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Most "woke" advocacy hardly favors "realizing the full potential of [our] population". Back here in the real world, the "woke" folks are the ones pushing for d
by zozbot123 8y ago
Most "woke" advocacy hardly favors "realizing the full potential of [our] population". Back here in the real world, the "woke" folks are the ones pushing for deeply flawed educational approaches like "whole language" reading (aka don't actually teach kids to read by explaining the rules that link written and spoken English, viz. phonics; just give them fully-formed written texts and let them figure it out!) and "reform math" (aka don't actually teach kids the traditional, efficient algorithms for computing simple arithmetical operations, just have them do a lot of fuzzy "mental math" and "discovering their inner knowledge" without even caring whether they're anywhere near a correct approach. They'll figure it out eventually!). These approaches are being pushed as a result of mindless cargo-culting and politicking, and are doing quite a bit of damage to our educational system. The basic attitude of not caring about the actual outcomes of what you're teaching persists all the way through K12, and explains quite a bit of how far U.S. primary and secondary schooling underachieves compared to the rest of the developed world.
When a potentially "bright" kid has been subjected to 12 years of such deeply-flawed, even outright nonsensical cargo-cult schooling, how can we even expect her to be interested in college?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- SketchySeaBeast 8y agoSo, assuming none of the silly pedagogical techniques are used, is the argument for aiming for a highly educated workforce sound?
- jessaustin 8y agoI'm sorry the comment describing how SFUSD had eliminated algebra from middle school [0] has been deleted. Waiting until junior year to split up a class based on math aptitude is probably good for those in the middle, but it's certainly bad for those with higher or lower than average aptitude. As I recall, my pre-algebra and algebra I courses were attended by two classes: 7-8 and 8-9 grades respectively. After that there was no requirement that you take a particular course in a particular year, just that you had passed the prerequisites. This seemed to work very well, since everyone was ready for the material. [0] https://priceonomics.com/why-did-san-francisco-schools-stop-teaching/ https://priceonomics.com/why-did-san-francisco-schools-stop-...
- geebee 8y agoI didn’t realize anyone had read it, I moved it To the parent comment in the thread.
- jessaustin 8y agoHaha no worries... I guess I should have looked for it before posting.
- snowwrestler 8y agoThe actual "cargo-culting" in K-12 education is opposing new ways of teaching because it's not how you learned when you were a kid. That's not that far from worshiping cargo boxes because you remember that one time that they had food in them. As an example of new ways of teaching math, my daughter is in public school kindergarten and they are doing less arithmetic than I did as a kid, but they're already introducing concepts like number sets and bases.