I'm On It

In 2010, I posted a set of rules to fix our beloved U.S.A.. I have updated and amended some of them. Think before you reply, please. All thoughtful comments will be appreciated. Knee-jerk reactionism will cause a bat-winged demon to fly into your dreams and devour your soul. K? Rule #1 Teaching Why instead of How We are educating our kids in the worst way. We allow our children to be taught as if they are all developmentally the same. And, we allow them to be taught that the very worst thing they could ever be is wrong. In any given lesson scenario, 20% of the kids in the class get it immediately. 20 % won’t get it without extended additional help. The remaining 60% get it by varying degrees. So why is it still permissible to teach them all in the same way? (Note: I have nothing other than my own observations to corroborate these numbers) Sure, there are cognitive and developmental milestones that the state education system has identified as reasonable for a child to reach b...

Never in our history has it been more important to look forward. Children that started school this year will graduate from high school in 2025. While no one can accurately predict all of the changes that will take place between then and now, there seems to be a trend that one can easily extrapolate from a growing problem to a full-blown crises of culture. We need a fundamental shift in thinking about how we teach our children. For many politicians, educators and pundits embroiled in the education debate, the whole of the issue begins and ends with testing. School districts want to lower costs? Cut teacher salaries. But how do we define where and upon whom those cuts are levied? We are told that standardized tests will evaluate a teacher's abilities to instill the curriculum into the students' heads. So, the logic goes, failing test scores mean failing teachers. Cut them. Simple, right? Not even close. Any teacher will tell you that educating a child is to "teaching...