Helping Goose with her math homework...

[unixronin]

... I find myself seriously beginning to question whether it is the goal of the US primary education system to achieve a specified uniform standard of education, or a specified uniform standard of ignorance.  Goose's fourth-grade math class doesn't seem to be about teaching kids to do math, as to teach them the metaphorical equivalent of counting on their fingers.  For instance, in questions on making change, they're not allowed to say "Three quarters, a dime and three pennies," they're required to draw little pictures of rows of coins.  HELLO???  That's going to stand them in great stead when they're figuring out if they can make their rent and their car payment out of their Wal-Mart paycheck, isn't it?

(Hmm, on second thoughts, for a Wal-Mart paycheck, maybe just lining up rows of coins would be practical....)

Comments

[tquid.livejournal.com]

I have ranted about this before, but please check out, well, really nearly any modern book about education. But especially the work of John Gatto, starting with Dumbing Us Down. He makes it crystal clear that yes, in fact, it makes a hell of a lot more sense if you look at "what does schooling succeed in doing?"

Modern schools were consciously designed to provide a pliant, uniform work force.

I am dead serious about reading about this. Please don't use these words as more fuel for angry resentment--it is much more important, I think, to target your energy for change more precisely so that you may at least persuade others to see more useful perspectives instead of the usual blame game going among teachers, administrators, government, and parents, and of course demonization of "kids these days."

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

A pliant, uniform work force, and a generation of voters who'll obediently vote the way they're told to.

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

And who "understand" the background to the government the way the government wants it to be understood.

-Ogre

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

Blame isn't functionally useful perhaps, but it's the government who sets the tone for the schools, and the teacher's unions and administrators certainly don't seem to object as long as they get to expand their fiefdoms. And most parents are too busy dealing with the fact that both of them need to work to pay the tax bill to care too much that the state provided day-care isn't doing such a great job at actually educating.

(I have read Gatto, also. Terrifying stuff.)

-Ogre

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I have not read Gatto, and have no book budget. But I have a question: Does he address just the US educational system, or does he make international comparisons?

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

What I read was about the US education system. He was a NYC public school teacher, so I think he was mostly writing what he knew about.

http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/

http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Gatto.html

Yay the intarweb!

-Ogre

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Danke.