joether
Posts: 5195
Joined: 7/24/2005 Status: offline
|
As people have pointed out, the original idea of schools; which is to say, not the original ideal of schools, so to create assembly line workers. The origins of public education was to teach children with whom the community as a whole would picked up the dime to help educate. There are plenty of public education schools in place well before the 19th century in America! I know, because I went to one of them! Now, educators are faced with a new task in education: educating the young to be either 'college ready' or 'workforce ready'. Yet the way one teaches for either is different from the other in mindset and requirements. So the educators have to combined both sets of elements at once. That is not an easy process to accomplish. Made worst due to the ignorant butting their heads into the process by political means. What will it take? Funding. Educators are people whom will look for the best 'bang for their buck' like anyone else. Even if the educator is earning six figures, performing well, and handles extra duties; if they want to join and be in a union, that's their business. Third, it takes a serious commitment by parents and even those adults around children to help in the process. Either directly with school assignments or indirectly by taking what they are learning and giving practical exercises. Fourth, is to involve the community in the educational process. Many groups that cater to children growing up could help in the process; from church groups to the Boy Scouts! Fifth, long term planning is a must. Not just for having the correct facilities, but the grow of the community's future youngsters enrolling in a few years. Finally, it takes educated and mature adults to push the religious and political bullshit out of the way to deal with all of the other above matters. However many school systems are not given the benefit of being located in rich areas, were tax money helps significantly in this whole process, year after year. To which the state and federal governments chip in to help off set costs. If taxes have to be raised because those two entities can not divert funds from other sources; then that is what has to happen. Nobody likes the idea of taxes being raised is understandable; but how badly do we want a good educational system to raise the next generation of Americans to handle an even wider level of possible problems (given technology right now)? If there was an easy, no-cost, silver bullet solution to all of this; it would have been used a few decades ago. Since there isn't, its better to deal with the issue in a mature, intelligent, and educated manner. The amount of knowledge we have of the human mind and body is levels better than back when I was in school. Technology has also improved in adapting learning to levels far easier and deeper than previously used. Its one thing to read about the Boston Tea Party; its quite another to have a headset like the Oculus Rift and 'exist' in the middle of events as they unfold. Or to be standing in a line of people, along a down town city street, waiting for the President of the United States to roll by on a sunny November 22 afternoon in 1963.
|