Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Here's an old blog post I never published.  Don't know why, but I'll post it now 'cuz I like what I said.

Finally watched the "Waiting for Superman" documentary over the weekend. After reflecting on it the past couple of days I don't have a real strong opinion. I think it's not very good but that's because it doesn't seem to know what it is in support of or against. It's just decrying mediocrity. I don't really think any school is perfect and very few do a truly great job of educating. Of course I see education as creating a well rounded individual who can think on their own. Passing college entrance exams and getting good grades have very little to do with that (in my minority opinion). So the reason I value public school so highly is that it exposes my children to the reality of the people and the world around them and they (hopefully) learn to deal with all different kinds of people. To be direct, public school is where you find the poor and middle class, and they are the ones I like. So I thought the movie was just sad because of what the kids had to go through. There were of course some valid points and some things I disagreed with. I think the current major teacher's unions are out of hand, I think tenure has become distorted. But I also think that the solution is not necessarily merit pay or the abolishing of the rights of collective bargaining (which the film implies, but does not state). I also agree with the film that the solution is not necessarily more money. (Although I would love to see school funding keep pace with inflation) But what is far more important is allowing schools to focus on education and not rules, tests and benchmarks. If the administration and the teachers were united in a goal of being good teachers and could spend money and time as they thought was useful and if people were allowed time to innovate and (God forbid) teach, things would improve.  But really, the only good education you can have a big impact on starts and ends at home. 

2 comments:

E Erickson said...

BRAVO!

E Erickson said...

I agree about the standardized testing. It's like that allows people (and the state/govt) to make up their minds about you before you even get to college.