How Would You Change Education?
In response to A. D. P. Efferson's post on gender-segregated schooling, I thought I'd ask the Ricochet community what they would do to change education on the school level.
So, put on your imagination cap: you've just been made sole owner and president of a K-12 private school, with no restrictions on how the kids are to be taught.
The biggest change I'd make would be to allow kids to go at different paces through computerized testing. Leaving aside essay-based tests that require a human grader, most tests can be computerized. A student at my school could walk into a computer lab, tell the invigilator, "I'd like to take (or re-take) 7th grade math, test 2." The student could then take that test, and either get ahead of or catch up with his peers. Tests would be generated from a database of questions, so students could re-take tests many times without repeating the same questions.
There would be video-lectures available on all subjects (like the Khan academy), but there would also be traditional teachers teaching traditional classrooms.
Also, I would abolish Summer vacation in favor of smaller breaks throughout the year. Students could still do independent study and tests during breaks, but there would be no classes scheduled.
- Comment (46)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (8)
Comments:
May '12
Re: How Would You Change Education?
I wouldn't make any changes to your model. No federal involvement, funding, taxation, decrees, or otherwise in K-12 education. Trust the states, counties, etc. to be responsible and accountable.
Different districts will try different things, but I believe all of them care enough about children to succeed. I do like your idea about year round school.
May '10
Re: How Would You Change Education?
I think getting rid of tenure would make the most dramatic improvements.
Aug '10
Re: How Would You Change Education?
No restrictions at all? So, in this fantasy school, the death penalty is allowed for the smallest student infraction?
Imposing zero restrictions on educators seems like FAR too much power.
Aug '10
Re: How Would You Change Education?
"Teachers are like bats. Nobody likes bats, but we know we need them, because they eat mosquitoes." - Rick Mercer
Apr '11
Re: How Would You Change Education?
100% online
no teachers
no administrators
no more schools
I would have graduated high school by the time I was 10 if I was allowed to go at my own pace. The current paradigm is so inefficient and broken, the only way to fix it is to throw it all out.
Apr '11
Re: How Would You Change Education?
Well I would reorganize the way people teach the sciences. Basically we teach science all backwards. The foundations of science are math and basic logic. No one should be allowed to step into a Biology, Chemistry or Physics class room who doesn't have a grasp of algebra and logic. Then I would start teaching people with Physics and Chemistry and move out from there to Biology. So in the first year or two I would focus on math, and maybe physics, then in the later years I would focus on Chemistry and Biology. At all levels I would stress basic reasoning.
I think also another worthy idea is to allow students to specialize more early on down certain paths. There is no reason to really try to make every student take every class. The classes that students do take they should be expected to to well in and pass. So if a person takes an art class in high school they should either learn to drawn or learn not to take more art classes. School is not the place to try to indulge Hobbies.
May '10
Re: How Would You Change Education?
Garrett Petersen:
Also, I would abolish Summer vacation in favour of smaller breaks throughout the year.
Oh dear no! Summer vacation allows kids escape the subtle (and not so subtle) liberal indoctrination of schools for a long enough time to do some good. Kids can spend weeks with grandparents learning from their experiences and values. They can soak in the reality of the playground, ballparks, and swimming pools with out the bully police to hold their hands. They can take family road trips for hands on history and geography lessons. They can get a summer job! What a loss it would be to abolish summer vacation.
Edited on July 20, 2012 at 7:41pmNov '11
Re: How Would You Change Education?
I would cut down the hours spent in school. Find where time is being wasted in the school day (lots of it) and cut it out. (I rather suspect elementary school could actually dismiss in time for lunch if time were managed well. Right, homeschoolers? And if you did that, after the earliest grades you could get away without recess -- lots of them don't get it until after lunch anyway.)
Replace some of the time saved with more independent work -- more serious reading, especially. Teach them to take responsibility for their own learning -- to learn how to teach themselves and to seek out things which are important.
Edited on July 20, 2012 at 9:14pmNov '11
Re: How Would You Change Education?
It might be worth asking why public schools are capable of turning out fantastic football players but only mediocre students. Coaches succeed or fail very visibly, and those who fail are quickly replaced. By contrast, it’s nearly impossible to fire a failed teacher. Coaches can enforce discipline and kick disruptive players off the teams. Teachers are rarely allowed the same authority. Coaches can drill their players until their reactions become automatic. But such “rote learning” has been banished from the nation’s classrooms.
May '11
Re: How Would You Change Education?
Teach history in a fashion whereby topics are discussed in a linear progression. So, spend a year or two teaching going through U.S. history, say, from colonial times to now, as opposed to what appears to be the current system, where the class spends two or three weeks in a "unit" on, say, the Aztecs, then bouncing of the the Ancient Greeks for several weeks, then the Civil War.
Also, separate students by ability, not age, in all subjects.
If possible, make sure students have a solid understanding of algebra by the beginning of high school.
Nov '11
Re: How Would You Change Education?
(cut your comment -- word limit!)
Going still further, success in football is comparatively easy to measure. If the kid is no good at it, he's not on the team. The goal is to win games. The goal of general education is more complicated.
In the regular classroom the teacher's job is to try to get all students, of varying abilities, up to their respective full potential. Since their ability and potential (and the home influences that help create them) are impossible to measure mathematically, it's likewise impossible to measure statistically the teacher's real effectiveness.
And many, many teachers have milked this genuine issue for all it's worth.
Part of the problem is simply that the teachers are accountable to the government, not the parents. A good teacher is easy to spot -- if you're watching her in action. She's not so easy to identify to the bureaucrat in a state capital digging through records and statistics.
Apr '12
Re: How Would You Change Education?
