Mama's Little Ditty: More School?
I linked 'cos I think this article a teacher wrote very interesting. Good work, SewMelody!!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Come Have a Cuppa!
Pray For Us, O Holy Mother of God!
Ach du libre!
Who let thez vooman onto zee blogs?
The Most Rev. Timothy Paul Broglio
Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA Pray for Our Bishops
Pray for Our Priests
Father Perez
Who is this eejit?
- Sarah - Kala
- I'm a happily married woman with three children. We are a Catholic family. I am not British, but over the years (and there are plenty of those now) I have acquired a few of their terms and I use them (rightly or wrongly - I don't mind being corrected) frequently. I'm a firm believer in loving folk right where they are at. Ave Maria!
This blog provided the blogger's prayer
Click to Visit this Fun Blog
The Hobbit
Filming begins in 2010
The Year for Priests
Pray for our Priests
Saint Didacus, Ora Pro Nobis.
click on picture to read more about him.
Divine Mercy
Jesus, I trust in You!
What would Keith Gilbert Chesterton say?
A lot, mind you. A lot!
6 comments:
I've heard John Taylor Gatto speak and have read most of his books. He makes a lot of sense; and he has the experience to write about education because he's lived the life of a public school teacher. I especially enjoyed The Underground History of American Education.
Not sure how to comment. So far my kids are doing really well in school. My oldest got a A today in Math and my second son brought home a wood project from shop. My daughter is studying up for a religion test and my first grader is driving me crazy because I am killing trees by throwing my paper plates away and I should not throw my tomatoes out of the garden because the worms like them....because his teacher said.
I think some kids thrive in school and some dont. Depends on the kid. SO the parent should parent and decide what is best. If you ask me everything is messed up out there because of the break down of morals and vaules in the family. And so we got hooligans running the show.
I remember teaching school to my cousins and spending 6 years..(a long story) in college getting a teaching degree. I love teaching. I think there are a lot of teachers that love what they do. Just like nurses or drs. or police or priests...many are called to that profession. Some get tired and old and frustrated. nobody is perfect. No teacher, parent or dr or priest.
I should shut up now. I need to go to bed. I am rambling on and on.
Kissteen - I agree. There is definitely a breakdown in family and just basic moral values - all over the place. I don't agree with everything public schools want to do or are doing, but I also don't really want to home school out of fear of what may or may not be going on. I also don't want to feel bad about putting my kids in school when I could perfectly well swallow the difficulty in home schooling them again . . . but, some days I want to do this, but most I do not. It wasn't working very well for us and I have tons of gray hairs to prove it. My kids are thriving in the local public schools - wish I could afford a good Catholic one here - but can't even with assistance.
In HI, the summer break is shorter than on the mainland, but the kids get longer winter/fall/spring breaks. I do like it better than two and an half months off . . . but . . .
. . . regardless, what's going on at home where the kids may or may not be continuing to learn and keep up skills (reading, math) over the break periods where "they say" the kids lose what they don't use (and I don't believe "them" that this applies to the majority).
I know . . . I'll step off my soap box. Hot topics! Hot times!
Sarah-Thanks for linking to me:). I admit I had second thoughts after I posted that. I had to weigh whether I was just being randomly political and contentious or whether I felt strongly enough to share my thoughts (through Gatto's powerful essay). I decided the latter was true and I kept the post.
I agree with Suzie that Gatto's "Underground History of American Education" is a valuable read. I first found it at the library and then purchased it determined to read it/review it annually; so I wouldn't forget. The way I think about education (institutional and home) was changed forever by that book. It changed even the way I homeschool when I realized that I was trying to bring the "system" home and that it wasn't the healthiest way for my kids to learn.
A more concise presentation of the contents of that book was just released this year and is called "Weapons of Mass Instruction". I do wish every one in the country would read these books. Start with "Weapons..." as it will motivate you to find out more and dig into the heavy (and lengthy) details in "Underground".
Christine-Gatto doesn't claim that perfection is required to teach. He doesn't say that all individual teachers are bad. His premise is that the US school system and its method of education is fundamentally flawed and deliberately structured to cause class warfare and to slow down authentic education. He quotes many of the founders of our educational system who were not shy expressing their views that the American spirit was too difficult to control and had to be "formed". The spirit that made it possible for us to defeat the British was a great difficulty for the industrial giants who needed factory workers and consumers. He shows how these powerful men (such as Rockefeller and Carnegie and Ford) deliberately designed the system to pull the children out of their homes to destroy the influence their parents had in their lives. He points out many times that "schooling" is not the same as "education".
Our system of education is really only about 150 years old. That is not old. Which means that there are other ways to educate well. Our literacy rates were significantly higher before compulsory education than it is today (even for African Americans). And at the beginning, the school year measured in weeks, not months; and attendance was rather low. Americans were so opposed to compulsory education that the US government actually had to send militia to march kids to school and separate them from their families at the point of a gun. We need to know our history and the origins of this system that forms our children day in and day out.
"Ninety-nine (students) out of a hundred are automata, careful to walk in prescribed paths, careful to follow the prescribed custom. This is not an accident but the result of substantial education, which, scientifically defined, is the subsumption of the individual."
--William Torrey Harris, U.S. Commissioner of Education from 1886-1906
I bet you're all on pins and needles waiting to find out how I REALLY feel! LOL!
Thanks for the great discussion. It's so important that we examine these things and I think it's great that we all love our kids enough to step into an uncomfortable topic with charity:).
Gatto has written many FINE books. In fact I heard his latest, Weapons of Mass Destruction, http://www.amazon.com/Weapons-Mass-Instruction-Schoolteachers-Compulsory/dp/0865716315 is again, highly acclaimed.
Sew Melody thank you for coming on board and adding further to this very interesting subject. I am going to find those books and read them and follow your recommendation for reading Weapons first. Thank you.
Post a Comment