Sunday, January 25, 2009

Imagine a six year old kid who wants to be a firefighter.

Imagine that the student learns to read
by reading about firefighting.

And s/he learns math, by doing firefighting math,
and learns about science,
by studying the science of firefighting.

All the while practicing learning.
All the while developing learning skills and resources.

And, the very next day,
when that dream has been replaced by another,

s/he will learn how to learn, by learning about policing,
or about nursing, or about flying, or about
any other goal that a child's mind can imagine.

And when the kid gets to middle school
and dreams about being "a marine biologist",

(for some reason, all middle schoolers want to be marine biologists)

they pretty much know how to learn on their own.

They pretty much know how to learn about anything at all
on the web and on their own.


Imagine teachers with enough time to devote to students
in need of individual attention.

And enough time to help to grow children into adults
who are decent human beings;

good citizens, caring and fair, respectful and responsible,
and trustworthy.


And when they graduate high school, they are as prepared
as they can be, to learn and do anything at all.

Compare that to the likelihood of a student in an NCLB
bureaucracy high school, graduating,
prepared to learn and do anything,

... at all.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Because of NCLB, and before that, APS' mismanagement of money, many fine programs in APS High schools are now gone: Anatomy classes, some AP courses, ALL accelerated classes, high level foreign language, Navajo language classes, History from a Chicano Perspective (elective), US History from the Native American Perspective, and the list will go on and on.
All of these courses create great background knowledge and preparation for college, life and other things...GONE!