The Most Important Race—We’re Losing
Imagine that many of the world’s developed and emerging nations agreed to compete in a yearlong auto race. The race will cover all sorts of terrain and climates in widely separated global venues. Our team would be selected by political leaders in the nation’s capital from people nominated by every state. Imagine that Team USA would be the first team to settle on an all purpose vehicle for the race.
All of the competitors but Team USA chose all purpose and reliable late-model SUVs for their vehicle based on the varying course conditions where normal over-the-road cars could not be as successful. Team USA chose a modified version of the Ford Model T. While their choice was scorned by their competition, Team USA said that they were the real experts and they would win the race easily.
They decided on the Model T based on its reputation for being easy to work on and repair. They added a bunch of features which they deemed necessary for the race. These included an air-conditioned cockpit, a complete set of the latest instruments to measure every aspect of vehicle performance, a state of the art GPS system plus additional crew members to monitor the gauges and computer readouts. Team USA was very positive about having the best vehicle in the race and couldn’t wait for the competition to begin.
The race is to cover 25,000 miles over one year. Only the first 5 teams would be awarded prizes. At the end of the first week the leading teams were Finland, Singapore, China, India and Russia. Team USA was far back because their 50,000 pound modified Model T experienced 100 tire blowouts and the top speed on level ground was 10 miles an hour due to the immense weight dragging on the relatively tiny Ford engine.
Day after day Team USA fell further and further behind. They took to announcing progress against lower and lower targets to make their failing performance look better than it was. This was successful in fooling most of the people. The race ended when the first five teams had finished. Team USA was about 200 days behind the leaders based on their average speed to date.
The Point
The race story is an analog to the performance of American K-12 education versus our global competition. The modified Model T was chosen because it is a hundred year old design just as the progressive philosophy of our education system is a century old. While there have been lots of added changes in curricula; program names, advanced education degrees, best practices, response to intervention, etc. they all are consistent with the constructivist, discovery beliefs of the progressive ideology. As in the race story, the performance of the constructivist/discovery methods is such that the education of students is much slower and never reaches the robust levels of the competition that are using higher performance methods and curricula (faster, better performing cars).
Also, as in the race story, educators set lower and lower standards to make their performance look much better than it really is (short yardstick). Our schools are simply not close to being competitive with those of our most capable competitors. Their children, not ours, are being prepared to seize the best job opportunities of the future. This has massive import to our future standard of living and our very survival as a nation.
How long will we grant huge amounts of money to the failed education process? The waste in the current system is akin to the thousands of pounds of modifications the race team made to the basic model. Attaching fancy gadgets to a failed underlying “vehicle” or education philosophy is a fool's approach. Yet it is we who are fools to allow it to continue when it is wasting huge amounts of money AND harming our kids. It shouldn’t be hard to demand changes once we face reality. That is difficult because we feel foolish for not realizing the truth sooner. But the truth must be faced if our kids are to be saved from hobbled futures. Results don’t lie. The educators have proven they can’t improve no matter how much money we give them. They can’t be trusted with something so important as the futures of our kids. Clemenceau famously said, “War is too important to be left to the generals.” Similarly, “Education is too important to be left to politicians and professional educators.”
Monday, February 21, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
Sirens' Song; There be danger here Will Robinson
You probably remember the Sirens of Greek mythology. Homer’s Odyssey is one of the more famous versions of the tale, but there were many others. The basic kernel of the story was that the creatures (Homer said 2, but other sources vary from 2 to 5) would sing their song to lure mariners to shipwreck on the rocky shore of their island. Odysseus in Homer’s version knows the legend and has himself lashed to the mast tightly and tells his crew to plug their ears with beeswax and not to free his bonds no matter how much he demands or pleads for them to do so. As they travel within range of the songs Odysseus demands and pleads for them to release him from his bonds and is not at peace until they pass far enough away to be out of earshot of the Sirens’ songs. Because the myths said that the Sirens would die if anyone escaped their trap, the Sirens were no more.
In education the Sirens’ part is played by the schools of education. There are a very few exceptions but their graduates do not make a dent in the message carried in the Sirens’ songs of “process is all that matters, learning is natural it doesn’t need to be taught, just make the kids feel good about themselves and that is enough.” This romantic view of learning is de rigueur in our society because the vast majority of educators have been trained in education schools which were designed in the 1930s to teach the Progressive principles of education. This anti-content approach results in teachers (especially elementary level) who don’t understand the subject matter well at all. This is in direct contrast to the philosophy of nations where their children are getting a much better education than ours as their achievement results prove year after year and decade after decade.
So let’s consider a couple of examples:
• Music education—this field has escaped the “they will learn it on their own naturally” approach. Why? Because you can’t teach students to play a school band concert in front of the parents each year without them understanding the notes, how to play them and so forth. And the teachers have to know music reasonably well or their students would give an embarrassing performance that would surely leave the school and its music program subject to severe criticism. The romantic approach is akin to that of Professor Hill in The Music Man. Oh, it worked for him because it made a nice story but his “think” system doesn’t work in the real world no matter how strong the wishes that it would or should.
• Sports—this is another area where physical education teachers and coaches know the skills required in the sports and how to teach them to the kids. That dreaded “drill and kill” so criticized in “normal, mainstream” subjects, you know the most important stuff, works and is used widely by sports coaches. Why are they granted a “waiver” from the Progressive party line? Dewey likened the education system that really works as fascist because it was structured to really teach subject knowledge. You could ask yourself why the Progressives didn’t want kids to learn to their potential. Perhaps because if they were well educated they would see through the Progressives’ desire to have government experts make the important decisions for us.
In sports as in music the obvious proof of whether the students learned the skills and knowledge required to really perform is in the games with their competitors and the public music performances. The question for us then is how much longer will we see our students shipwrecked on the future-reducing rocks because their educators couldn’t resist the Siren Song of the technically wrong and “abysmal failure to work” education school training.
In education the Sirens’ part is played by the schools of education. There are a very few exceptions but their graduates do not make a dent in the message carried in the Sirens’ songs of “process is all that matters, learning is natural it doesn’t need to be taught, just make the kids feel good about themselves and that is enough.” This romantic view of learning is de rigueur in our society because the vast majority of educators have been trained in education schools which were designed in the 1930s to teach the Progressive principles of education. This anti-content approach results in teachers (especially elementary level) who don’t understand the subject matter well at all. This is in direct contrast to the philosophy of nations where their children are getting a much better education than ours as their achievement results prove year after year and decade after decade.
So let’s consider a couple of examples:
• Music education—this field has escaped the “they will learn it on their own naturally” approach. Why? Because you can’t teach students to play a school band concert in front of the parents each year without them understanding the notes, how to play them and so forth. And the teachers have to know music reasonably well or their students would give an embarrassing performance that would surely leave the school and its music program subject to severe criticism. The romantic approach is akin to that of Professor Hill in The Music Man. Oh, it worked for him because it made a nice story but his “think” system doesn’t work in the real world no matter how strong the wishes that it would or should.
• Sports—this is another area where physical education teachers and coaches know the skills required in the sports and how to teach them to the kids. That dreaded “drill and kill” so criticized in “normal, mainstream” subjects, you know the most important stuff, works and is used widely by sports coaches. Why are they granted a “waiver” from the Progressive party line? Dewey likened the education system that really works as fascist because it was structured to really teach subject knowledge. You could ask yourself why the Progressives didn’t want kids to learn to their potential. Perhaps because if they were well educated they would see through the Progressives’ desire to have government experts make the important decisions for us.
In sports as in music the obvious proof of whether the students learned the skills and knowledge required to really perform is in the games with their competitors and the public music performances. The question for us then is how much longer will we see our students shipwrecked on the future-reducing rocks because their educators couldn’t resist the Siren Song of the technically wrong and “abysmal failure to work” education school training.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Could You Pass?
Following is the British Columbia high school exit exam: literary section. There is an equally rigorous section for history. This information is taken from the Common Core report, Why We’re Behind, What Top Nations Teach Their Students That We Don’t (2009).
A real example helps to illuminate the difference between our educational approach and that of the competitor nations whose students consistently score better, much better, than ours on international tests. This provides more information on the topic started in A Sick Patient and Human Nature.
Please take a look at the exam and ponder the question, “Can we continue to ignore our dumbed down approach in K-12 education?”
British Columbia High School Exit Exam
Literary Selections
1. In Beowulf, which Anglo-Saxon value is represented by Herot?
A. power
B. heroism
C. boasting
D. community
2. In “The Prologue” to The Canterbury Tales, how is the Parson described?
A. “a very festive fellow”
B. “a fat and personable priest”
C. “rich in holy thought and work”
D. “an easy man in penance-giving”
3. In Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 (“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”), why does the speaker state that his mistress “treads on the ground”?
