Reply #40: Now be fair.... [View All]

[Trillo]

I actually thought a lot of sad_one's points were worthy of serious thought and discussion (as are other posters' ideas). One of the issues I've identified since reading the posts of teachers here on DU is that they have an inability to think outside the box they themselves are in. This box is perhaps not just in their minds, it's likely that box is also their reality in their chosen profession. (the teachers are surely just as boxed in as students feel). If this is true, then what is the way out? More micro-management (such as requiring forced medical examinations of teachers to insure they're not fatties)? That merely increases the problem, and likely more micro-management is passed down to the students, even if the passing down is sub- or un-conscious (or unintentional). That's life.

I especially resonate to sad_one's idea regarding mixing grade levels in the same classroom, I think it was one of the realities of the one room schoolhouse in America's long forgotten and now distant past. Obviously, with the mass-market approach to dividing by grade level that the schools take today, this idea must be well outside the modern classroom's psycho-box and practicably unimaginable by those entrenched in it. Why shouldn't an older student who's good at reading help younger students who are not so good at it, taking some burden off the teacher? If nothing else, this teaches responsibility and caring for others.

It strikes me that some of the students need another type of learning situation entirely. The physically violent ones must be prevented from hurting other students, but so too must the psycho-abusers. Requiring these students to be in the school system when they do so much lasting damage to others is, bluntly, stupid. Placing them in another room with other violent ones may not be a good solution either, though it might protect some of the other more peaceful students, it may also create a synergistic prison effect. (good for pharma-sales?)

The physically violent aren't the only ones that don't fit well into modern schools. Why does learning new things and being with others in structured environments need to be associated with the threat of punishment that schools currently force onto some if not all?

It seems to me that learning and curiosity are one of humans' constants. Why does school have to be about turning that natural curiosity off for so many?

Why can't the schools themselves be more flexible? Does lack of flexibility in school structure create lack of flexibility in students?