Great entry
over on Josh's Blog about how my puny hometown made it into the New York times as a counterpoint to New York's education reform efforts.
I'm one of the few people who liked KERA, but then again, I like to write. I feel KERA works well, if applied to students from 7th grade onwards (as it was with me) by teachers who are motivated. Unfortunately, the teachers from my hometown are lazy and complacent, with those who believed in students and their education moving "up the hill" to the now-bankrupt Independent city school.
Seriously, my idea for education is this:
* learn traditionally throughout grade school. KERA doesn't work if you can't form a sentence, let alone a paragraph. Furthermore, certain skills like arithmetic and spelling lend themselves to rote and repetition. For all the complaints about how bad our educational system was, I would've put my 3rd grade class from Mrs. Dora Holbrook up against anyone doing spelling, reading, and multiplication tables.
* Phase in KERA in middle school, so that students begin to synthesize subjects together. Having the foundation of math, reading, writing, and spelling, move on to composition, in-depth sciences, etc.
* Leave KERA out of math classes, if you asked me. Make your future engineers be literate and communicative, but DON'T make them do it in Calculus class.
* Get rid of calculators in school, except for Calculus students who need graphing functions.
over on Josh's Blog about how my puny hometown made it into the New York times as a counterpoint to New York's education reform efforts.
I'm one of the few people who liked KERA, but then again, I like to write. I feel KERA works well, if applied to students from 7th grade onwards (as it was with me) by teachers who are motivated. Unfortunately, the teachers from my hometown are lazy and complacent, with those who believed in students and their education moving "up the hill" to the now-bankrupt Independent city school.
Seriously, my idea for education is this:
* learn traditionally throughout grade school. KERA doesn't work if you can't form a sentence, let alone a paragraph. Furthermore, certain skills like arithmetic and spelling lend themselves to rote and repetition. For all the complaints about how bad our educational system was, I would've put my 3rd grade class from Mrs. Dora Holbrook up against anyone doing spelling, reading, and multiplication tables.
* Phase in KERA in middle school, so that students begin to synthesize subjects together. Having the foundation of math, reading, writing, and spelling, move on to composition, in-depth sciences, etc.
* Leave KERA out of math classes, if you asked me. Make your future engineers be literate and communicative, but DON'T make them do it in Calculus class.
* Get rid of calculators in school, except for Calculus students who need graphing functions.
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