A. She is a sensible woman.
B. She is beautiful and attainable.
C. He is praising her as a real woman.
D. He is disappointed by her plainness.
4. Which quotation contains personification?
A. “Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am”
B. “No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move”
C. “Nor what the potent Victor in his rage / Can else inflict”
D. “and wanton fields / To wayward Winter reckoning yields”
5. In “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,” on what does “dull sublunary" love depend?
A. spiritual union
B. physical presence
C. common attitudes
D. shared experience
6. In “On His Blindness,” which metaphor does Milton use to represent his literary powers?
A. a talent
B. a yoke
C. a kingly state
D. the dark world
7. In The Rape of the Lock, when Pope writes “So ladies in romance assist their knight, / Present the spear, and arm him for the fight,” what has just happened?
A. Belinda has just pulled out a “deadly bodkin.”
B. Chloe and Sir Plume have just confronted each other.
C. Clarissa has just offered a “two-edged weapon” to the Baron.
D. The Baron’s queen of spades defeats Belinda’s king of clubs.
8. Which characteristic of “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” can be seen as Romantic?
A. It celebrates the supernatural.
B. It is written in iambic pentameter.
C. It emphasizes reason over emotion.
D. It deals with the lives of common people.
9. “The guests are met, the feast is set”
Which literary technique is used in the above quotation?
A. aside
B. caesura
C. apostrophe
D. cacophony
10. In “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” how do the sailors feel when the albatross first appears?
A. joyful
B. fearful
C. enraged
D. indifferent
11. According to the speaker in “Apostrophe to the Ocean,” with what attitude does the ocean
treat humanity?
A. anger
B. respect
C. disdain
D. generosity
12. In Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 43 (“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”), what does the speaker reveal about herself?
A. her desire to be loved
B. her love for her beloved
C. her love for her dying father
D. her need to be with her beloved
13. “And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star” In “Ulysses,” to whom does “this gray spirit” refer?
A. Achilles
B. Ulysses
C. Tennyson
D. Telemachus
14. What does Arnold lament in “Dover Beach”?
A. the loss of religious faith
B. the loss of romantic love
C. the loss of military strength
D. the loss of respect for nature
15. In “The Hollow Men,” how does the speaker suggest that the world will end?
A. violently
B. gloriously
C. ominously
D. anticlimactically
16. In “Disembarking at Quebec,” which article suggests the speaker’s alienation from her surroundings?
A. her pink shawl
B. her fine bonnet
C. her coral brooch
D. her red stockings
Recognition of Authors and Titles
INSTRUCTIONS: Select the author of the quotation or the title of the selection from which the quotation is taken.
17. “For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings”
A. Wyatt
B. Donne
C. Chaucer
D. Shakespeare
18. “And through the drifts the snowy clifts Did send a dismal sheen:
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken —The ice was all between”
A. “Ulysses”
B. “The Hollow Men”
C. “Disembarking at Quebec”
D. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
19. “Dim, through the misty green panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning”
A. “Dover Beach”
B. “Ode to the West Wind”
C. “Dulce et Decorum Est”
D. “Apostrophe to the Ocean”
20. “So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die!”
A. Keats
B. Shelley
C. Browning
D. Wordsworth
21. “Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men”
A. Pope
B. Donne
C. Milton
D. Raleigh
22. “The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant”
A. “The Hollow Men”
B. “The Darkling Thrush”
C. “The Second Coming”
D. “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”
23. “He wore a fustian tunic stained and dark
With smudges where his armor had left mark”
A. Beowulf
B. The Rape of the Lock
C. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
D. “The Prologue” to The Canterbury Tales
PART C: SHAKESPEAREAN DRAMA
1 written-response question
Value: 20% Suggested Time: 25 minutes
INSTRUCTIONS: Choose one of the three passages on pages 14 to 17 in the Examination Booklet.
With specific reference to the drama, respond to one of the following statements in at least 200 words in paragraph form. Write your answer in ink in the Response Booklet. Place a checkmark in Instruction 4 on the front cover of the Response Booklet.
Hamlet (See passage on page 14.)
2. Show the significance of this exchange between Hamlet and Gertrude.
Refer both to this passage and to elsewhere in the play.
OR
The Tempest (See passage on page 15.)
3. With reference both to this passage and to elsewhere in the play, show that this passage contributes to theme.
OR
King Lear (See passage on page 17.)
4. Discuss the parallels between the father–child relationship found both in these passages and elsewhere in the play.
2. Hamlet (1600 –1601)
Hamlet: Now, Mother, what’s the matter?
Queen: Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
Hamlet: Mother, you have my father much offended.
Queen: Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
Hamlet: Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
Queen: Why, how now, Hamlet?
Hamlet: What’s the matter now?
Queen: Have you forgot me?
Hamlet: No, by the rood,1 not so!
You are the Queen, your husband’s brother’s wife,
And, would it were not so, you are my mother.
Queen: Nay, then I’ll set those to you that can speak.
Hamlet: Come, come, and sit you down. You shall not budge.
You go not till I set you up a glass2
Where you may see the inmost part of you!
1 rood: cross
2 glass: mirror
OR
3. The Tempest (1611)
Gonzalo: I have inly wept,
Or should have spoke ere this. Look down, you gods,
And on this couple drop a blessèd crown!
For it is you that have chalked forth the way
Which brought us hither.
Alonso: I say amen, Gonzalo.
Gonzalo: Was Milan thrust from Milan that his issue
Should become kings of Naples? O, rejoice
Beyond a common joy, and set it down
With gold on lasting pillars. In one voyage
Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis,
And Ferdinand her brother found a wife
Where he himself was lost; Prospero his dukedom
In a poor isle; and all of us ourselves
When no man was his own.
Alonso: [To Ferdinand and Miranda] Give me your hands.
Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart
That doth not wish you joy.
Gonzalo: Be it so! Amen!
OR
4. King Lear (1603)
In her response to Lear’s question as to how much she loves him,
Cordelia answers truthfully.
Lear: But goes thy heart with this?
Cordelia: Ay, my good lord.
Lear: So young, and so untender?
Cordelia: So young, my lord, and true.
Lear: Let it be so, thy truth then be thy dower!
For, by the sacred radiance of the sun,
The mysteries of Hecate and the night,
By all the operation of the orbs
From whom we do exist and cease to be,
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
Propinquity and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee from this for ever. The barbarous Scythian,
Or he that makes his generation messes
To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
Be as well neighbored, pitied, and relieved,
As thou my sometime daughter.
AND
4. King Lear (1603)
Gloucester has just read a letter forged by Edmund.
Gloucester: You know the character to be your brother’s?
Edmund: If the matter were good, my lord, I durst
swear it were his; but in respect of that, I would
fain think it were not.
Gloucester: It is his.
Edmund: It is his hand, my lord; but I hope his heart is
not in the contents.
Gloucester: Has he never before sounded you in this
business?
Edmund: Never, my lord. But I have heard him
oft maintain it to be fit that, sons at perfect age,
and fathers declined, the father should be as ward
to the son, and the son manage his revenue.
Gloucester: O villain, villain! His very opinion in the
letter. Abhorred villain, unnatural, detested,
brutish villain; worse than brutish! Go, sirrah, seek
him. I’ll apprehend him. Abominable villain!
Where is he?
1 written-response question
Value: 30% Suggested Time: 40 minutes
INSTRUCTIONS: Choose one of the following topics. Write a multi-paragraph essay (at least three paragraphs) of approximately 400 words. Develop a concise, focused answer to show your knowledge and understanding of the topic. Include specific references to the works you discuss. You may not need all the space provided for your answer. You must refer to at least one work from the Specified Readings List (see page 20 in the Examination Booklet). The only translated works you may use are those from Anglo-Saxon and Medieval English. Write your answer in ink in the Response Booklet. Place a checkmark in Instruction 4 on the front cover of the Response Booklet.
Topic 5 The presence or absence of loyalty is often a theme in literature.
Support this statement with reference to at least three literary works.
OR
Topic 6 A journey of some kind is important to many works of literature.
Support this statement with reference to at least three literary works.
OR
Topic 7 The meaning of a literary work may be enhanced by its reference to another work of art or literature. Support this statement with reference to at least three literary works.
Note: On the following page is the reading list from which students must select one work to reference.
