Visioning 2026 Blog
A Different Context -- Educating our Youth
The article reference listed
below really gets you to think about how our education
should change. Julie Pfeil has it right, we just need to spend
time with children and get them to perform (work hard
at learning), especially those that are having learning
problems.
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8675317
Not everyone's a genius, but don't say so in front of the children
BY the time Laszlo Polgar's first baby was born in 1969
he already had firm views on child-rearing. An eccentric citizen of communist
An expert on the theory of chess, he proceeded to teach little Zsuzsa at home, spending up to ten hours a day on the game. Two more daughters were similarly hot-housed. All three obliged their father by becoming world-class players. The youngest, Judit, is currently ranked 13th in the world, and is by far the best female chess player of all time.
Jennifer February 10th, 2007 6:06 am
Mark:
This article does support the idea that you don’t have to be a genius to do well. In Freakonomics http://www.freakonomics.com/thebook.php Levitt and Dubner make a similar argument – they had an extensive section on whether or not names affected the outcome of a child’s life, with an anecdote about a family with a child named “Winner” and one named “Loser” – you can guess what the outcome was – Loser prospered; Winner did not. They also looked at what made children successful in school and they found a correlation between the number of books a child had to how well they did and it didn’t seem to matter if they read them or not – seemed to have more to do with the motivation of the parent for the child to do well. . . .
Perhaps we could discuss some factors related to “doing well” and seed them with the school board and the new superintendent to see education in a new light? What does this mean in a future’s context as Rick put it so well last night – if we are not in a new context, we will rehash the same old same old, forever. I have an idea that all the elementary schools should have one PTA over all of the schools and use it to “educate” and support parents with kids in the system – they could still have individual ones for specific events, but could pool resources for the whole community. Plus, I have to bring this up again – maybe we should use the poll to coin a new word for this – “well rounded” – education, community and citizens and what does that mean and how do we attain that for a constantly changing and complex society?
Warmest Wishes,
Jennifer
Greg February 10th, 2007 6:08 am
Sorry, I missed last night, but this article hits on something we've all known in one way or another for years.
I'm reminded of a sixth grade parent teacher conference I attended for one of my children at Bel Air. The teacher had previously taught at Washington, and we were the last scheduled conference. The conferences were running late, and the teacher apologized, but said that of her 22 students, every conference was attended, more often than not by both parents. At Washington, she was likely to only get 3 or 4 of 22 parents to come. Obviously the social economic differences in the two schools played a huge part, more single parent households at Washington, more households where both parents were working and couldn't get off, and a hundred other reasons I won't go into here. The point being that as our society sits now, it is easier for the more affluent to have the involvement discussed here.
This raises multiple questions. Would a city wide PTA, as Jennifer suggests, help increase parent involvement throughout the city, and increase advocacy? Will the increase in the minimum raise, and its ripple effect on wages make it possible for more parents to take the time necessary to increase involvement? Is there a way to provide more time, in partnership with business and the schools, to allow parents to be involved with their children's education without fear of the loss of income? Should TANF benefits require certification of attendance at parent teacher conferences by the parent recipient?
One final point. Many people are amazed at how well home schooled children do when they enter the school system at any point. Isn't home schooling the ultimate in parent involvement? Based on this discussion, should we be surprised at these results?
Greg
Sheila February 10th, 2007 6:09 am
I know you don't usually get a lot of email dialogue from me, but I am finding this to be a quite thought provoking topic. I had to sit down and write my thoughts....
Polgar's perspective and the practice in Japan of believing that all children have equal potential to "do great things" allows us to give all children the same opportunities - instead of labeling them or immediately placing expectations (and the flipside - not expecting much if anything) on children based on aspects of their life they have no control over as children - i.e., socio-economic status, parenting, race, physical ability and appearance, early behavior and a whole host of other early identified labels. We all do it - make excuses why little Johnny "will probably not amount to much, because he's doesn't have a daddy or he acts up in class." Maybe the reason that home schooled children do so well, is that a parent is less likely to have a preconceived idea about his/her own child that they won't be able to do great things. As a parent, I believe that my child can (and will) be something extraordinary.
We have learned in US society to use so many labels to give reasons why children (and adults) "can't," that we set many up for failure.
Sheila
Mark February 10th, 2007 6:35 am
Hey guys, excellent dialogue. Jennifer, you're right on in that we need to ask at least one if not more polling questions that get the survey participants to start thinking in a different context. Our agrarian style school system keeps teaching as if we need to produce skilled labors for the agricultural and manufacturing economies which as we all know is a minimal part of our economic model given our flat world. I like your PTA model, it becomes a very interactive collaborative voice with the school board that covers the whole school district. Could each school PTA "elect" a representative to the district "PTA" and then this group selects their "leadership council", speaker, vice speaker, secretary, etc.? I suspect Mark Clausen's read aloud Norfolk program would get more traction in more grade schools with a district PTA. I think this district wide PTA could include the home schooling association as well as the parochial school systems so we include the whole community.
Mark