Posted on 01/28/2008 9:48:58 AM PST by lastchance
Five hundred years ago, a child was ready to start his life at the age of 12 or 13. The Virgin Mary was about 13 or 14 when God considered her capable of making history’s greatest act of human moral freedom.
As early as 100 years ago, the average young person was ready to begin life at the age of 15 or 16. Most schools did not teach beyond this age; a 16-year-old could be qualified to be a midwife, to teach elementary school, to be the owner of a small business.
Sixty years ago, adulthood began at 18 or 19. Our grandparents were ready to go and fight in World War II as soon as they reached legal adulthood. Many of them left behind young wives who already had children, and who took over most of the “men’s” work until the soldiers returned.
Today, many simple jobs require university or college education, and increasingly young people are not ready to set out on their own, start a family or begin a career until they are 24 or 25. Among the university-educated, it is not uncommon to find people in their 30s who are still unmarried, childless and waiting to “start” their lives.
Most people tacitly assume that the proliferation of formal education is a sign of social advance. Democratic theorists have always agreed that a working democracy requires an educated adult population, which is why the universal franchise and universal schooling appear at a similar time in the writings of social philosophers. It is less than useless, however, to have a heavily schooled population if students emerge from 13 or more years of school without an education.
(Excerpt) Read more at ncregister.com ...
Hell---just READ, much less have an education. Frankly, if an entire first grade class doesn't come out at the end of the year knowing how to read, then the teacher should be FIRED.
-— Well, America is out of luck.....
Fourth, a good education should inculcate in its students a strong sense of meaning and morality.
If a student emerges from school with the sense that all meanings are self-constructed toys that distract us from the meaninglessness of existence, that morals are arbitrary rules designed to keep things relatively orderly and that the best you can hope for is to have some fun before you die, then everything else is going to fall apart.
It is no wonder that, in the absence of a solid moral foundation, schools are awash in apathy and student misbehavior. Everything from the epidemic of “attention deficit disorder” to the much lamented “literacy crisis” can essentially be traced to a lack of moral foundation.
Why should a child learn the self-discipline to pay attention to lessons if he can’t see any reason or purpose in doing so? Why should he bother learning to read if it takes hard work and he can get away with just watching the movie?
Finally, a student should emerge from education able to do something.
Some parents raise their own children.
Some schools educate their students.
For the rest, “school” is just a baby-sitter for “adults” who can’t be bothered with raising and educating “their” children.
Imagine that. LOL.
The middle child was teaching math as a graduate student in mathematics (at the age of 18) to college students 2 or more years older than she.
The oldest was an emancipated child at the age of 16. He is an athlete and fully managed college, his athletic training, and all household, heath, and insurance matters on his own.
My children are normal.
It is the child who is institutionalized that is artificially retarded in their social development and education, and pathologically peer dependent.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
All educated children are homeschooled. The only thing an institution is sending home is a free curriculum for the parents to follow.
The above is true even for dirt poor immigrant families. Somewhere these families have rallied the resources to see that their children were educated outside of the school( cousins, neighbors, friends, study clubs, etc.).
Maybe,,,there are a few exceptions to the above, but they are very, very rare.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
All schools ( institutional and homeschools) inculcate a strong sense of morality and meaning. The question is, “What morality? What meaning?”
Axiom: There is no such thing as a morals-free, values-free, ethics-free, ( in other words:religiously neutral) school!
The age at which children take on adult responsibilities varies more as a function of economics than of education.
In Elizabethan England, the average age of marriage was something like 25. That had to do with the difficult economic conditions, not the state of education (which was pretty much nonexistent for anybody below the level of middle class townsfolk).
The job description might, but the job doesn't. Survey those at the office: whose job somewhat resembles what his college taught him?
"The fact that there is a great divide between what education ought to be and what it actually is suggests that there is someone who is benefiting from the status quo."
Thanks for posting this.
Educatin’ ping.
I liked this article.
Don’t put it all on the teacher. Parents have to be held accountable also.
Parents should be reading to the young children.
If parents are reading to the children, and teachers are teaching then kids who still can’t read (or are slow readers) after 1st grade should be put in a multi-sensory reading program geared towards dyslexics. Many teachers are not trained for multi-sensory reading, but the training is simple and every school should have multi-sensory classes available to kids who are kinethestic and visual learners.
Pathologically peer dependent is the perfect phrase for what I'm seeing in the middle school where I teach. If one little girl shaves off her eyebrows and pencils new ones in with a sharpie like a chola, they all start doing it. One little boy uses his eraser to rub a permanent scar into the back of his hand, and they all start doing it. Half the boys in this school have permanently scarred themselves, and they don't even know WHY.
My son is going into high school next year. My 5th grade daughters are already in private Christian school (one of them is special needs and she was not being educated well in the publie school).
Anyway, we’ve been trying to figure out if it would be worth it to send my son to private school, and we made up our minds this past Saturday night.
My son is into dram, and the public high school put on a play. I took my son so he could check out the high school. I was worried when I saw which play it was “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, but an advertisment said it has been sanitized for high school kids.
My son and I were shocked. There were so many cuss words and sexual themes in the play. My son was just sinking further, and further down in his seat. We left at intermission.
The sad thing is that the kids were talented good looking bunch of kids. They acted very well. I just think their teacher (and parents) are leading them down a wrong path.
My son said he would be embarrassed to be in a play like that. He was very glad his younger sisters weren’t with us. He also said he thinks we need to beg the private school to let him go there.
I just think it’s one thing to not have God in the classroom, but it has led to a lack of moral direction in the public schools. I feel sorry for nice public school kids getting exposed to such awful ideas.
Thanks for posting this, and keeping up with the series.
In the meantime, no one who has read the following will be much surprised with what this article writer is presenting:
UNDERGROUND HISTORY OF AMERICAN EDUCATION.
http://www.rit.edu/~cma8660/mirror/www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm
There were so many cuss words and sexual themes in the play.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
What was the graffiti in the restrooms like? That should give you a clue to the “socialization” in the school.
<Points at Global Warming Alarmists and whispers>I think he's talking to you.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.