Specified Readings List
Anglo-Saxon and Medieval
• from Beowulf
• Geoffrey Chaucer, from The Canterbury Tales, “The Prologue”
• “Bonny Barbara Allan”
• from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Renaissance and 17th Century
• Sir Thomas Wyatt, “Whoso List to Hunt”
• Christopher Marlowe, “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”
• Sir Walter Raleigh, “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd”
• William Shakespeare,
Sonnet 29 (“When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes”)
Sonnet 116 (“Let me not to the marriage of true minds”)
Sonnet 130 (“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”)
Hamlet, King Lear or The Tempest
• John Donne,
“A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”;
“Death, Be Not Proud”
• Robert Herrick, “To the Virgins”
• John Milton, “On His Blindness”; from Paradise Lost
• from The Diary of Samuel Pepys
18th Century and Romantic
• Lady Mary Chudleigh, “To the Ladies”
• Alexander Pope, from The Rape of the Lock
• Jonathan Swift, “A Modest Proposal”
• Robert Burns, “To a Mouse”
• William Blake, “The Tiger”; “The Lamb”
• Thomas Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”
• William Wordsworth, “My Heart Leaps Up”; “The World Is
Too Much with Us”
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
• George Gordon, Lord Byron, “Apostrophe to the Ocean”
• Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ode to the West Wind”
• John Keats, “Ode to a Nightingale”; “When I Have Fears That I May
Cease to Be”
Victorian and 20th Century
• Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Ulysses”
• Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnet 43
(“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”)
• Robert Browning,
“My Last Duchess”
• Emily Brontë, “Song”
• Matthew Arnold, “Dover Beach”
• Thomas Hardy, “The Darkling Thrush”
• Emily Dickinson, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”
• Wilfred Owen, “Dulce et Decorum Est ”
• William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming”
• T.S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”
• Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”
• Stevie Smith, “Pretty”
• Margaret Atwood, “Disembarking at Quebec”
A real example helps to illuminate the difference between our educational approach and that of the competitor nations whose students consistently score better, much better, than ours on international tests. This provides more information on the topic started in A Sick Patient and Human Nature.
Please take a look at the exam and ponder the question, “Can we continue to ignore our dumbed down approach in K-12 education?”
British Columbia High School Exit Exam
Literary Selections
1. In Beowulf, which Anglo-Saxon value is represented by Herot?
A. power
B. heroism
C. boasting
D. community
2. In “The Prologue” to The Canterbury Tales, how is the Parson described?
A. “a very festive fellow”
B. “a fat and personable priest”
C. “rich in holy thought and work”
D. “an easy man in penance-giving”
3. In Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 (“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”), why does the speaker state that his mistress “treads on the ground”?
A. She is a sensible woman.
B. She is beautiful and attainable.
C. He is praising her as a real woman.
D. He is disappointed by her plainness.
4. Which quotation contains personification?
A. “Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am”
B. “No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move”
C. “Nor what the potent Victor in his rage / Can else inflict”
D. “and wanton fields / To wayward Winter reckoning yields”
5. In “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,” on what does “dull sublunary" love depend?
A. spiritual union
B. physical presence
C. common attitudes
D. shared experience
6. In “On His Blindness,” which metaphor does Milton use to represent his literary powers?
A. a talent
B. a yoke
C. a kingly state
D. the dark world
7. In The Rape of the Lock, when Pope writes “So ladies in romance assist their knight, / Present the spear, and arm him for the fight,” what has just happened?
A. Belinda has just pulled out a “deadly bodkin.”
B. Chloe and Sir Plume have just confronted each other.
C. Clarissa has just offered a “two-edged weapon” to the Baron.
D. The Baron’s queen of spades defeats Belinda’s king of clubs.
8. Which characteristic of “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” can be seen as Romantic?
A. It celebrates the supernatural.
B. It is written in iambic pentameter.
C. It emphasizes reason over emotion.
D. It deals with the lives of common people.
9. “The guests are met, the feast is set”
Which literary technique is used in the above quotation?
A. aside
B. caesura
C. apostrophe
D. cacophony
10. In “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” how do the sailors feel when the albatross first appears?
A. joyful
B. fearful
C. enraged
D. indifferent
11. According to the speaker in “Apostrophe to the Ocean,” with what attitude does the ocean
treat humanity?
A. anger
B. respect
C. disdain
D. generosity
12. In Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 43 (“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”), what does the speaker reveal about herself?
A. her desire to be loved
B. her love for her beloved
C. her love for her dying father
D. her need to be with her beloved
13. “And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star” In “Ulysses,” to whom does “this gray spirit” refer?
A. Achilles
B. Ulysses
C. Tennyson
D. Telemachus
14. What does Arnold lament in “Dover Beach”?
A. the loss of religious faith
B. the loss of romantic love
C. the loss of military strength
D. the loss of respect for nature
15. In “The Hollow Men,” how does the speaker suggest that the world will end?
A. violently
B. gloriously
C. ominously
D. anticlimactically
16. In “Disembarking at Quebec,” which article suggests the speaker’s alienation from her surroundings?
A. her pink shawl
B. her fine bonnet
C. her coral brooch
D. her red stockings
Recognition of Authors and Titles
INSTRUCTIONS: Select the author of the quotation or the title of the selection from which the quotation is taken.
17. “For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings”
A. Wyatt
B. Donne
C. Chaucer
D. Shakespeare
18. “And through the drifts the snowy clifts Did send a dismal sheen:
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken —The ice was all between”
A. “Ulysses”
B. “The Hollow Men”
C. “Disembarking at Quebec”
D. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
19. “Dim, through the misty green panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning”
A. “Dover Beach”
B. “Ode to the West Wind”
C. “Dulce et Decorum Est”
D. “Apostrophe to the Ocean”
20. “So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die!”
A. Keats
B. Shelley
C. Browning
D. Wordsworth
21. “Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men”
A. Pope
B. Donne
C. Milton
D. Raleigh
22. “The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant”
A. “The Hollow Men”
B. “The Darkling Thrush”
C. “The Second Coming”
D. “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”
23. “He wore a fustian tunic stained and dark
With smudges where his armor had left mark”
A. Beowulf
B. The Rape of the Lock
C. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
D. “The Prologue” to The Canterbury Tales
PART C: SHAKESPEAREAN DRAMA
1 written-response question
Value: 20% Suggested Time: 25 minutes
INSTRUCTIONS: Choose one of the three passages on pages 14 to 17 in the Examination Booklet.
With specific reference to the drama, respond to one of the following statements in at least 200 words in paragraph form. Write your answer in ink in the Response Booklet. Place a checkmark in Instruction 4 on the front cover of the Response Booklet.
Hamlet (See passage on page 14.)
2. Show the significance of this exchange between Hamlet and Gertrude.
Refer both to this passage and to elsewhere in the play.
OR
The Tempest (See passage on page 15.)
3. With reference both to this passage and to elsewhere in the play, show that this passage contributes to theme.
OR
King Lear (See passage on page 17.)
4. Discuss the parallels between the father–child relationship found both in these passages and elsewhere in the play.
2. Hamlet (1600 –1601)
Hamlet: Now, Mother, what’s the matter?
Queen: Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
Hamlet: Mother, you have my father much offended.
Queen: Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
Hamlet: Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
Queen: Why, how now, Hamlet?
Hamlet: What’s the matter now?
Queen: Have you forgot me?
Hamlet: No, by the rood,1 not so!
You are the Queen, your husband’s brother’s wife,
And, would it were not so, you are my mother.
Queen: Nay, then I’ll set those to you that can speak.
Hamlet: Come, come, and sit you down. You shall not budge.
You go not till I set you up a glass2
Where you may see the inmost part of you!
1 rood: cross
2 glass: mirror
OR
3. The Tempest (1611)
Gonzalo: I have inly wept,
Or should have spoke ere this. Look down, you gods,
And on this couple drop a blessèd crown!
For it is you that have chalked forth the way
Which brought us hither.
Alonso: I say amen, Gonzalo.
Gonzalo: Was Milan thrust from Milan that his issue
Should become kings of Naples? O, rejoice
Beyond a common joy, and set it down
With gold on lasting pillars. In one voyage
Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis,
And Ferdinand her brother found a wife
Where he himself was lost; Prospero his dukedom
In a poor isle; and all of us ourselves
When no man was his own.
Alonso: [To Ferdinand and Miranda] Give me your hands.
Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart
That doth not wish you joy.
Gonzalo: Be it so! Amen!
OR
4. King Lear (1603)
In her response to Lear’s question as to how much she loves him,
Cordelia answers truthfully.
Lear: But goes thy heart with this?
Cordelia: Ay, my good lord.
Lear: So young, and so untender?
Cordelia: So young, my lord, and true.
Lear: Let it be so, thy truth then be thy dower!
For, by the sacred radiance of the sun,
The mysteries of Hecate and the night,
By all the operation of the orbs
From whom we do exist and cease to be,
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
Propinquity and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee from this for ever. The barbarous Scythian,
Or he that makes his generation messes
To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
Be as well neighbored, pitied, and relieved,
As thou my sometime daughter.
