemblies, library services, etc.
Having been a political science major, I think I remember studying how government bureaucracy gets to a stage where most of its efforts (and money) go into perpetuating itself. Our children are the future of the country, we need to push them up and out, not pen them in, and not limit them because the existing system is resistant.
My problem with public school is that I think the system is archaic. I believe the government has a legitimate interest in supporting education in order to have an educated populace, but I think for the price tag of education, we're getting robbed by the limited menu of courses and avenues through which education is being provided. One student plus one computer can accomplish more in a matter of a couple of hours than they can in many hours in a traditional school. We need more freedom to take advantage of the myriad of opportunities for learning that exist in our modern world. I guess I think the government needs to "support" education more and "control" less.
Why shouldn't a family be able to come in to someone in the school system and say, "My daughter wants to be a user-experience designer. We would like for her to come in to public school for her math and science, but we have a friend who's an author and illustrator who will teach her English and help her with design skills. Our pastor was a former nuclear engineer (one of ours actually was), and he will be teaching her physics and how to read and draw schematics, and she's going to take a psychology course at the local community college and AP US History online (check out hippocampus.com). Why not? And, why not let her continue to particpate in extra-curricular activities, health services, assemblies, library services, etc.
Having been a political science major, I think I remember studying how government bureaucracy gets to a stage where most of its efforts (and money) go into perpetuating itself. Our children are the future of the country, we need to push them up and out, not pen them in, and not limit them because the existing system is resistant.
1 Comments:
Rereading this - I know that for every criticism of public school, even I can think of something good, even excellent, about public school. As someone footing the bill for public ed and as a parent, however, I don't want to have to just "deal with" the deficiencies which can have lasting ill effects on students.
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