tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1016645013375966173.post1856497996874771572..comments2023-10-20T06:48:04.662-05:00Comments on Lord of the Green Dragons: John Taylor Gatto: Part 2Rob Kuntzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17648200357715492214noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1016645013375966173.post-91691568161453426402010-10-03T15:43:11.765-05:002010-10-03T15:43:11.765-05:00@ The Kid In The Front Row. A welcome tip that I w...@ The Kid In The Front Row. A welcome tip that I will look into. Thanks for expanding on the matter. :)Rob Kuntzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17648200357715492214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1016645013375966173.post-44903279351746886662010-10-03T12:32:52.648-05:002010-10-03T12:32:52.648-05:00You guys should watch the talk on YouTube - DO SCH...You guys should watch the talk on YouTube - DO SCHOOLS KILL CREATIVITY? By SIR. KEN ROBINSON. Very inspiring.The Kid In The Front Rowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11284758898483746863noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1016645013375966173.post-32144632540503584052010-08-30T06:55:17.149-05:002010-08-30T06:55:17.149-05:00There's really no question that the American s...There's really no question that the American school system is broken. But it's not broken because kids go to school (as Gatto seems to argue); it's broken because our schools are no longer educating our children. They used to... so what happened?<br /><br />Well, primarily they just stopped trying. Kids are now taught in college what they used to learn in high school. And they learn in high school what they used to learn in middle school.<br /><br />I own school readers from the first couple decades of the 20th century: Fifth graders were expected to be reading Shakespeare and Chaucer. Why is that no longer the expectation?<br /><br />I knew we had problems in the '90s here in Minneapolis when the state of Minnesota set a math standard for graduating high school which consisted of arithmetic, subtraction, multiplication, division, and a little dabbling in fractions. This was math that I had mastered in second grade. How could that possibly be the standard for high school graduation?<br /><br />The root of the failure of the American education system boils down to two factors:<br /><br />(1) An antiquated funding system the creates vast inequality and reinforces class divisions. (It doesn't help that in places like California and Oregon, Republican efforts have specifically defunded this system in a deliberate campaign to sabotage public education systems.)<br /><br />(2) A system that rewards schools for "butts in seats". (This, unfortunately, is a situation created due to misguided efforts to remedy the dysfunctional funding system.) This creates a system in which education is a matter of "time served" instead of actual educational results.<br /><br />Fixing our schools is actually very simple:<br /><br />(1) Set high educational standards for each grade level.<br /><br />(2) Force kids to actually meet those standards before advancing a grade level.<br /><br />It's a simple solution, but unfortunately implementing it is difficult because of the systemic problems which have created our flawed system of ever-eroding standards and social promotion.<br /><br />As for Gatto, I find his essay largely irrelevant and frequently nonsensical.<br /><br />First, I'm suspicious of anyone who engages in verbal sophistry to the exclusion of meaning. Saying "you go to school to get schooled, not educated" is about as clever as saying "if you're a hippie, then you have hips".<br /><br />Second, you cannot argue on the one hand that kids have had all their free time whittled away by school and television, and then tout the fact that you forced them to spend another 320 hours per year in "hard community service" as an accomplishment.<br /><br />Gatto's thesis, insofar as it exists at all, is incoherent.Justin Alexanderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02227895898395353754noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1016645013375966173.post-41564160889843749862010-08-29T13:16:00.728-05:002010-08-29T13:16:00.728-05:00My daughter in soon to turn 15. She is literally ...My daughter in soon to turn 15. She is literally a straight-A student. I'm very proud of her. She is the single most important thing in my life. Her education is something that I have aid a lot of attention to over the years and frankly the system as it now stands in Minneapolis is a major clusterfuck. My wife and I have worked with our girl for a long time now to instill in her the need to self-educate, to use school as a means of learning, but not the only one. To look past answers and to develop critical thinking skills. She's getting better at it every day. But it can cause trouble at times. Teachers are often threatened or intimidated by a student who is really engaged and who doesn't passively accept the crapulous creeds doled out by whim of committees and special interests.