Posted on 07/28/2011 11:39:35 AM PDT by netmilsmom
The free Web tutoring service “Khan Academy” has gotten much well-deserved attention, including a feature story in the current issue of Wired. That story includes a quote that literally took my breath away:
~~~"Even if Khan is truly liberating students to advance at their own pace, it’s not clear that the schools will be able to cope. The very concept of grade levels implies groups of students moving along together at an even pace. So what happens when, using Khan Academy, you wind up with a kid in fifth grade who has mastered high school trigonometry and physics—but is still functioning like a regular 10-year-old when it comes to writing, history, and social studies? Khan’s programmer, Ben Kamens, has heard from teachers who’ve seen Khan Academy presentations and loved the idea but wondered whether they could modify it “to stop students from becoming this advanced.”"~~
This attitude is a natural outgrowth of our decision to operate education as a monopoly. In a competitive marketplace, educators have incentives to serve each individual child to the best of their ability, because each child can easily be enrolled elsewhere if they fail to do so. That is why the for-profit Asian tutoring industry groups students by performance, not by age. There are “grades,” but they do not depend on when a student was born, only on what she knows and is able to do.
But why should a monopolist bother doing that? It’s easier just to feed children through the system on a uniform conveyor belt based on when they were born.
For economics, just have them read Sowell’s “Basic Economics”. That’s all they’ll ever need.
They would get them to tutor other students.
I heard the economic is not good.
BTW, we use these
http://www.amazon.com/Bluestocking-Guide-Economics-Whatever-Happened/dp/0942617363
guess they never heard of advanced placement...
I was doing college math in high school 40 years ago.
and, of course, this is similar to the home school idea.
Here in the Philippines, the “Kumon” Japanese tutoring method which uses workbooks is used by many middle class parents to tutor their kids outside of the school system.
That would make them "normal"
Perhaps label them ADD or some other acronym so that they could be singled out and punished for their "advanced" condition.
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"The nail that stands out gets pounded down." - Japanese proverb.
I was speaking hypothetically. I wouldn’t want you to send your kids all the way over here to my school.
Re the Montessori school: Do they get the same sort of political indoctrination there that kids often get in the public schools? We’re in Northern California (a hotbed of liberalism, needless to say) and the public schools here seem to regard it as their duty to make sure all students get their monthly dose of “activism.” We will be homeschooling our kids for a year or two, but I’ve heard good things about Montessori. Do you have any info or opinions about Montessori’s political leanings, or lack thereof? Thanks!
He has approached the problem by destroying the old ineffective way of teaching math and by building a new foundation. Not just any foundation...but a foundation that must be mastered (100%) before moving on.
And his approach is informal and friendly. And if a student is confused...he sends them to a lesson that they might have missed.
Regarding mathematics, Sal believes (as I do) that anyone can master math. Math is innate...it is in our genes.
I am a math major (econometric modeling) at the grad level and I have filled in many of my weaknesses in my foundational understanding of math using Khan Academy. I thought I knew math because I was good at it...but I found (thx to Sal Khan) that there were many areas in which I was weak.
Like Sal Khan, I believe that every student can master math (each in his/her own way). He is at the edge of a new revolution. Check out his site (khanacademy.org) and pull from it all the things that increase your life and mind.
Good question. I volunteered once a week in a 1-2-3 classroom and never observed any overt indoctrination or discussion, although the teachers might have had a liberal inclination. The school is actually part of the school district although it’s a charter school and can pretty much do its own thing.
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