Subject: Re: [Gnu-arch-users] OT: trained dependency
From: Zenaan Harkness <zen@cashpoolcomps.com>
To: arch <gnu-arch-users@gnu.org>
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On Fri, 2004-11-05 at 06:56, Thomas Lord wrote:
>     > From: Zenaan Harkness <zen@cashpoolcomps.com>
> 
>     > Quote from that page: "Perhaps the greatest of school's illusions is
>     > that the institution was launched by a group of kindly men and women who
>     > wanted to help the children of ordinary familiesto level the playing
>     > field, so to speak."
> 
> What's the a priori argument against public schools rather than the
> historic one?
> 
> While historically, public schools may (or may not) have an ugly
> origin, /some/ today have certainly evolved into great institutions.
> Intuitively, public education has a lot of appeal for me: partly
> because the idea of a coherent "public space" has a lot of appeal and
> schools seem like a place to manufacture that;  partly because public
> schools are (potentially!) very economically efficient.
> 
> So, is there something /inherent/ in public schooling that makes it
> evil?

No. I agree with you that they could (and actually were for some time)
achieving (at least a fair part) of what they "should" achieve - to
educate people.

The level of education going on has _by design_ significantly dropped.
Various things may be part of a good overall solution, except that the
currently public school system's layered beaurocracy and surrounding
pork-barrel industry is so entrenched it is likely it would need to be
scrapped first, and started from scratch.

Some things that might benefit:
 - letters and sounds ("decoding" reading) vs. picture words
("heiroglyphic" reading)

 - free form classes (not limited to x minutes, where, if you are deeply
in thought or analysis of something, you can continue until you
personally decide to move to something new

 - mixed age group classes (hard to work I'd guess without somewhat free
form classes)

 - change schools from a national government jobs and procurement (pork
dishing) project (the reason schools pay more for supplies that
individuals can buy at the supermarket, sacrificing all economies of
scale that should be inherent in such a large institution) to an
educational project

 - teach real subjects like history instead of watered down subjects
like "social studies"

 - And the BIG one: a free market in teaching - give parents the choice
of where to spend their student's educational dollars (ie. free market
for teachers, teaching methods and learning materials). I believe this
would have the most drastic effect on the system (gutting the old system
and instituting a nation of people aware of, and aiming to, benefit
themselves, based on free market "performance" of alternatives, rather
than beaurocracy-dictated pork-barrel spending - that's a massive
difference right there).

cheers
zen


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