AND
4. King Lear (1603)
Gloucester has just read a letter forged by Edmund.
Gloucester: You know the character to be your brother’s?
Edmund: If the matter were good, my lord, I durst
swear it were his; but in respect of that, I would
fain think it were not.
Gloucester: It is his.
Edmund: It is his hand, my lord; but I hope his heart is
not in the contents.
Gloucester: Has he never before sounded you in this
business?
Edmund: Never, my lord. But I have heard him
oft maintain it to be fit that, sons at perfect age,
and fathers declined, the father should be as ward
to the son, and the son manage his revenue.
Gloucester: O villain, villain! His very opinion in the
letter. Abhorred villain, unnatural, detested,
brutish villain; worse than brutish! Go, sirrah, seek
him. I’ll apprehend him. Abominable villain!
Where is he?
1 written-response question
Value: 30% Suggested Time: 40 minutes
INSTRUCTIONS: Choose one of the following topics. Write a multi-paragraph essay (at least three paragraphs) of approximately 400 words. Develop a concise, focused answer to show your knowledge and understanding of the topic. Include specific references to the works you discuss. You may not need all the space provided for your answer. You must refer to at least one work from the Specified Readings List (see page 20 in the Examination Booklet). The only translated works you may use are those from Anglo-Saxon and Medieval English. Write your answer in ink in the Response Booklet. Place a checkmark in Instruction 4 on the front cover of the Response Booklet.
Topic 5 The presence or absence of loyalty is often a theme in literature.
Support this statement with reference to at least three literary works.
OR
Topic 6 A journey of some kind is important to many works of literature.
Support this statement with reference to at least three literary works.
OR
Topic 7 The meaning of a literary work may be enhanced by its reference to another work of art or literature. Support this statement with reference to at least three literary works.
Note: On the following page is the reading list from which students must select one work to reference.
Specified Readings List
Anglo-Saxon and Medieval
• from Beowulf
• Geoffrey Chaucer, from The Canterbury Tales, “The Prologue”
• “Bonny Barbara Allan”
• from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Renaissance and 17th Century
• Sir Thomas Wyatt, “Whoso List to Hunt”
• Christopher Marlowe, “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”
• Sir Walter Raleigh, “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd”
• William Shakespeare,
Sonnet 29 (“When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes”)
Sonnet 116 (“Let me not to the marriage of true minds”)
Sonnet 130 (“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”)
Hamlet, King Lear or The Tempest
• John Donne,
“A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”;
“Death, Be Not Proud”
• Robert Herrick, “To the Virgins”
• John Milton, “On His Blindness”; from Paradise Lost
• from The Diary of Samuel Pepys
18th Century and Romantic
• Lady Mary Chudleigh, “To the Ladies”
• Alexander Pope, from The Rape of the Lock
• Jonathan Swift, “A Modest Proposal”
• Robert Burns, “To a Mouse”
• William Blake, “The Tiger”; “The Lamb”
• Thomas Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”
• William Wordsworth, “My Heart Leaps Up”; “The World Is
Too Much with Us”
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
• George Gordon, Lord Byron, “Apostrophe to the Ocean”
• Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ode to the West Wind”
• John Keats, “Ode to a Nightingale”; “When I Have Fears That I May
Cease to Be”
Victorian and 20th Century
• Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Ulysses”
• Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnet 43
(“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”)
• Robert Browning,
“My Last Duchess”
• Emily Brontë, “Song”
• Matthew Arnold, “Dover Beach”
• Thomas Hardy, “The Darkling Thrush”
• Emily Dickinson, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”
• Wilfred Owen, “Dulce et Decorum Est ”
• William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming”
• T.S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”
• Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”
• Stevie Smith, “Pretty”
• Margaret Atwood, “Disembarking at Quebec”
Friday, January 14, 2011
A Sick Patient and Human Nature
How many of us react with positive energy to face problems with an obvious solution if it requires changes of long standing habits of our foundational lifestyle. Too few, whether it is to lose weight or quit smoking because the doctor tells us we are risking a significant reduction in our lifespan as examples.
Perhaps this is why it is so difficult to bring about positive changes in how we educate our kids. We have known for many decades that we are on the wrong course. When Russia launched Sputnik there was a knee-jerk raising of standards but in only a few years we went back to the old “easy does it, higher standards are hard work” attitudes. Then in the mid-sixties we became concerned with plummeting SAT scores which took a step-function down at that time and have not recovered after decades of throwing money and words at the problem. Robert Kennedy said over a third of a century ago that the achievement gap was a stain our nation’s honor. The 1983 “A Nation at Risk” report decried the rising tide of mediocrity in our education system. There is a whole industry in place to highlight the problems of our education system. Lots of people even read their reports but positive action to break the disastrously bad habits of a system built on a faulty foundation of false underlying beliefs is not taken. The attitude seems to be, “who cares about the future, changing our beliefs is just too hard. The kids can change it if they want to when they take over.”
Have all of these warnings resulted in the patient taking the actions required to change our education system for the better? NO!! Big, expensive and misdirected efforts have wasted decades to no benefit for our kids or our competitiveness as a nation. Because of that our economic competitive situation has been weakened to the point where it will take a herculean effort to restore the margin of safety we have thrown away in our high activity, no benefit response to the challenges of the last five-plus decades.
For this report I will use two reports found on the Common Core website. The first is Why We’re Behind, What Top Nations Teach Their Students That We Don’t, the second is, Still at Risk, What Students Don’t Know, Even Now. First some direct quotes to provide background.
Why We’re Behind—Nations; Finland, Hong Kong, S. Korea, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Netherlands, Switzerland
• Each of the nations that consistently outranks the United States on the PISA exam provides their students with a comprehensive, content-rich education in the liberal arts and sciences.
• We must join our desire to compete with other nations with a willingness to learn from them.
• While American students are spending endless hours preparing to take tests of their basic reading and math skills, their peers in high-performing nations are reading poetry and novels, conducting experiments in chemistry and physics, making music, and studying important historical issues. We are the only leading industrialized nation that considers the mastery of basic skills to be the goal of K-12 education. [emphasis added]
• We at Common Core believe that national standards will not improve education unless they acknowledge that content matters.
• . . .[T]he amount of time actually devoted to reading instruction in U.S. elementary schools is more than four times that devoted to science and social studies.
• Our students lagged behind their peers in top-scoring Finland by roughly two full grade levels in both [math and science].
• These very diverse nations ensure that their students receive a deep education in a broad range of subjects. Why is this important? Because America is on the opposite track. [emphasis added]
• High-performing countries have very specific content standards in a wide range of liberal arts subjects.
• . . . [T]he countries reviewed here also appear to share a belief that requiring students to master basic literacy and math skill is not sufficient for defining a well-rounded curriculum.
• The most recent comprehensive review of state standards from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute (2006) finds that states “still produce vague platitudes instead of clear expectations. Knowledge is still subordinated to skills.” [emphasis added]
Still at Risk
This report offers a good definition of the primary mission of public schools. “The first mission of public schooling in a democratic nation is to equip every young person for the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship.” How are we doing on that mission? Not well!
The basis for this report is a 1200 person survey of randomly selected 17-year olds. The questions concentrated on history and literature knowledge of the respondents. Their assessment was:
It is easy to make light of such ignorance. In reality, however, a deep lack of knowledge is neither humorous nor trivial. What we know helps to determine how successful we are likely to be in life, and how many career paths we can choose from. It also affects our contribution as democratic citizens. Unfortunately, too many young Americans do not possess the kind of basic knowledge they need. When asked fundamental questions about U.S. history and culture, they score a D and exhibit stunning knowledge gaps:
• Nearly a quarter of those surveyed could not identify Adolf Hitler; 10 percent think he was a munitions manufacturer
• Fewer than half can place the Civil War in the correct half-century
• Only 45 percent can identify Oedipus
• A third do not know that the Bill of Rights guarantees the freedom of speech and religion
• 44 percent think that The Scarlet Letter was either about a witch trial or a piece of correspondence
Our education system is like a computer programmed with “how to” skills. The problem is that no one thinks it is important to upload the data (background knowledge) to process with that computer. Also, far too much time is wasted by the “discovery/constructivist” methods for writing each student’s interface software. This method results in agonizingly slow, simplistic, start-from-scratch approaches to each new problem while our competitors provide robust background information across a wide spectrum of subjects to provide important foundational context to any intellectual study. Thus, our graduates don’t have the background knowledge or the higher level thinking processes they need to be effective in the world against their foreign peers.
