Though as a faculty we represent a diverse and expansive educational background sometimes we miss the point. Whether your educational philosophy is behaviorist or constructivist our mission is to educate the next generation.
There is some value in the criticism that in many ways we are “allowing the inmates to run the asylum.”
Allowing the students to set the roles, goals, and objectives of education and determine the cultural and environmental factors of any level of the K-12 school is going to have detrimental effects. Centralized large school environments support and even create some of the problems we see.
Still that doesn’t explain what I like to call the “Math Minute” problem.
If I may inject a personal story into the debate and some history. My spouse and I are both professionals who entered academia later in life. In our love for learning we are both nearing ABD status. We have a few advanced degrees in diverse areas but more importantly we have twin sons.
This year our 8 year old boys entered second grade. After the normal wrangling, threats, and vitriol involving the “required” separation of twins based on about zero scholarship we as always win the fight and they are in class together based on substantial peer-reviewed scholarship (score 1 for over-educated parents). As all parents I think my kids are the smartest and brightest so it was with dread that we watched as they reviewed most of first grade for the first 4 months of second grade.
My kids did second and third grade home-schooling work books when they got home each night as well as the “normal” homework. Did I mention that they like learning because it is fun?
With the spring semester (starting in the dead of winter) a new and fun tool of education was sprung on my young 8 year olds. The “Math Minute” a timed sheet of 25 problems addition and subtraction and as we were warned earlier this year failure to finish the 10 levels (1s, 2s, 3s, etc…) would subject them to being held back. The boys could finish them perfectly every time but not in a minute. Seems somebody taught them to be careful and thoughtful in their math. Though we drop our children off at the classroom EVERY morning and see the teacher we found out that they were subject to being held back through the report card (score 1 for inclusive education!).
Now some parents would panic. Ok we did panic. While my 16 year old was teaching his physics homework to his little brothers (the twins have some issues with derivatives) my wife and I discussed what to do. In between phone calls (my older son runs a physics homework hotline from his cell phone) he suggested flash cards. My wife and I colloquially known as “hackers”, gamed the system and started teaching “test taking” strategies. Now what does that mean when we are teaching test taking strategies versus knowledge and outcomes for the goal of learning?
The result of this and previous altercations with the school is that as educators, but more importantly as parents, we are considering the “un-schooling” movement” as a viable option. Better home schooling than allowing our children to be turned into apathetic mindless drones who hate learning. I personally do not equate school to learning. I do equate learning and acquisition of knowledge to success. More importantly in a world where television, multi-media, and so many other distractions are parasites on the learning process it is imperative to teach thinking and filtering strategies. Filtering strategies and critical thinking skills are the most important skills I can give my 8 year olds in a world of hyper-media and Google (the hive mind).
Consider the growing educated population of the planet, the increased exclusionary nature of social networks, the echo-chamber of ideas, the expanding knowledge base, the increasing expectations of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) along with liberal arts & communications strategies, and the absolute break down of education. Purdue has I-STEM to help combat this, but it will be years before it has a substantial effect and my children need change now. To somewhat is a political nugget to be tossed around is a very personal and important issue for my wife and I today.
My wife and I know that we are statistically outliers on education and age compared to most parents of 8 year olds. My children love education and are pretty sure school has not been such a great idea with sparkles of hope (1st grade was awesome). My daughter (in college) and older son (junior in high school) were our experiential learning opportunity to learn the ways of public education. Referring to my oldest boys experience as being survived and character building euphemistically explains the temerity we take with our twin boys now.
There are a few gems that come along and can change your mind rapidly and if you have around 10 minutes I would suggest watching this video called “Did you know 3.0”. As a glimmer of hope it wasn’t produced by a University faculty, or community leadership council, but by a high school information technology director in Durango Colorado.