...I'm okay with being REALITY-based.




Wednesday, March 16, 2005
      ( 9:22 AM )
 
Our Beloved Education System

People keep complaining about Standards and failing schools and no money - yet their only answer seems to be pushing more and more standardized testing and cramming more students into classrooms and trying to pour massive amounts of content into their brains without much focus anymore on critical thinking skills, decision making, and understanding major concepts. Case in point, I'm taking over for a history teaching in three weeks, and because of how the history classes are organized, I will have to teach the last 3 decades of US History in 8 weeks to a class of 30 juniors. Right now I'm planning to teach about 4 or 5 basic themes and trace them through these decades to where they reach contemporary significance in these kids' lives. I'm thinking Terrorism (9/11 happened when these kids were freshmen, so the post 9/11 world has been all they've known as teenagers), US Foreign Policy decisions (incl. end of the cold war), Technology advancements, Health/Science (AIDS, etc), and Race/Poverty issues...but there is also cultural changes, social/political movements, the War on Drugs, I could go on.

Any suggestions?

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