Our educators faced with high-stakes tests that concentrate most on reading and math have carved out ever larger parts of the total school day to have time for teaching to the test. They use ineffective “how to” approaches that are void of content knowledge. This creates students who at best can only regurgitate the examples they have studied in their classes.
Missing is the breadth and depth of knowledge (and practice in reading and literacy and grammar) that traditionally was provided by studying an increasingly challenging group of great writings by some of the best authors of our cultural background. Missing too, is the in-depth study of history which also provides the chance to practice literacy and thinking skills.
The same things are true of math and the related study of science. So much time is spent teaching to the test that the foundational facts and optimized over centuries computational algorithms are not taught with any rigor. The party line is that you don’t need to know how to compute anymore because we have calculators. That is as wrong-headed as it can be because, for example, those algorithms like long division provide the tool needed to divide polynomials in algebra. With the current dumbed down approach in elementary schools, students “hit the wall” in middle and high school math studies and most do not attain a competent basis of algebra and higher math limiting their future college and career choices.
We focus on methods of teaching reading and math that are much slower than the methods of our competitor nations (at least the ones teaching their kids much more than we teach ours) which are based on a direct instruction technique taught by subject-competent teachers who build the foundation over the grades. Our slower process is ironic considering that our competitor nations tend to have significantly more days in their school years as well.
Therefore, no amount of money can fix this problem until we are willing to throw out the current content-free approach and replace it with a content-rich curriculum. That is why in spite of wasting billions of dollars trying to improve our education performance it doesn’t happen because the foundational approaches we take are contrary to every other country that is successful in beating us.
Sadly, the method our competitors are using is exactly that used by our American Common School movement starting in the 19th century and replaced slowly by the progressive methods starting at the turn of the Twentieth century, first in the education schools and then in full implementation across the land by the mid 1960s. By then students graduating from high school had been taught by the acolytes of the new system for their whole school career.
The question is, “Can we break this unhealthy education habit which harms our kids and our nation, or do we react like most do when the doctor tells them to lose weight or quit smoking, etc to be able to live a higher quality and longer life?”
Perhaps this is why it is so difficult to bring about positive changes in how we educate our kids. We have known for many decades that we are on the wrong course. When Russia launched Sputnik there was a knee-jerk raising of standards but in only a few years we went back to the old “easy does it, higher standards are hard work” attitudes. Then in the mid-sixties we became concerned with plummeting SAT scores which took a step-function down at that time and have not recovered after decades of throwing money and words at the problem. Robert Kennedy said over a third of a century ago that the achievement gap was a stain our nation’s honor. The 1983 “A Nation at Risk” report decried the rising tide of mediocrity in our education system. There is a whole industry in place to highlight the problems of our education system. Lots of people even read their reports but positive action to break the disastrously bad habits of a system built on a faulty foundation of false underlying beliefs is not taken. The attitude seems to be, “who cares about the future, changing our beliefs is just too hard. The kids can change it if they want to when they take over.”
Have all of these warnings resulted in the patient taking the actions required to change our education system for the better? NO!! Big, expensive and misdirected efforts have wasted decades to no benefit for our kids or our competitiveness as a nation. Because of that our economic competitive situation has been weakened to the point where it will take a herculean effort to restore the margin of safety we have thrown away in our high activity, no benefit response to the challenges of the last five-plus decades.
For this report I will use two reports found on the Common Core website. The first is Why We’re Behind, What Top Nations Teach Their Students That We Don’t, the second is, Still at Risk, What Students Don’t Know, Even Now. First some direct quotes to provide background.
Why We’re Behind—Nations; Finland, Hong Kong, S. Korea, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Netherlands, Switzerland
• Each of the nations that consistently outranks the United States on the PISA exam provides their students with a comprehensive, content-rich education in the liberal arts and sciences.
• We must join our desire to compete with other nations with a willingness to learn from them.
• While American students are spending endless hours preparing to take tests of their basic reading and math skills, their peers in high-performing nations are reading poetry and novels, conducting experiments in chemistry and physics, making music, and studying important historical issues. We are the only leading industrialized nation that considers the mastery of basic skills to be the goal of K-12 education. [emphasis added]
• We at Common Core believe that national standards will not improve education unless they acknowledge that content matters.
• . . .[T]he amount of time actually devoted to reading instruction in U.S. elementary schools is more than four times that devoted to science and social studies.
• Our students lagged behind their peers in top-scoring Finland by roughly two full grade levels in both [math and science].
• These very diverse nations ensure that their students receive a deep education in a broad range of subjects. Why is this important? Because America is on the opposite track. [emphasis added]
• High-performing countries have very specific content standards in a wide range of liberal arts subjects.
• . . . [T]he countries reviewed here also appear to share a belief that requiring students to master basic literacy and math skill is not sufficient for defining a well-rounded curriculum.
• The most recent comprehensive review of state standards from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute (2006) finds that states “still produce vague platitudes instead of clear expectations. Knowledge is still subordinated to skills.” [emphasis added]
Still at Risk
This report offers a good definition of the primary mission of public schools. “The first mission of public schooling in a democratic nation is to equip every young person for the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship.” How are we doing on that mission? Not well!
The basis for this report is a 1200 person survey of randomly selected 17-year olds. The questions concentrated on history and literature knowledge of the respondents. Their assessment was:
It is easy to make light of such ignorance. In reality, however, a deep lack of knowledge is neither humorous nor trivial. What we know helps to determine how successful we are likely to be in life, and how many career paths we can choose from. It also affects our contribution as democratic citizens. Unfortunately, too many young Americans do not possess the kind of basic knowledge they need. When asked fundamental questions about U.S. history and culture, they score a D and exhibit stunning knowledge gaps:
• Nearly a quarter of those surveyed could not identify Adolf Hitler; 10 percent think he was a munitions manufacturer
• Fewer than half can place the Civil War in the correct half-century
• Only 45 percent can identify Oedipus
• A third do not know that the Bill of Rights guarantees the freedom of speech and religion
• 44 percent think that The Scarlet Letter was either about a witch trial or a piece of correspondence
Our education system is like a computer programmed with “how to” skills. The problem is that no one thinks it is important to upload the data (background knowledge) to process with that computer. Also, far too much time is wasted by the “discovery/constructivist” methods for writing each student’s interface software. This method results in agonizingly slow, simplistic, start-from-scratch approaches to each new problem while our competitors provide robust background information across a wide spectrum of subjects to provide important foundational context to any intellectual study. Thus, our graduates don’t have the background knowledge or the higher level thinking processes they need to be effective in the world against their foreign peers.
Our educators faced with high-stakes tests that concentrate most on reading and math have carved out ever larger parts of the total school day to have time for teaching to the test. They use ineffective “how to” approaches that are void of content knowledge. This creates students who at best can only regurgitate the examples they have studied in their classes.
Missing is the breadth and depth of knowledge (and practice in reading and literacy and grammar) that traditionally was provided by studying an increasingly challenging group of great writings by some of the best authors of our cultural background. Missing too, is the in-depth study of history which also provides the chance to practice literacy and thinking skills.
The same things are true of math and the related study of science. So much time is spent teaching to the test that the foundational facts and optimized over centuries computational algorithms are not taught with any rigor. The party line is that you don’t need to know how to compute anymore because we have calculators. That is as wrong-headed as it can be because, for example, those algorithms like long division provide the tool needed to divide polynomials in algebra. With the current dumbed down approach in elementary schools, students “hit the wall” in middle and high school math studies and most do not attain a competent basis of algebra and higher math limiting their future college and career choices.
We focus on methods of teaching reading and math that are much slower than the methods of our competitor nations (at least the ones teaching their kids much more than we teach ours) which are based on a direct instruction technique taught by subject-competent teachers who build the foundation over the grades. Our slower process is ironic considering that our competitor nations tend to have significantly more days in their school years as well.
Therefore, no amount of money can fix this problem until we are willing to throw out the current content-free approach and replace it with a content-rich curriculum. That is why in spite of wasting billions of dollars trying to improve our education performance it doesn’t happen because the foundational approaches we take are contrary to every other country that is successful in beating us.
Sadly, the method our competitors are using is exactly that used by our American Common School movement starting in the 19th century and replaced slowly by the progressive methods starting at the turn of the Twentieth century, first in the education schools and then in full implementation across the land by the mid 1960s. By then students graduating from high school had been taught by the acolytes of the new system for their whole school career.
The question is, “Can we break this unhealthy education habit which harms our kids and our nation, or do we react like most do when the doctor tells them to lose weight or quit smoking, etc to be able to live a higher quality and longer life?”
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
What Have We Lost? How Do We Get It Back?
