the yet another school reform? Why do we really worry so much about the public education? - Page 2

[MusicianDad]

Originally Posted by Mirzam 

If a child is encouraged to work hard and put in effort (this is where Tiger Moms may be onto something), they are going to achieve regardless of socio-economic status, in sports look at the Williams sisters for example. If a school fosters a culture of excellence through work and effort, students will succeed. Teacher-led education, with the right motivation can achieve this, as can a system that is more child-led. Success is a mindset.

They may achieve regardless of socio-economic status, but the idea that a child can learn anything with enough effort and a culture of excellence still won't work out with every child succeeding. There still need to be acknowledgement of individual strengths and weaknesses. If most or all children in a class are achieving excellence, than the content is too easy. There is going to be a large portion of the class that isn't even trying or learning anything. It's one of my issues with the grading system in the US and Canada, people are so obsessed with A's, even a B is considered by many as not being good enough. Yet the system is based on the bell curve. For all intents and purposes of the letter grading system most students should be getting C's, which is average, where as only those who have already learned the subject or excel at the subject should be getting A's and B's.

The problem with the system isn't that there is no expectation of excellence, it's that the level of understanding required to achieve excellence ( an A in the majority of US and Canadian schools) keeps dropping so that parents won't complain when their child gets a B or C instead of the A the parent thinks their child deserves. Which means that when held up against other countries where the A margin is hardly ever achieved, they come out below. 

I am half in agreement with the OP, I don't agree with teacher led learning really. I do believe that most people excel at topics that they are interested in and choose. I do agree that in the US and, to a lesser extent, Canada the bar for excellence has dropped so low that A in these country is the equivalent of C in other countries. So obsessed with this ideal of "excellence" we are, that the definition of excellence has become "average".

[Coral123]

I agree with musiciandad that we really don't encourage excellence.  Teachers don't seem to give feedback the way they once did.

I also believe that curriculum is important. One advantage to having a national curriculum is that we would save a lot of money by not having numerous small districts figuring out curriculums. 

[anechka]

Originally Posted by Linda on the move 

Originally Posted by anechka 

 Also, students with disabilities obviously studied in a different setting.

so all children with differences would be taken out of your perfect schools? All the kids with LDs, attention issues, sensory issues? 

You really aren't going to have many kids left.

Please rest assured that I am not planning on building my "perfect school" in your neighbourhood anytime soon. Pardon my ignorance but I do not know what theses issues are. I have never heard of them before. By the phrase - the "kid with disabilities" I meant the kids who have severe mental problems that prevent them from functioning without assistance. I remember one specific child  in MY middle school who was severely mentally retarded (Is this word can still be used in the U.S? I hope I did not offend anyone). He was in the special education class, and I would highly doubt that he would've benefited or enjoyed taking my algebra class. We did have special education classes in my school. Note: we all studied in the SAME school not the different ones as you are implying.  I also thought there are all sorts of special education programs for severely disabled children in the U.S. schools. I guess I was wrong then?

And anyway, the reality is that the secondary education in the U.S. is going to continue to deteriorate. But I think this country will find a way to survive; hey, we are doing it now and are much better off than other nations!  In the worse case scenario there are always us, foreigners coming to this country and working in the brain-intensive fileds.

[anechka]

Originally Posted by physmom 

I see this thread is a few days old but I hope there's no problem if I throw in my 2 cents too. ;)

I don't have a school-aged kid yet (DD will be starting preschool soon).  However, I'm currently living in my third country and have worked with kids.  I also tutored for many years in Germany at the college so I have a pretty good idea what kids are like coming fresh out of high school there.  I do have to admit that, yes, the first year students DO have a much better understanding of mathematics and pretty much all have had some sort of calculus within high school, which is obviously not common in the US.  HOWEVER, there system is very different.  Americans are enamored with the idea that students of all levels can got to college and that's the purpose of high school.  Germany, however, has three different high school, which a student is tracked into before middle school and only ONE of those gives you a degree that lets you go to college (there are some alternative routes but it's my understanding that they are not used often). It ends up being around 50% of kids that attend the school that allows you to go to college, so you're already cutting out a huge chunk of the population that makes it easier for teacher to teach to the upper half of students.  
 

Thank you for the great post! I did live in a  country (not for long, though) that used the tracking system you are describing, and I believe that there are some benefits to this system. Personally, I do not believe that every kid MUST go to a college; many can do well by getting some sort of vocational training instead. There is really no perfect system out there; each one has its own pros and cons. However I see nothing wrong in learning about the educational succesess of other countries and investigating the possibility of implementing some of their techniques here.  

[anechka]

Originally Posted by MusicianDad 

Originally Posted by Mirzam 

If a child is encouraged to work hard and put in effort (this is where Tiger Moms may be onto something), they are going to achieve regardless of socio-economic status, in sports look at the Williams sisters for example. If a school fosters a culture of excellence through work and effort, students will succeed. Teacher-led education, with the right motivation can achieve this, as can a system that is more child-led. Success is a mindset.

They may achieve regardless of socio-economic status, but the idea that a child can learn anything with enough effort and a culture of excellence still won't work out with every child succeeding. There still need to be acknowledgement of individual strengths and weaknesses. If most or all children in a class are achieving excellence, than the content is too easy. There is going to be a large portion of the class that isn't even trying or learning anything. It's one of my issues with the grading system in the US and Canada, people are so obsessed with A's, even a B is considered by many as not being good enough. Yet the system is based on the bell curve. For all intents and purposes of the letter grading system most students should be getting C's, which is average, where as only those who have already learned the subject or excel at the subject should be getting A's and B's.

The problem with the system isn't that there is no expectation of excellence, it's that the level of understanding required to achieve excellence ( an A in the majority of US and Canadian schools) keeps dropping so that parents won't complain when their child gets a B or C instead of the A the parent thinks their child deserves. Which means that when held up against other countries where the A margin is hardly ever achieved, they come out below. 

I am half in agreement with the OP, I don't agree with teacher led learning really. I do believe that most people excel at topics that they are interested in and choose. I do agree that in the US and, to a lesser extent, Canada the bar for excellence has dropped so low that A in these country is the equivalent of C in other countries. So obsessed with this ideal of "excellence" we are, that the definition of excellence has become "average".

Unfortunately, grade inflation is commonplace now not only in the secondary schools but also in colleges. That is very sad and might create big problems for the country down the road. I do agree with you that the people excel at the topics they are mostly interested in. But that usually happens when the students are older. When they are still in the primary and middle schools, they should be given content-rich and well-rounded curriculum that includes arts, physical education, English, math, history, geography, botany, astronomy. We need to expose our students to the broad base of knowledge, so they will have enough substance to pick from when they are older.