Grrrrrr.....
I hate the entire concept of "Centralized Planning.”
Just in case you didn't know from the link, it's an economic model whereby a centralized authority oversees the development and planning of all aspects of the economy. Sounds good doesn't it?
IT'S CRAP!
"Of course it is", you say, "Socialism went out with the Soviet Union."
Ah, you just think it went out with the ruskies! Centralized Planning is alive and well in Texas. It's taken the form of the No child left behind act, and specifically the TAKS test.
My kids are smart kids. Wanting them to have better mathematical understanding, I embarked upon a journey to find a better math program for my 1st and 2nd grade children to learn. One of the things I came across was a little known Japanese tool called the Soroban. Kids who learn this tool can eventually become so good at it that they can dispense with it and simply imagine the soroban to do their math. Later a thought came back to me from across the years about a little Korean girl who set a world record on the old 70's TV show "the Guinness game" where by she was given a suitably huge set of numbers to multiply. She did it in a suitably awe inspiring brevity of time. When the announcer asked her how she did it; she replied in one word...chisanbop a kind of finger soroban.
I taught my kids Chisanbop. I learned the basic finger positions, the philosophy, and I practiced a little. Then with a tube of M&M's minis in hand I showed them the positions and then had them show them back to me, with each success I'd give them a mini. After I had them to where they knew the positions I started showing them how to do math with it, once again rewarding each success with an M&M mini. My kids aced math.
The rub came when the teachers wanted me to quit teaching the method. They were teaching rote memorization of math tables instead of teaching what math was. It's kind of like learning a bunch of foreign words without learning their meaning. They do this to make sure that the kids can pass the TAKS test. Who cares if they understand it or not, if they fail it cuts our funding.
What really pisses me off though was the fact that after the TAKS tests are done, the teachers quit teaching! The last 30 days of this past school year were spent playing games, or taking field trips! The funding was secured, lets party!
The bad thing about "no child left behind" is that it has to slow down everybody else to keep up with the slow ones.
On top of that it's like making everyone wear the same size pants. The curriculum for students in East Hampton, New York probably would not work for students in Compton California. By making all the students "march to the same drum" you ensure that you loose some of them through simple boredom, usually the more intelligent ones. I'd rather lose the dumb ones; you don't have to have all that much education to do menial tasks.
Also this insanity takes away teachers most powerful weapon in teaching a kid...her creativity. 99% of teaching is getting the students interested in the stuff you are teaching, if you can do that the kids teach themselves and all you have to do is guide them in the right direction! There is not "one true way" to teach a subject, there are an almost infinite number of paths to learning something.
You know, thinking on this has reminded me of an old Greek legend I read of when I was young. My kids probably won't get to read it because it's probably not on the curriculum, and if they do get to read it their ability to appreciate it as irony to their current situation will probably be stunted because they were simply required to read in literature and not practice rhetoric or critical thinking It's the story of Procrustes, and the more I think on it the better it fits the current state of affairs.
Still pissed, but feeling better for the rant...
Shane
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1 comment:
I have a special needs child, he has an IQ of 89. For him, I'm all for this law being enforced. No Child Left Behind is a law whose concept is inclusion of special needs children into the regular classroom, instead of automatically putting them into a special needs classroom and secluding them. I also have a daughter; she has an IQ of 120. For her, I’m all for this law not being enforced. No Child Left Behind forces a fundamental educational approach so inappropriate for high-ability students that it destroys their interest in learning, as school becomes an endless chain of basic lessons aimed at low-performing students. Certainly no child should be left behind. But the expectation that all children should maintain a set standard of proficiency doesn't keep children together. It alienates them and sets them up for failure. My son with an IQ of 89 cannot and should not be expected to reach the same reading proficiency as my daughter. But, he cannot and should not be expected to get lost because he’s one of the “dumb ones”. The goal of this law was the right one, but it needs to be radically overhauled.
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