Education is the foundation for success in any endeavor. If you can’t read or write, if you can’t speak clearly and coherently, and if you cannot do basic math, the odds of success in life are slim.
Bill Lear didn’t have a full formal education. Neither did Tom Edison. That does not mean they were not educated. They took things into their own hands. They learned what they needed to learn early, and were life-long learners. And they were both the rare type that has the audacity and patience to chase down an idea. Most of us don’t have that. Yet every year students graduate from high school thinking they do.
I was the Commandant at a private military school for a few years. What that means is I was the disciplinarian. At that school we had students from seventh through twelfth grade and a junior college. Many of the high school students were kids that the public schools couldn’t, or wouldn’t, deal with. I had some brought to me in shackles by police or sheriff’s department personnel. We actually managed to save some of them. Those that were on drugs continued to try and get drugs. The most popular was Ritalin. It had become the weapon of choice in the public schools for unruly children.
The junior college students were mostly football and basketball players. They had spent their high school careers doing nothing but preparing for the NFL and NBA. Not life. They were good athletes, but couldn’t score high enough (17 composite) on the ACT to get into a Division I college to play. So they were banished to junior college for two years, after which they would be eligible. If they went no further, life offered them little except dead-end jobs. I told them I wanted every one of them to make it, and expected free tickets to every game. But, just in case, let
That was a controlled, insightful and honest rant. Excellent. I didn’t know you taught in a military school. By the time you got some of those kids, they’d been through the public school mill. With nowhere left to go, they threw them to you. You’re right about the layered bureaucracy. On top of that, one of the worse things to happen to public education was the “educational theories” fad where everybody had some new thing to teach or new way to teach…all hogwash.
Plain old-fashioned discipline and accountability is what kids need, but if you’re a teacher with the government breathing down your back, it’s not going to happen.
I thought you’d closed up shop. Glad to see you’re back!
Comment by La Shawn — July 14, 2004 @ 5:57 pm
The “educational theories” fad is a result of the doctorate fad in education. People who put all that effort into a PhD dissertation want to put their theories into practice.
Comment by Bunker — July 14, 2004 @ 6:10 pm