Some of you may have seen the 8th Grade Final Exam from Salina, Kansas of 1895 before. It is appended at the end. The question I want to ponder is not, how would our current 8th graders do on such a test as it is obvious that even if modernized in geography, etc. that they would do poorly, but how would their teachers do? My guess is that if an updated test of this rigor were given to our teachers and administrators of all levels that the results would be very discouraging.
This look at the pre-progressive education era characterized by the American Common School approach of Horace Mann and others versus the current progressive, process only approach that eschews subject knowledge should point out clearly why our kids can’t compete well with their best performing global peers. Our kids are not being prepared to handle the kind of practical, real world problems highlighted by the 1895test. Our educators preach that the “how to” approach is superior. However, starting on every problem without a base of knowledge to build on is a process that doesn’t work in the global competition. Also, trying to communicate effectively when you don’t know the rules of grammar doesn’t help either. The kids of our competitor nations where the approach of the best performing ones is akin to the American Common School approach, have a knowledge base that allows them to not reinvent the wheel with every problem they face.
Our approach is so obviously to blame for the poor education our kids are getting that it would seem easy to fix. In principle it is easy, but our society flinches at the thought of applying the required KITA to our education establishment. KITA is short for Kick In The Attitude. It is not easy to tell our educators that they are not educated as Rita Kramer does in Ed School Follies. But it is true as would be pointed out clearly if a rigorous 8th grade test of the type below were given to graduate ed school products up to and including the doctorate level.
8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, KS - 1895
Grammar (Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of capital letters.
2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define verse, stanza and paragraph
4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal parts of 'lie,' 'play,' and 'run.'
5. Define case; illustrate each case.
6. What is punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.
7. - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
Arithmetic (Time,1 hour 15 minutes)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft Deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. Wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3,942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts/bushel, deducting 1,050 lbs. for tare?
4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find the cost of 6,720 lbs. Coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $20 per metre?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance of which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt
U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton , Bell , Lincoln , Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, 1865.
Orthography (Time, one hour)
1. What is meant by the following: alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals.
4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u.'
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e.' Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: bi, dis-mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane , vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.
Geography (Time, one hour)
1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas ?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of North America
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S. Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each.
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give the inclination of the earth.
This look at the pre-progressive education era characterized by the American Common School approach of Horace Mann and others versus the current progressive, process only approach that eschews subject knowledge should point out clearly why our kids can’t compete well with their best performing global peers. Our kids are not being prepared to handle the kind of practical, real world problems highlighted by the 1895test. Our educators preach that the “how to” approach is superior. However, starting on every problem without a base of knowledge to build on is a process that doesn’t work in the global competition. Also, trying to communicate effectively when you don’t know the rules of grammar doesn’t help either. The kids of our competitor nations where the approach of the best performing ones is akin to the American Common School approach, have a knowledge base that allows them to not reinvent the wheel with every problem they face.
Our approach is so obviously to blame for the poor education our kids are getting that it would seem easy to fix. In principle it is easy, but our society flinches at the thought of applying the required KITA to our education establishment. KITA is short for Kick In The Attitude. It is not easy to tell our educators that they are not educated as Rita Kramer does in Ed School Follies. But it is true as would be pointed out clearly if a rigorous 8th grade test of the type below were given to graduate ed school products up to and including the doctorate level.
8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, KS - 1895
Grammar (Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of capital letters.
2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define verse, stanza and paragraph
4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal parts of 'lie,' 'play,' and 'run.'
5. Define case; illustrate each case.
6. What is punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.
7. - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
Arithmetic (Time,1 hour 15 minutes)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft Deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. Wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3,942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts/bushel, deducting 1,050 lbs. for tare?
4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find the cost of 6,720 lbs. Coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $20 per metre?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance of which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt
U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton , Bell , Lincoln , Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, 1865.
Orthography (Time, one hour)
1. What is meant by the following: alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals.
4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u.'
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e.' Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: bi, dis-mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane , vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.
Geography (Time, one hour)
1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas ?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of North America
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S. Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each.
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give the inclination of the earth.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Education FUQs
Everyone is used to FAQs showing up on websites, especially for tech support when they want you to figure it out for yourself so they don’t have to spend as much of their resources to handhold their customers through technical problems. In education the objective is the opposite. They don’t want any questions at all. Education FUQs are Frequently Unasked Questions about our education system and its realities. The thesis is that unasked questions are unanswered questions. Most of you are probably a bit nonplussed because for most school districts the flow of information from them is robust and it makes you assume that everything is as well as could be expected with the “stingy budgets” they have to work with. Following are some favorite unasked questions and some abbreviated answers. The hope is that they will motivate you to begin asking your local schools some of these questions and that you do not accept their answer as the truth without significant follow up questions and some independent research. If you do it well, your conclusion will surely be that the information from the educators is at best slanted propaganda and at worst outright lies. Sorry if that puts you off but it is true.
FUQs related to education in America
1. How does my local school’s student achievement compare to other education entities, globally? A favorite game played by school districts is to compare themselves to only other districts within the same state or local area. To assess your school district’s performance you must measure it against the best global competition. This is really the only metric that matters.
2. Why can’t we seem to make progress on reducing the achievement gap between the minority and poor kids and their demographically better off peers? Robert Kennedy called the achievement gap a stain on our national honor over 3 decades ago. Yet, the problem is worse now than when he commented on it. Billions of dollars have been spent but to no avail except for enriching the adults who work in education.
3. Why do educators always clamor for more money, more money, more money? Two reasons. First, it makes a great excuse for not performing better since they can claim we didn’t provide them with all the resources they say they need to do their job. Second, it is greed so that the individuals and the power groups who make their living at the public education trough can be further enriched and politically empowered. One fact to ponder is that the funding per pupil in American education has increased by about twice the rate of inflation for over 4 decades. Yet, achievement of the students has not improved and in some ways is worse.
4. Is it reasonable to use graduation from an education school teacher or leadership program as the basis for certification? No, the education schools are basically diploma mills whose purpose is to extract money from the education system to fund other parts of the university. They provide little rigor and virtually none in subject matter.
5. Is it reasonable to pay teachers based on years of experience rather than their performance? No.
6. Are education doctorates required for superintendents to perform their jobs? No, if they were of value our education performance would be top notch not abysmal as is the reality. We have an oversupply of education doctorates and an undersupply of competent education leaders.
7. Why do politicians legislate education funding by specifying process very tightly in a one size fits all formula rather than specifying the required results with penalties in resource availability if the results are not attained? Short answer—the legislatures want to lock the status quo in place to please their campaign donors.
There are many more questions that need to be asked. However, if you start with these you will be much further along than most on the road to objective understanding of our failed education process.
FUQs related to education in America
1. How does my local school’s student achievement compare to other education entities, globally? A favorite game played by school districts is to compare themselves to only other districts within the same state or local area. To assess your school district’s performance you must measure it against the best global competition. This is really the only metric that matters.
2. Why can’t we seem to make progress on reducing the achievement gap between the minority and poor kids and their demographically better off peers? Robert Kennedy called the achievement gap a stain on our national honor over 3 decades ago. Yet, the problem is worse now than when he commented on it. Billions of dollars have been spent but to no avail except for enriching the adults who work in education.
3. Why do educators always clamor for more money, more money, more money? Two reasons. First, it makes a great excuse for not performing better since they can claim we didn’t provide them with all the resources they say they need to do their job. Second, it is greed so that the individuals and the power groups who make their living at the public education trough can be further enriched and politically empowered. One fact to ponder is that the funding per pupil in American education has increased by about twice the rate of inflation for over 4 decades. Yet, achievement of the students has not improved and in some ways is worse.
4. Is it reasonable to use graduation from an education school teacher or leadership program as the basis for certification? No, the education schools are basically diploma mills whose purpose is to extract money from the education system to fund other parts of the university. They provide little rigor and virtually none in subject matter.
5. Is it reasonable to pay teachers based on years of experience rather than their performance? No.
6. Are education doctorates required for superintendents to perform their jobs? No, if they were of value our education performance would be top notch not abysmal as is the reality. We have an oversupply of education doctorates and an undersupply of competent education leaders.
7. Why do politicians legislate education funding by specifying process very tightly in a one size fits all formula rather than specifying the required results with penalties in resource availability if the results are not attained? Short answer—the legislatures want to lock the status quo in place to please their campaign donors.
There are many more questions that need to be asked. However, if you start with these you will be much further along than most on the road to objective understanding of our failed education process.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Progressive Education Wrong from the Beginning Three
Conclusions/Action Plan
What is to be done if we care about rescuing our kids’ futures let alone America’s competitiveness in the global society? First, we must overcome the belief that changing the system at its foundational level is not required and that incremental changes can solve the problems. As the E.D. Hirsch quote at the beginning of part one points out, the current Progressive dominated education system is evil. Why, because it harms kids and especially poor and minority kids. You cannot overcome evil through negotiations (I have tried). You cannot overcome evil by being “reasonable.” There is only one way to eliminate the progressive poison from the education system. Sadly, that is through all out war.