<br /><br />Thankfully, my daughter has learned the lesson of tactfulness far earlier than I ever did. She's navigating the maze beautifully and we have high hopes for her. But a lot of her friends do not have the same level of parental support. Very few of the other kids she interacts with have the opportunity to discuss things with her parents, to look up things in the library or online, (library first, Google second or third, preferrably). They are not urged to question things. They are urged to conform.<br /><br />Conformity is anti-life. A centralized beauracratic Authority that mandates everything in isolation from the masses...that's the worst form of fascist/Communist BS that too many lives were wasted fighting against to willfully adopt it here...but we have.<br /><br />Schools ought not to be prisons.<br /><br />Prisons ought to be schools for something other than making better criminals, but that's another argument for another day.<br /><br />Schools should empower children, educate them in meaningful things, and get them up to speed on those things that are necessary and appropriate for their coming adulthood and inclusion in society.<br /><br />We've been teacing them all the wrong lessons.<br /><br />Maybe we can change that. One kid at a time, for now.netherwerkshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08361800925618339097noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1016645013375966173.post-26614233894038542712010-08-29T00:11:02.073-05:002010-08-29T00:11:02.073-05:00In two days, my daughter will begin to be home sch...In two days, my daughter will begin to be home schooled. My wife and I were generally happy with her elementary school and with her teachers, but we learned to loathe the curriculum, especially for math. The middle school she is zoned for is not good - many parents we knew from her elementary school who had older children attending the middle school had tales to tell - drugs, sex, etc. <br /><br />I want my daughter to be educated - to read well (and read important books, not just Harry Potter) and to understand what she reads. I want her to be able to write well and make herself understood. I want her to be competent in mathematics and the sciences, and I especially want her to learn history - all of it, not just the stuff one group or another think is important at the moment. I want her to be a critical thinker, and most importantly I want her to safe and healthy and happy - I don't believe public schools where I live are capable of meeting those standards, and I'm not even sure they want to try. <br /><br />The fact is, public schools are not what they were when I was a child, and what they were when I was a child was pretty pathetic compared to what they were when my parents were children. I thank you for blogging this - it makes me even more certain that my wife and I are doing the wise thing. Separating our daughter from school with friends was hard, but letting the school system ruin her made the decision much easier.John Matthew Staterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1016645013375966173.post-14523140542415350602010-08-28T19:03:50.577-05:002010-08-28T19:03:50.577-05:00The responses to these two pieces from Gatto certa...The responses to these two pieces from Gatto certainly have been illuminating.E.G.Palmerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10229893317543621720noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1016645013375966173.post-58859497446826956082010-08-28T18:35:19.716-05:002010-08-28T18:35:19.716-05:00While I don't agree with everything Mr. Gatto ...While I don't agree with everything Mr. Gatto has to say, he does make some good points and it's definitely food for thought.<br /><br />I think his very point in this speech is that, right or wrong as his ideas may be, people need to be discussing things of this nature.<br /><br />10 years as a public school teacher in Japan, now 2 years as a private kindergarten teacher in Korea has shown me that looking to Japan/Korea as models of education is ludicrous (just as S. Korean president Lee Myeong-Bak's looking to the U.S. health insurance system to reform a system that needs none is ludicrous). <br /><br />Children in Japan are taught that the group is supreme in so many subtle and unsubtle ways, and that individual thought is crazy and harmful. Koreans are taught from an early age that they have no time to do anything but study so they can compete with their peers for those few spots in Seoul University. Failing that, just get a BS job doing crap for Samsung or Hyundai.<br /><br />My wife and I are adamant about not sending our son to such a school system. We're gonna home school our little guy, and I'm pretty sure he'll be better for it.Dennis Laffeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03053699552003336733noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1016645013375966173.post-3423705183551155192010-08-28T18:30:52.496-05:002010-08-28T18:30:52.496-05:00@Chris: Somebody seems a little grumpy.
