DR. J
Julius Blumfeld, writing on Brian’s EdBlog, has a great post about wasting time:
One of the lessons of home education is that full time formal education for children is largely a waste of time. If things are taught at the right age for the child, the entire primary school curriculum can probably be mastered in about six months (albeit spread over a number of years). So why not cut the school day from seven hours to two and let children decide which classes they want to attend and at what age?
There are of course many reasons why this is unlikely to happen any time soon. But perhaps the main reason is this. Although dressed up as places of learning, the primary function of schools, especially government schools, is child minding – keeping children off the streets while their parents do other things. Far from efficient teaching and shorter school hours being a desirable goal, it is probably the last thing most parents want.
Yep. We have 50 million prisoners here in the US. Of course, we call them “students.” Read the whole thing.
One Response to “DR. J”
 Comment by traci December 20th, 2003 at 2:36 pm |
Daryl, Here’s an article from our local paper that had me rolling on the floor this morning. DUHHHHHH!!!!This is what we’ve naturally been doing since birth… My daughter’s curiousity…”what does that say?” made her an early reader. & it didn’t cost us $1000. One quote at the end of the article from a teacher really hit home…”The real benefits(of this program) go beyond family time together. When parents get involved, the child sees how important school is & how important education is.” |