His toughest assignment as a teacher of English is to get them to read a book. Most of them never saw their parents read anything more complicated than a grocery list or a People Magazine (lots of pictures) which presented no model for them to follow.
Parents have become so dazed and lazy that even reading and understanding that they present the worst type of example to their offspring will not budge them an inch.
But they'd better. They're the reason the kids can't speak or write in sentences and paragraphs and why the central government has usurped all their responsibilities to make nice little robots of their pride and joys.
Texting anyone? Can spell but love to use letters instead of words to talk to my buds.
His toughest assignment as a teacher of English is to get them to read a book. Most of them never saw their parents read anything more complicated than a grocery list or a People Magazine (lots of pictures) which presented no model for them to follow.I know a couple with good incomes, a beautiful home, two young children and not a single book in the house. No children's books. No books of any kind.
What they do have is a huge TV screen up on the fireplace mantle. The children's play area, with all their toys strewn about, is on a wide rug immediately in front of and beneath this screen. When nothing in particular is being watched, CNN drones on and on in the background, sometimes with the volume lowered, but never fully off.
I'm sure their kids will grow up eager to sing Dear Leader songs in elementary school. And I'm equally sure they will never, ever know who Charles Lindberg was, and possibly might not know of Alexander Hamilton or Thomas Jefferson, either.
Ok! Some parents are irresponsible! I agree!
Then why should we apply a model of schooling ( our current government school system) that demands parental interest if there is to be success? Isn't this a perfect prescription for failure? Doing this seems to me to be utter insanity, as well as a waste of time and money and destruction of young lives.
Children in homes with dysfunctional parents would do better in schools similar to KIPP schools. George Will calls them paternalistic schools. These schools attempt to duplicate in the institution what happens in the homes of children with functional parents.
Then...What about children whose parents are functional and do show them good examples of learning? How much learning is really happening in the school? How much is **entirely** due to the parents and child's efforts in the home? It could be that the only thing a typical government school does is send home a curriculum for the parents and child to follow. It is the parents and child who are doing 99% of the learning and teaching **in the home**!!!
So?...If children in functional homes are successful because they and their parents are doing 99% of the work through “afterschooling”, maybe these kids would do far better if they spent a lot **less** time in school!
In a functional family it could be that the typical government school is actually retarding and delaying a child's emotional, social, and educational progress.