Post by Ralph MoweryI wish that school when I went had a way to educate children in what
they were interested in.
And, what do you do about the kids who aren't *interested* in "school"?
The role of the (public) school system is to provide a basic education
to ALL students so they can be productive members of society. To
make an attempt at ensuring that they all have some "basic" understanding
of the subjects that society considers important.
In years past, this was a reasonably broad suite that also included
things like art and music. These seem to be among the first to go
when "cuts" are proposed.
Post by Ralph MoweryI was great in math and science but could not
remember the people's named or dates in history and did very poor in
English.
I was good in math and science -- and, according to the teachers, *english*
as well (much to my dismay!).
History? Blech. Too much rote memorization. OTOH, in college, we were
required to take 8 "humanities" courses (one per semester, on average)
and I chose American History as one of my electives - thinking I had
already had two o*years* of this in jr&sr high school. The teacher
was an economist and taught everything with an emphasis on the economic
factors at play -- which was far more interesting than just remembering
"stories"!
Post by Ralph MoweryI did go to two sumers of what was called enrichment studies
where we did not get graded but was exposed to many things that came in
hand in later life such as speed reading and general information about
other countries and some science. I really enjoyed those two years. The
ones in that program were ones that seemed to be at the top of the
school class.
We had a similar "program" for science and reading. The school system
funded the program (paid for teachers and facilities) but "transportation"
was the student's responsibility. E.g., the reading "class" was held at
a building half a mile distant from the science "class". So, you spent your
lunch hour walking from one to the other.
There were other "remedial" classes ("summer school") that addressed kids
who were lagging in different subjects.
Much of the quality of an education (public or otherwise) can be traced to
the level of funding and commitment (of parents and educators). My teachers
recognized that I was easily bored by the material that challenged the rest
of the class so would funnel other materials to me for "independent study".
Then, expect me to make presentations to the class about what I had learned.
(I remember one year where I spent a day each week -- in "math class" --
presenting bits of the Trachenberg system to my fellow classmates. Gave
a short course in "optics" another year based on what I'd learned from the
bag of lenses and book given to me by my science teacher.)
I built an interactive "football" game as a special project, one year,
using "analog computers" and "logic boxes" (each a small suitcase that
the student could take home during the school year for "homework").
It occupied a 4'x8' sheet of plywood and was more interesting that it
worked, at all, than it's actual technological basis (lots of analog
meters scattered around the board to tell you the position on the
field, "down", yards gained/lost on that play, "time" remaining, etc.)
The school system paid for me to attend another facility in a remote
part of the state (<tmsc.org> now more of a "charter school" than a
"gifted program") where I was exposed to other fields of science that
were beyond the capabilities of the public schools. E.g., I started
using computers 6 or 7 years before they *had* any in our school system)
We had a "math team" that competed with other schools around the state,
after school -- relying on one of our teachers for transportation
("VW microbus with shovels and rakes and implements of destruction")
Out-of-state "field trips" were relatively common -- NYC, Washington DC,
Boston, etc. -- as they were 2-6 hour drives (and the school system
would rent the *commercial* bus for our transportation -- sunrise to
after sunset!)
It's all "just money"... :-/
Jr&Sr high school sorted students into "college prep" and "business"
curriculae. And, as there are only a fixed number of hours in a school
day, this meant you didn't take some classes in order to accommodate
others. E.g., I never had time for "auto shop" in high school -- but
managed to fit wood shop, metal shop and drafting into jr high. So,
students had *some* flexibility in what they could take (though 4 years
of english and 4 years of phys ed were required to graduate high school;
I had to bring proof that I'd taken a year's worth -- 2 semesters -- of
each back from my freshman year at college in order to get my high
school diploma... utter nonsense!)