home
CA High School Exit Exam Challenged | 80 comments (80 topical)
Re: CA High School Exit Exam Challenged (none / 0) (#6)
by Peaches on Tue May 09, 2006 at 10:47:57 AM EST
There is this belief, or more corectly-a myth, that what our education system needs is better teachers. I used to believe this. The thinking follows closely to these lines. Poor student results is the responsibility of bad teachers. Thus, the way to correct this is to hire better teachers. So, proposals for improving our education system aim at this objective. There is the merit-based pay camp. There is the better training. There is the standardized testing of teachers. And the economic argument that says higher slaries would attract better teachers. After leaving graduate school with a masters and a dissertaion nearly in hand in economics, I decided that my services could be of use in our education system. I thought, or believed, I was a pretty bright guy. Our education could use people like me. I enrolled in a masters program in education and started the process toward getting my teachers license. What I discovered was that our education system is a joke. The teacher training classes don't make "better" teachers. Good teachers are not created through training. My economic background also made me pause when considering standarized testing. Standardization is an economic term that describes the great achievement of the industrial age. As industries matured the companies became larger and the standardization of parts lead to great gains in efficiencies in the manufacture of products. Thus, we got a large surplus of consumer goods that only needed a large demand to keep prices up, so the companies could make a profit. The answer to increasing demand was advertising and standardizing a population so advertising would be effective. Humans are diverse in both individuals and culture. this is what has lead them to be adapatable to some many different environment. We are aiming for one culture (thus all the so called culture wars), through standardizing a product that is spit out through our education system. If a teacher attempts to introduce their own personality into the classroom and tries to buck the system, he or she will soon find out that the system responds by forcing conformity or it crushes the "agitator." Thus, the high burn-out or turnover. Finally, what the education system can't standarize, it places into a growing category called special education, that is only an internship for our prison systems. Somewhere in my studies I ran accross John Taylor Gatto and his Underground History and I began to be able to understand better how our compulsory schooling system came about. Its free on the internet. Have at it. We don''t need better teachers, we need a different way of educating our children. One of the myths that the education system perpetuates is that reading is something that can only be learned in schools. Actually this is the worse place to learn how to read. But, don't take it from me. Read Gatto.

CA High School Exit Exam Challenged | 80 comments (80 topical)

  • Premium Ads

  • Blog Ads

  • Contribute To TalkLeft

    donate to TalkLeft