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On
While
a very few
schools, given great teachers and inspired leadership, may possibly
work if we
“Give it the test of time.” The
chances
are better that the No Child Left Behind
Act is going
to make a very peculiar situation very much worse. That
is, most schools
are expensive, well-meaning, and no longer relevant places where
bright-eyed,
curious, and enthusiastic LEARNERS — who’ve TAUGHT THEMSELVES both a
zillion
things plus how to speak the native tongue — become passive,
apprehensive,
bored, and ineffective “students,” constantly worried about the
humiliation of
not being able to give That Magic Right Answer to those anxious adults
hovering
about. The
results, one-third
of high-school seniors are proficient readers, 17 percent can do
arithmetic
well, most come to hate books and, from K. through graduate school,
virtually
all subject matter is HAPPILY forgotten just as soon as summer rolls
around. In the
meantime,
curiosity, creativity, sociability, self-esteem, and the ability to ask
the
right questions may have forever gone down the tubes, which is the
almost
inevitable by-product of a Prussian-derived, factory-oriented, mandated
institution where young people, especially if they’re middle class, may
also be
certified as obedient, reliable, and deferential. An
EDUCATION, on the
other hand, is what happens, despite TV, in every home, in the
community, and
on the job where, with mentoring and the newspaper etc. both young and
old
easily teach themselves what they need to know and/or are INTERESTED in. A very
few teachers, and
public/private schools, and learning centers, and colleges, have,
however,
shown us what CAN be done inside the box. But
that’s a story for
another day. |