Lots of good points being made here. I want these:
Get rid of lockstep teaching. This means online, because I think that's the only practical way to do it. Learn online, perhaps discuss the topics in a classroom. Some kids will finish early. Good. Some will take longer. Also good.
Restore two required courses that have been lost: geography and Civics. I'm pretty sure my kids don't even know what a Civics course was. But how else can you inform people of what it is to be a citizen? Geography is needed just so you don't look like a dunderhead in conversation.
I think that doing homework exercises during school hours would be good. In math courses, have the exercises embedded in the online presentation. Actual home work in my world would mostly be reading.
Nov '11
Re: How Would You Change Education?
Robert Johnson:
Get rid of lockstep teaching. This means online, because I think that's the only practical way to do it. Learn online, perhaps discuss the topics in a classroom. Some kids will finish early. Good. Some will take longer. Also good.
They managed to do it in a one-room schoolhouse...
I like online stuff -- in moderation. I'm still thinking some of it through.
I'm queasy about making it be the method we use to teach all our children, somehow. At least at the elementary level. (Some do it by choice, effectively, and that's fine. No problem). We spend so much time staring at screens. The 21st century is becoming so... virtual, already.
Also, when you're dealing with elementary-level concepts, an online teacher can't make eye contact and ask specific questions and make sure the 6-year-olds are really getting it. Or use illustrations that relate to their specific situation and "click" with them. All the things that classroom teachers can do to some extent and homeschool parents can do par excellence. Losing the personal side of teaching is a huge problem.
Oct '10
Re: How Would You Change Education?
Teach them to read and comprehend what they're reading. Point them to the wealth of human knowledge available on demand to anybody who can read and is curious. Show them what people who have mastered the skills of reading and self-directed research have accomplished.
And then turn them loose.
In this regard, I cannot recommend too highly Karl Hess's autobiography, Mostly on the Edge. Hess never finished high school, learned everything on his own after discovering “the library is your friend” and went on to be a journalist, speechwriter for Joe McCarthy, author of Barry Goldwater's 1964 acceptance speech, New Left icon, biker, libertarian, industrial and artistic welder, tax rebel, literacy advocate, urban farming pioneer, and explorer of sustainable living in style.
If he'd followed the curriculum, he'd probably have emerged a worker bee and accomplished none of these things.
And also, let the kids get more sleep. School, properly done, should take about three hours starting at 13:00. Remove all of the filler and indoctrination and this should be easily achievable. They can spend the rest of their time reading on their own.
Oct '10
Re: How Would You Change Education?
Short of abolishing the entire system, the lowest hanging fruit would be to simply allow schools to fire the worst teachers.
Feb '11
Re: How Would You Change Education?
"The biggest change I'd make would be to allow kids to go at different paces through computerized testing. Leaving aside essay-based tests that require a human grader, most tests can be computerized. A student at my school could walk into a computer lab, tell the invigilator, "I'd like to take (or re-take) 7th grade math, test 2." The student could then take that test, and either get ahead of or catch up with his peers. "
I'm with you on the first part -- decentralizing. But then you'd have a centralized computer lab. (How long a wait?) Why not really decentralize and have ipads or similar devices? You would have to rewire the school (not cheap). Students who were in roughly the same place and advancing at about the same rate would probably begin to cluster together. Testing is and should be a form of feedback that is absolutely critical in education and having computers do this is a way of doing it far more frequently and cheaply than with pen-and-paper testing. I know, there are all kinds of practical problems with kids potentially breaking the devices and cost, but change student:teacher ratios.
Apr '12
Re: How Would You Change Education?
Leigh
Robert Johnson:
Get rid of lockstep teaching. This means online, because I think that's the only practical way to do it. Learn online, perhaps discuss the topics in a classroom. Some kids will finish early. Good. Some will take longer. Also good.
They managed to do it in a one-room schoolhouse...
I like online stuff -- in moderation. I'm still thinking some of it through.
Fair enough; I think drill-type material is effective, and I'm impressed with Khan's work in a pretty low tech online format.
But if you have the resources and dedicated teachers, I'm not married to the technology.
Jul '12
Re: How Would You Change Education?
I would add this: If a student is expelled, he's gone. The school and the school district forget him. He's off the books.
This is a true story: There was the leader of a gang at my HS back in the early 60s. One day there was a confrontation and this guy challenged the assistant principal to a fight. So the assistant principal accepted, met him at the appointed hour and beat him up. Anyone from my class could attest to this because it was all over school the next morning. There was no lawsuit. Everything was quiet. I think probably the kid benefited greatly. We need to make such a thing conceivable again, if not commonplace.
May '11
Re: How Would You Change Education?
Many of the comments above seem to focus on the 9th to 12th grades. They seem to assume an ability to read and motivation to self-direct. I think this reflects those of us here on Ricochet. What about the non-motivated, those that drop out by 10th grade and earlier?
I believe there is a body of knowledge that every person should (must?) have to function in society before being allowed to exit the school system.
Each person must be able to read at a level that will ensure complete comprehension.
Each person must know enough math that they can create an amortization table for a 30 year mortgage and create a family budget.
Each person must know civics to a level that he can explain how his state and the Federal governments work.
Each person must know enough US history that he can explain why the United States came about and broadly how it got to be where it is today. (Not so much dates as doctrines.)
Each person must be able to discuss the moral foundations behind the major societies in history.
Each person must be able to identify and explain the logical fallacies used in arguments.
May '10
Re: How Would You Change Education?
Lobby to get public funding converted to vouchers, and/or a property tax exemption (and state income tax exemption where state money funded education) for parents who send their kids to private school so parents of ordinary means would be able to take their kids out of the government schools.