Now is a good time to reiterate JFK’s remarks from the introduction of Part Two. “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” We could replace “nation” with educator, “assure survival” with assure a high quality education to our kids, and the “success of liberty” with ensuring the ability of our kids to compete in the global meritocracy.
No, I am not calling for taking up arms literally. But I am talking about setting clear goals for the total elimination of the current harmful system and its pseudo scientific underpinnings over time. It would be nice if we could convince the politicians of the danger to our kids with enough force to give them the backbone required to legislate the elimination of the current system, replacing it with a new one (modeled on the very successful American Common School movement that was trashed by the Progressives beginning a hundred years ago).
I don’t believe that is likely because the Progressives would throw lots of sand in the gears of progress trying to lead the pols off into the weeds. They would call for more “study” of the problem which is ridiculous. They have consistently failed to meet the needs of our kids and no amount of added time will provide productive approaches from within the insular and inbred education system. They simply don’t have the knowledge and objectivity to contribute constructively in solving the problem. Therefore, their inputs are worthless and do not justify wasting time on their machinations.
What needs to be done is known. It needs to be acted on quickly. The Progressives will never agree willingly. If we care about the kids we can’t allow compromise because what they do is harmful to kids and none of it must survive. We must remember they have had their way for most of the last century and have done immeasurable harm. They have no credibility and must give way for the right education system to be implemented so that our kids, all of them including the gap kids, can learn to their potential and expect a brighter future.
What will be difficult enough but will work is to structure the federal and state money going to education in a way that requires they perform MUCH BETTER QUICKLY. This would automatically cause movement away from the Progressive, content-free, discovery approaches because they take longer and never achieve the high learning levels of the content-rich approaches of the American Common School movement we used in the past and that our “much more successful in educating their kids” global competitors are using.
Money is the lifeblood that feeds the Progressive education machine. The waste of precious resources within the current system is gargantuan. To begin with, we must turn a deaf ear to the claims that will surely come if such an effort is undertaken. That is, the first cries of pain from the educators will be that “you are hurting the kids.” This will be untrue if the program is designed properly. They have been hurting the kids for decades, but when they do it that is OK. We need to put a stop to their depredations and finally serve the kids as they deserve. The new initiative would be structured such that the only ones to feel pain would be those who didn’t start performing better quickly. This would require a change in legislative approach from specifying process to nine decimal places to specifying required results with penalties for not producing those results. This is a much more sensible approach as it allows districts to tailor their approach to the needs on the local level, not the current top-down, central control process that represents a one size fits all approach.
Highly beneficial actions—getting rid of the disastrously wrong and harmful “Standard Operating Procedures”
1. Cut the salary budgets of the federal and state education bureaucracies by 10% per year for 5 years, then reassess whether to continue cutting. They are staffed by those trained (brainwashed) in the progressive process. They have no ability to be objective about the harm being done or ability to pursue quality improvement until they have seen the elephant (faced adversity which forces reality to set in).
2. Increase NAEP testing requirements to be equivalent to the average of the top 5 best performing nations by subject within one year. This is not a justification for a typical multi-year “research project, just take the latest data available from the global achievement tests and get on with it. The goal can be refined over time but initially a fast approach is required and very reasonable because it will put much higher expectations into the system putting educators on notice that the old ways will not suffice.
3. Require state achievement test scores to increase by 20% per year until they are equivalent to the NAEP levels. We must not let it take longer. It can be done. Educators will have a fit about how can you track something like this with changing standards, etc? You can do it accurately enough to measure positive results. Being 80% right quickly is FAR better than being 95% right in a few years. The over precision of nonsense is one of the well practiced delaying tactics that has prevented improvement for decades. That must end. There are times when a SWAG is more than adequate. Scientific Wild Ass Guess.
4. Require, if fed and state money is desired, that districts cut central administration salary budgets by 10% per year unless the district has improved their achievement test results in math and reading by at least 25% per year until they are within 25% of the goal. Then adjust the yearly requirement to getting half way to the ultimate standard for two years and the rest of the way in the following year. Put in place rules that the school-based admin cannot be grown to provide “homes” for central admin personnel or reduced to provide money to pay for current central administration activities. Thus, the cuts must impact the people who would be most responsible for improving the quality of education for the kids if they fail to perform. Also, the requirement should hit the superintendent and those administrators who report directly to him/her by 15% per year if the yearly improvements are not achieved. This will give them a strong incentive to perform as change leaders versus their current entrenched defense of the status quo. Some will say that might cause many to leave. Good, they are not doing anything positive anyway and certainly won’t be missed from a performance point of view.
5. Require districts to eliminate the Progressive doctrine, “how-to, no content” curricula within 2 years or face total loss of fed and state funding until they accomplish the task. These curricula are the foundational sources of the poison being injected into the system and must be eliminated immediately. Replace with content-rich curricula and direct instruction. There will be loud complaints that you can’t afford or get the books and other materials required in that amount of time. It can be done. You might not end up with shiny new color printed books for a few years but eliminating the current “pretty” trash being used on our kids and replacing it with materials on the positive side of the ledger would be a huge and immediate improvement. If you think about it the constructivist or discovery methods so favored by the Progressives are totally contrary to workable approaches to exploring new territories. Throughout history when people have gone into new territories they have used knowledgeable guides to help them successful get where they want to go safely. Shouldn’t our kids have the benefit of teaching that has the knowledge and experience to lead them on the way to subject understanding instead of the current wandering in the wilderness unstructured Progressive approach. It is so obvious why the direct instruction to high knowledge standards is working so well for our global competitors.
6. Decouple all education school training from teacher and leadership certification requirements. We need to stop the flow of more “brainwashed in the wrong doctrine” people into the system, especially since the education schools do not teach subject matter with any rigor. Replace with rigorous subject matter testing every two years to maintain certification both for new and current teachers. Provide alternative certification processes to allow those with real educations in subjects to fill the void created by current educators leaving because they aren’t motivated or capable of passing the rigorous subject matter tests within a year. If we want (need) to teach our kids to a level that allows them to compete globally, we must not allow educators who can’t perform well to remain in the system. Most will be able to perform acceptably if they decide to. If not, it is their choice.
You might be thinking, this would be a very contentious process. You are right. But, you need to realize that it is the only way that the current “harmful to kids” process can be repaired to something that will serve our kids and country well. Ignoring reality has gotten us where we are. Continuing down that path hoping things will get better is a craven fool’s approach to the problem. We know from the results of the last many decades that educators are incapable of positive change unless they are forced to do so to keep their jobs. It is easier to continue ignoring the reality but aren’t the kids worth some discomfort? Make no mistake though, the Progressives are formidable foes. Previous assaults on their “fiefdom” have failed because they had more staying power than the attackers, not because their doctrine was right. It will take consistent and strong long-term effort to finally break their disastrous for our kids grip on our educational system. Remember that any delay in action allows millions of kids to continue being harmed.
A last comment for our “political leaders”
Your initial reaction to this proposal is that it is unworkable. The first fear is that the teachers unions who are among the biggest campaign contributors will literally “kill” the candidacy of anyone who supports this approach. You are right to be concerned, but if this is done on a uniform basis across a whole state or country their impact will be greatly diluted. That is, their current fearsome reputation is based on their ability to devote overwhelming resources both monetarily and on the ground to given “problem” elections. They have been able to do that because the problem elections are localized and rare as is the occurrence of politicians with backbone and desire to do what is right not what will get them reelected. If they had to spread their resources over a much larger spectrum of political races their impact would be tiny in comparison.
Thus, everyone doing this approach at the same time provides a safe and sane way to go. That is why it needs to be done on at least a whole state basis and preferably on a whole country basis. If on a whole country basis the requirements must be tighter than those that are part of NCLB. That is, NCLB left “weasel room” for each state to set their own standard definitions of proficiency which has resulted in a great deal of “sandbagging” in that area to the detriment of the kids. That is, a lot of stripes were painted on the pavement and called high hurdles for proficiency levels. That must not be allowed in the future.
If the schools were forced to report their true performance in a global context, parents, business groups, the whole community; all but those feeding at the government education trough would be appalled and motivated to see the problem fixed immediately.
We all have work to do. We need to start immediately demanding that our kids get a rigorous education not a coddled one.
