[plschwartz]

Maybe we should have this thread for discussion of specific changes in our schools.Please no Abolish Unions Nea etc. Nor discussion creationism or non-euclidian geometry.

For HS
1. Abolish interschool sports
2. Uniforms
3. Allow corperal punishment
4. Abolish academic lawsuits
5. Where practical have unisex tracks

[Bastiat]

Originally Posted by plschwartz

5. Where practical have unisex tracks

What do you mean by "unisex tracks"?

[iltos]

Originally Posted by Bastiat

What do you mean by "unisex tracks"?

i took that to mean separating girls and boys into separate classes, based on the idea that each is too distracting to the other.....

but since you put it quotes...."tracks" does especially stand out.....so mebbe it's somethin' different.

[linskyjack]

Schools aren't the problem. Parents (or lack of) are.

[SlackAli]

It depends whether you see the school system as providing and enabling education in its broadest sense, or supplying a new generation of compliant fodder for fast food outlets and call centres.

If the concern is just one of social control and discipline, then linsky's right - blame the parents. Education is an easy target for both right wing loons who think all teachers are leftie seditionaries, and for left wingers promoting some latest crackpot theory of social engineering.

[plschwartz]

Originally Posted by iltos

i took that to mean separating girls and boys into separate classes, based on the idea that each is too distracting to the other.....

but since you put it quotes...."tracks" does especially stand out.....so mebbe it's somethin' different.

your correct. Track is just a shorthand for a series of classes as pre-med track. Laywers can only think of railroad tracks
Somewhere maybe Detroit, they tried to set up an all girls school in a black catchment but they were told it was illegal.
NYC has a gay/lesbian school to get them away from harassment

IMHO schools should be about academic learning. Not a dating service or a training ground for the NFL.

Nor is this an "acedemic" discussion. The future economic strength of our country in a sense depends on the how well our educational system competes with the rest of the world. For a long time the deficits in our educational system have been masked by our ability to attract the "best and the Brightest" from other countries. But increasingly they are staying home in India China and now the expanded EU.

[plschwartz]

Originally Posted by SlackAli

It depends whether you see the school system as providing and enabling education in its broadest sense, or supplying a new generation of compliant fodder for fast food outlets and call centres.

If the concern is just one of social control and discipline, then linsky's right - blame the parents. Education is an easy target for both right wing loons who think all teachers are leftie seditionaries, and for left wingers promoting some latest crackpot theory of social engineering.

Too right.
But parents are as much a victim of our culture as the schools. There has to be a sea change in attitudes and culture. Who will lead us there???

Schools are not there to further a religious notion (creationism) nor to help engineer social change (affirmative action)

Also involved in this discussion might be the proper place to set school policy- the local community, the state or the federal govt?

[Bastiat]

Originally Posted by plschwartz

your(sic) correct. Track is just a shorthand for a series of classes as pre-med track. Laywers can only think of railroad tracks

Ask a simple question to make sure we are comparing apples to apples and get a smart arse answer in return.

[Gabriel]

La Frenchman should know

[iltos]

Originally Posted by plschwartz

IMHO schools should be about academic learning. Not a dating service or a training ground for the NFL.

i understand your point PL, but it is simply unavoidable that they also be a part of the socialization process for kids....the interaction between girls and boys is seen by many to be a negative factor, particularly with the research that's been done about how teacher's conciously or subconciously respond differently to each gender...(the best teacher my daughter has ever had did it, as well.)

if public school is designed to offer opprotunity, then a part of the solution is, perhaps, to stop pretending that everyone in high school should be taking the same stuff.....tho, at least in Pasadena Unified (where i am most familiar), there has been a considerable effort to offer the kind of variety of program that promotes opprotunity.....

my point, however, was more about the "training ground" comment.....many third world countries have a test at the end of what would be our middle school, which is all about a student's academic track...their future.....i'm not particularly an advocate of that, but our current system is so self-absorbed in micromanagement of testing, that "educating" has nearly fallen by the wayside.

The future economic strength of our country in a sense depends on the how well our educational system competes with the rest of the world. For a long time the deficits in our educational system have been masked by our ability to attract the "best and the Brightest" from other countries. But increasingly they are staying home in India China and now the expanded EU.

if you look at the business world today, words like "innovation", "teamwork", "collaboration", and "brainstorming" are cropping up in many management circles.....groups of people (the physical equivalent of networking) are being given problems to solve, rather than some little curmudgeon somewhere....many feel that this is the future of competition in a global economy, and societies that are more "communal" have an edge, in the sense that they are more accepting of the value of different skill sets coming together to work on something.

this again, is a part of the socialization process, imo, and our current system neither recognizes the value of it, nor is constructed to provide a supportive environment for it.....

in terms, then, of the "masking" you mention......what we may be doing is providing a very valuable competitive learning environment for foreign kids coming to specialize in a specific skill set....but to put our own kids through 15 years of that competitive environment is to surrender something that many feel is needed to stay economically viable on the planet.....which, imo, speaks to the following quote