@The topi...@Chris: Somebody seems a little grumpy.<br /><br />@The topic at hand: I agree wholeheartedly with what he says. As a Navy brat I've been shuffled from one place to the other, attending multiple schools in my life and being enriched through my travels. But I've realized that the sense of isolation and disconnect from the world is a universal thing. <br /><br />I've also learned that "education" generally consists of the rote memorization of facts in order to pass national standardized tests to prove to some central beauraucracy that most of us have gained the ability to memorize these facts. We're taught the test, and people still fail, because people simply don't care.<br /><br />I don't know a single truly intelligent person who looks back on their compulsory 12-year long education and says, "My, that was certainly worth it."Nickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08596442998967851832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1016645013375966173.post-8354796006655347782010-08-28T16:36:23.906-05:002010-08-28T16:36:23.906-05:00The single biggest reason I quit my well-paying jo...The single biggest reason I quit my well-paying job 3 years ago and became a real estate agent (which is NOT well-paying) was to be able to spend more time with my daughter Sarah, now 5 years old. Sarah is a gentle spirit, who likes softness, flowers, fairies, and the colors pink and yellow. The very idea of sending her to a school where gentleness of soul is trampled underfoot is unthinkable.<br /><br />One out of innumerable anecdotes from my local schools: A 5-year-old girl went to her first day of kindergarten. She felt so pretty wearing the dress her mother had sewn for her. Before the end of the day she was in tears, as some other children had mercilessly mocked her for not having store-bought designer clothes. Sadly, I have met adults who think this sort of thing is somehow "good" for children because it "toughens them up". Unbelievable. I'm pretty sure that these adults would be in tears if these adults were themselves dropped-off in the midst of the Congo or of the Amazonian jungles in order to "toughen them up". I'm much more sympathetic to the tears of 5-year-old children than I am to the tears of "tough guy" adults who think mistreatment is good for little boys and girls.<br /><br />We are unschooling my daughter. (Consult the works of John Holt). I desire for her to be a saint, and therefore I make sure that Sarah breathes the air of liberty. Her days are mostly unstructured and filled with beauty and with play. I could not care less if she ever makes a lot of money, aquires a high social status, or anything else of that nature. I, a thousand times over, would prefer my daughter to be a poor and struggling saint than a "rich" and "successful" person of no depth of soul. Holiness is all that matters. Everything else is worthless trash in comparison.<br /><br />As for TV, we've not had any TV reception since my daughter was born. We do not have cable, and we do not have an antenna. Our TV set is solely a video and DVD machine. We are choosy about what we watch, when we watch it, and how much we watch. Even the term "TV programming" is an ugly one. I do not want anyone in my family to be programmed.<br /><br />I do everything I can to give my daughter a life of freedom, humanity, beauty, and a life of profound holiness and intellectual discovery. Things such as asking permission to go to the bathroom, security guards, orders, metal detectors, uniforms, regimentation, socialization, and programming repel me.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1016645013375966173.post-76533165108705002802010-08-28T16:32:58.268-05:002010-08-28T16:32:58.268-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1016645013375966173.post-77086636699099406122010-08-28T16:32:51.317-05:002010-08-28T16:32:51.317-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1016645013375966173.post-25894519813225973032010-08-28T16:32:45.868-05:002010-08-28T16:32:45.868-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1016645013375966173.post-74038973803379274632010-08-28T15:18:03.599-05:002010-08-28T15:18:03.599-05:00Incisive commentary not warranted. This dude hasn...Incisive commentary not warranted. This dude hasn't taught in 20 years. Just another pensioner yelling at the kids to get off his lawn...chrisroberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03653247826901250012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1016645013375966173.post-48188143619798440112010-08-28T14:45:38.292-05:002010-08-28T14:45:38.292-05:00Incisive commentary welcomed...Incisive commentary welcomed...Rob Kuntzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17648200357715492214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1016645013375966173.post-62854691327216428852010-08-28T14:41:53.297-05:002010-08-28T14:41:53.297-05:00Is this tied in with Glen Beck Day or something? ...Is this tied in with Glen Beck Day or something? Someone cast a 'Dispel Bullshit' spell before we all drown...chrisroberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03653247826901250012noreply@blogger.com