What is to be done if we care about rescuing our kids’ futures let alone America’s competitiveness in the global society? First, we must overcome the belief that changing the system at its foundational level is not required and that incremental changes can solve the problems. As the E.D. Hirsch quote at the beginning of part one points out, the current Progressive dominated education system is evil. Why, because it harms kids and especially poor and minority kids. You cannot overcome evil through negotiations (I have tried). You cannot overcome evil by being “reasonable.” There is only one way to eliminate the progressive poison from the education system. Sadly, that is through all out war.
Now is a good time to reiterate JFK’s remarks from the introduction of Part Two. “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” We could replace “nation” with educator, “assure survival” with assure a high quality education to our kids, and the “success of liberty” with ensuring the ability of our kids to compete in the global meritocracy.
No, I am not calling for taking up arms literally. But I am talking about setting clear goals for the total elimination of the current harmful system and its pseudo scientific underpinnings over time. It would be nice if we could convince the politicians of the danger to our kids with enough force to give them the backbone required to legislate the elimination of the current system, replacing it with a new one (modeled on the very successful American Common School movement that was trashed by the Progressives beginning a hundred years ago).
I don’t believe that is likely because the Progressives would throw lots of sand in the gears of progress trying to lead the pols off into the weeds. They would call for more “study” of the problem which is ridiculous. They have consistently failed to meet the needs of our kids and no amount of added time will provide productive approaches from within the insular and inbred education system. They simply don’t have the knowledge and objectivity to contribute constructively in solving the problem. Therefore, their inputs are worthless and do not justify wasting time on their machinations.
What needs to be done is known. It needs to be acted on quickly. The Progressives will never agree willingly. If we care about the kids we can’t allow compromise because what they do is harmful to kids and none of it must survive. We must remember they have had their way for most of the last century and have done immeasurable harm. They have no credibility and must give way for the right education system to be implemented so that our kids, all of them including the gap kids, can learn to their potential and expect a brighter future.
What will be difficult enough but will work is to structure the federal and state money going to education in a way that requires they perform MUCH BETTER QUICKLY. This would automatically cause movement away from the Progressive, content-free, discovery approaches because they take longer and never achieve the high learning levels of the content-rich approaches of the American Common School movement we used in the past and that our “much more successful in educating their kids” global competitors are using.
Money is the lifeblood that feeds the Progressive education machine. The waste of precious resources within the current system is gargantuan. To begin with, we must turn a deaf ear to the claims that will surely come if such an effort is undertaken. That is, the first cries of pain from the educators will be that “you are hurting the kids.” This will be untrue if the program is designed properly. They have been hurting the kids for decades, but when they do it that is OK. We need to put a stop to their depredations and finally serve the kids as they deserve. The new initiative would be structured such that the only ones to feel pain would be those who didn’t start performing better quickly. This would require a change in legislative approach from specifying process to nine decimal places to specifying required results with penalties for not producing those results. This is a much more sensible approach as it allows districts to tailor their approach to the needs on the local level, not the current top-down, central control process that represents a one size fits all approach.
Highly beneficial actions—getting rid of the disastrously wrong and harmful “Standard Operating Procedures”
1. Cut the salary budgets of the federal and state education bureaucracies by 10% per year for 5 years, then reassess whether to continue cutting. They are staffed by those trained (brainwashed) in the progressive process. They have no ability to be objective about the harm being done or ability to pursue quality improvement until they have seen the elephant (faced adversity which forces reality to set in).
2. Increase NAEP testing requirements to be equivalent to the average of the top 5 best performing nations by subject within one year. This is not a justification for a typical multi-year “research project, just take the latest data available from the global achievement tests and get on with it. The goal can be refined over time but initially a fast approach is required and very reasonable because it will put much higher expectations into the system putting educators on notice that the old ways will not suffice.
3. Require state achievement test scores to increase by 20% per year until they are equivalent to the NAEP levels. We must not let it take longer. It can be done. Educators will have a fit about how can you track something like this with changing standards, etc? You can do it accurately enough to measure positive results. Being 80% right quickly is FAR better than being 95% right in a few years. The over precision of nonsense is one of the well practiced delaying tactics that has prevented improvement for decades. That must end. There are times when a SWAG is more than adequate. Scientific Wild Ass Guess.
4. Require, if fed and state money is desired, that districts cut central administration salary budgets by 10% per year unless the district has improved their achievement test results in math and reading by at least 25% per year until they are within 25% of the goal. Then adjust the yearly requirement to getting half way to the ultimate standard for two years and the rest of the way in the following year. Put in place rules that the school-based admin cannot be grown to provide “homes” for central admin personnel or reduced to provide money to pay for current central administration activities. Thus, the cuts must impact the people who would be most responsible for improving the quality of education for the kids if they fail to perform. Also, the requirement should hit the superintendent and those administrators who report directly to him/her by 15% per year if the yearly improvements are not achieved. This will give them a strong incentive to perform as change leaders versus their current entrenched defense of the status quo. Some will say that might cause many to leave. Good, they are not doing anything positive anyway and certainly won’t be missed from a performance point of view.
5. Require districts to eliminate the Progressive doctrine, “how-to, no content” curricula within 2 years or face total loss of fed and state funding until they accomplish the task. These curricula are the foundational sources of the poison being injected into the system and must be eliminated immediately. Replace with content-rich curricula and direct instruction. There will be loud complaints that you can’t afford or get the books and other materials required in that amount of time. It can be done. You might not end up with shiny new color printed books for a few years but eliminating the current “pretty” trash being used on our kids and replacing it with materials on the positive side of the ledger would be a huge and immediate improvement. If you think about it the constructivist or discovery methods so favored by the Progressives are totally contrary to workable approaches to exploring new territories. Throughout history when people have gone into new territories they have used knowledgeable guides to help them successful get where they want to go safely. Shouldn’t our kids have the benefit of teaching that has the knowledge and experience to lead them on the way to subject understanding instead of the current wandering in the wilderness unstructured Progressive approach. It is so obvious why the direct instruction to high knowledge standards is working so well for our global competitors.
6. Decouple all education school training from teacher and leadership certification requirements. We need to stop the flow of more “brainwashed in the wrong doctrine” people into the system, especially since the education schools do not teach subject matter with any rigor. Replace with rigorous subject matter testing every two years to maintain certification both for new and current teachers. Provide alternative certification processes to allow those with real educations in subjects to fill the void created by current educators leaving because they aren’t motivated or capable of passing the rigorous subject matter tests within a year. If we want (need) to teach our kids to a level that allows them to compete globally, we must not allow educators who can’t perform well to remain in the system. Most will be able to perform acceptably if they decide to. If not, it is their choice.
You might be thinking, this would be a very contentious process. You are right. But, you need to realize that it is the only way that the current “harmful to kids” process can be repaired to something that will serve our kids and country well. Ignoring reality has gotten us where we are. Continuing down that path hoping things will get better is a craven fool’s approach to the problem. We know from the results of the last many decades that educators are incapable of positive change unless they are forced to do so to keep their jobs. It is easier to continue ignoring the reality but aren’t the kids worth some discomfort? Make no mistake though, the Progressives are formidable foes. Previous assaults on their “fiefdom” have failed because they had more staying power than the attackers, not because their doctrine was right. It will take consistent and strong long-term effort to finally break their disastrous for our kids grip on our educational system. Remember that any delay in action allows millions of kids to continue being harmed.
A last comment for our “political leaders”
Your initial reaction to this proposal is that it is unworkable. The first fear is that the teachers unions who are among the biggest campaign contributors will literally “kill” the candidacy of anyone who supports this approach. You are right to be concerned, but if this is done on a uniform basis across a whole state or country their impact will be greatly diluted. That is, their current fearsome reputation is based on their ability to devote overwhelming resources both monetarily and on the ground to given “problem” elections. They have been able to do that because the problem elections are localized and rare as is the occurrence of politicians with backbone and desire to do what is right not what will get them reelected. If they had to spread their resources over a much larger spectrum of political races their impact would be tiny in comparison.
Thus, everyone doing this approach at the same time provides a safe and sane way to go. That is why it needs to be done on at least a whole state basis and preferably on a whole country basis. If on a whole country basis the requirements must be tighter than those that are part of NCLB. That is, NCLB left “weasel room” for each state to set their own standard definitions of proficiency which has resulted in a great deal of “sandbagging” in that area to the detriment of the kids. That is, a lot of stripes were painted on the pavement and called high hurdles for proficiency levels. That must not be allowed in the future.
If the schools were forced to report their true performance in a global context, parents, business groups, the whole community; all but those feeding at the government education trough would be appalled and motivated to see the problem fixed immediately.
We all have work to do. We need to start immediately demanding that our kids get a rigorous education not a coddled one.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
