|
My kid goes to school here in the US, she's in 8th grade. We went to the open house not too long ago, and I noticed something that surprised me... Think about this for a moment - what exactly is a school? What does a school have? At the end of the day, it's students with books and teachers teaching them. It's really not different than it was thirty years ago when I was a student. The desks and the books are the same - the books are better now - the chalkboard has been replaced with a white board and markers, and the overhead projector has been replaced with a camera over the teacher's desk or they use a laptop to stream to a projector on the whiteboard. Now they have computers with a single monitor in every room. They also have a computer lab and a library, and a gym.
All in all, they have the same exact stuff I had when I went to school, with some improvements.
The teachers seem fine too. They are teachers because they really want to teach, and enjoy working with kids.
The new "core curriculum" is coming online. If I understand correctly, we will begin teaching kids harder stuff and then testing them on it - and being firm in the process. This seems to have worked well in some states, such as Massachusetts.
At the same time, why do we teach some stuff we teach? Take algebra for example. I've never needed to solve for x or plot a graph. Ever.
I think we are doing okay and I think this new system will make it better.
|