But parents are as much a victim of our culture as the schools. There has to be a sea change in attitudes and culture. Who will lead us there???

indeed....and, in my limited experience, what i see is lots of parents with kids in grade school, stunned by the way their children's eager desire to learn and voracious curiousity is handled there....but their dismay is slowly worn down under the pervasive assault pushed by the mindset of modern public education, turning on those same kids in the later years, when a good percentage of 'em finally succumb to the boredom and lose interest, and the middle ground of the bell curve survives by shutting down half their brain (or directing it to myspace, facebook, and the like, where they can network as themselves).....parents turning on their own kids then, by shunting them into the ofttimes more rigouous competitive (but no more challenging) environment of private school, or literally driving them to drink because those parents have been so completely micro-managed themselves to accept the mantra of test scores as a substitute for education that they can only act out the frustration of their own failure to protect their children's minds.

Schools are not there to further a religious notion (creationism)....

agreed

nor to help engineer social change (affirmative action)

dunno about affirmative action....personally, it's a policy that has run it's course...as an institution, if should be rooted out

but social engineering?.....i believe that is EXACTLY what the intent of public schooling in this country is....and it why you state that parents are as "much a victim of our culture".....they are products of that social engineering, imo.....

you reap what you sow.

Also involved in this discussion might be the proper place to set school policy- the local community, the state or the federal govt?

well, vermont (i think) said "no" to federal funding, and put their school system back in the hands of the state.....i'm all for getting the feds out of it....

[BlackSpike]

Originally Posted by plschwartz

1. Abolish interschool sports
2. Uniforms
3. Allow corperal punishment
4. Abolish academic lawsuits
5. Where practical have unisex tracks

1) Not sure what the problem is. Here in UK we had an era of discouraging competitive sports, and it has led to nothing but disaster and misery.
2) You are for or against? I kind of like uniforms, but am not convinced they are a high priority.
3) Don't like this idea. Is corporal punishment allowed for adults? Would you like it to be? Will it not just instil a notion in kids that violence is the way to get what you want? I am all for EFFECTIVE punishment, but hitting kids rarely works favourably.
4) Academic lawsuits? Not sure what you refer to here. Suing the school because Johnny didn't get Straight A's?
5) Mixed-gender schools and classes are my favoured way. In any area of life, communication, understanding and familiarity tend to help.

[plschwartz]

Originally Posted by Bastiat

Ask a simple question to make sure we are comparing apples to apples and get a smart arse answer in return.

Oh sorry. Some lawyers also are worried about track marks on veins

[Bastiat]

Originally Posted by plschwartz

Oh sorry. Some lawyers also are worried about track marks on veins

Now a second statement as stupid as the first. You're on a roll.

[plschwartz]

uniforms. definitely in favor of school uniforms. Several benefits including
1. de-emphasising of sexually provocative dressing
2. de-emphasis on differences in wealth and social pressure to have say $100 Nikes
3.help re-establish the child-adult boundry. I could spend a long time discussioning the need for putting parents and other adults in charge of their children (some based on the work of S. Minuchin).

law suits
Believe it or not as part of the pattern of lawsuits against anyone applying subjective judgements, teachers were sued for subjective grading of essays. Needless to say this hastened the move toward "objective" short answer tests. Lost is the benifits of essay writing such as intergrative thinking, clarity of thought etc. A similar process has pretty well trashed the recommendation process.
I know that there are dangers in allowing vendictive subjectivity. But it is a matter of risk to benefit of TypeI versus typeII errors. Courts of law are at best a poor place to decide this type of problem and Judges also are increasingly limited in using subjective criteria.

competititive sports. The idea is not to do away with sports, but to do away with the lionization of athletes much over "nerds". I would be curious how it is handled in Canada.I can find little evidence that competitive (versus intramural) ports contributes much to cooperative learning.
Competative sports are fine just not part of nor identified with a school.

Physical punishment.
1. Kids are not adults.The same rules need not apply You just fell into the trap of that identity
2. No we do not hit adults as punishment we jail them. Shall we jail kids????

We have lost the balance between the rights of society as well as the rights of the individual. People screaming for their rights not to have an incrimental income tax or the parent (sucessfully) suing the local community to spend 10-20x the average pupil cost to educate his kid with autism.
Schools are just the cats-paw of special interest groups of all kinds. And each one drip drip drip reduces our ability to educate
And proper education is the best way to keep our country strong.
There are about 53 mil school age kids in the US. We have easily spent 530 billions in Iraq.Isn't that about $10,000 per kid. Which would be better for the US?

[plschwartz]

Originally Posted by Bastiat

Now a second statement as stupid as the first. You're on a roll.

well believe it or not some lawyers actually defend accused junkies not the BigBoys.