Education

Changing the Structure: Blogging for Real Reform. Please also link your post at Wallwisher is failing us today. This is not the first time I have said this, but it is the thought which must begin any conversation about truly "re-forming" our education system. The system in use in the United States, in Canada, in the United Kingdom, in Australia, in Ireland, et al, was designed to fail 75% to 80% of students. The idea, whether the builders were Henry Barnard and Ellwood Cubberley or Henry Brougham and William Edward Foster, was to find a very few students who might arise from the lower classes while consigning most students to the mills and mines of 19th Century industrial society.

So, if our schools are only failing 50% to 65% of students - as they are - the system is already performing way above its design capabilities. "We want one class to have a liberal education. The heart of this "designed to fail" system is the "age-based grade. " Don't believe the myths. . - Ira Socol. Race to Nowhere | Changing lives one film at a time. Rethink Our Schools - Home. NOT Waiting for Superman : Main/Home Page. On Monday, Add Your Voice. One theme of this blog over the past several months has been concern that the conversation on public education does not reflect that the reality of most public schools.

It reflects the spin of mainstream and talk show media, political figures and business celebrities. Educator and parent voices are often left out of conversations on the state – and future – of our nation’s schools. Others share this concern. That is why this coming Monday, November 22 has been declared a national Day of Blogging for Real Education Reform. It is a grassroots effort to bring together educators (including parents) to offer their ideas on how to improve America’s public schools. On that day, give thanks for educational successes, share your ideas for real reform or describe an educational community that makes a difference for contemporary learners. Other potential topics include: Can we fire our way to success? Once you have written a blog post, you can add it to the collective voice in a couple of ways. Neil Postman. Neil Postman (March 8, 1931 – October 5, 2003) was an American author, media theorist and cultural critic, who is best known by the general public for his 1985 book about television, Amusing Ourselves to Death.

For more than forty years, he was associated with New York University. Postman was a humanist, who believed that "new technology can never substitute for human values". Biography[edit] Postman was born to a Jewish family in New York City, where he would spent most of his life.[1] In 1953, he graduated from State University of New York at Fredonia where he played basketball.[2][3] At Teachers College, Columbia University he was awarded a master's degree in 1955 and an Ed.D in 1958.[2] In 1959, he began teaching at New York University (NYU).[2] He died of lung cancer in Flushing, Queens on October 5, 2003.[2] Works[edit] Amusing Ourselves to Death[edit] Amusing Ourselves to Death was translated into eight languages and sold 200,000 copies worldwide.

Informing Ourselves to Death[edit] The Trouble with Boys: Crisis and Success in Education - Technorati Family. A lot of eyes are on boys these days. Slackers, rebels, drop-outs. Think I'm stereo-typing? Not according to statistics hauled out last month by the Globe and Mail, one of Canada's top newspapers, in their six-part series, Failing Boys. “They earn lower grades overall in elementary school and high school,” wrote journalist Carolyn Abraham. “They trail in reading and writing, and 30 per cent of them land in the bottom quarter of standardized tests, compared with 19 per cent of girls.

Boys are also more likely to be picked out for behavioural problems, more likely to repeat a grade and to drop out of school altogether.” Sound dismal? One of the problems is that boys simply have different needs than girls and those needs aren't being met. The advantage of an all-boys environment is that teachers can cater to the differing needs of boys. Remember those days? But some schools deal effectively with the increased energy of boys - without promoting pharmaceuticals or simply slapping down a ban. Teaching for America. The Enigma of Public Schools - Short Summary - Fourth Purpose Films. THE FOURTH PURPOSE The enigma of modern compulsory schooling Education is the bedrock of any democracy.

The issues of equity, justice, even homeland security, require a population that can think for itself, reason, critique, and analyze. The American school system is failing us miserably in this regard. The policy makers know this, educators know it, parents know it, and most importantly, our kids, painfully know it. The media seem to know it as well. Why, in the richest, most powerful nation on earth are we not able to address this issue clearly and effectively? Perhaps it is because we analyze the problems of our school system in terms of engineering solutions—longer school days, Phonics vs. The Fourth Purpose, a 3-part, 6-hour documentary series will be the first film to ask this fundamental question. Part One: What’s Wrong? How Did It Get This Way? Part Three: What Else is Possible? In Conclusion: The Fourth Purpose will not be another polite, talking heads, snore fest.

'The End of Education' by Neil Postman :: A Book Review by Scott London. In The End of Education, Neil Postman returns to a question he has explored on and off since he began his career as an elementary school teacher: education. It's a topic that has dominated the cultural debate in America, with varying degrees of intensity, for the better part of the twentieth century. You would think that everything that could be said on the subject would have been said well enough by now. But no. Every year a new spate of books appears tackling the same old themes: diversity in the classroom, the pros and cons of various teaching methods, declining standards, core curricula, violence in our schools, etc. The "school problem" has two dimensions, as he sees it. For education to be meaningful, Postman contends, young people, their parents, and their teachers must have a common narrative.