"Vastly more extensive and strenuous use of memory is required for school success than is needed in virtually any career you can name. Students must store and retrieve mounds of facts, skills, and concepts across unrelated subject areas and topics...In creating this demand, education imposes an ever-growing burden on the neurodevelopmental functions that together make up memory capacity."
All I want toknow is this: Is there a better way to learn? Are there better things to learn? Do ways exist to engage a brain while holding its owner accountable?
Welcome back to school. Please do not leave your brain unattended. It will be ticketed and towed.
1 comment:
This is such an important issue!!! Not only the insidious memorization, but the overabundant busy-work, and the emphasis on book-knowledge at an ever-earlier age...ARGH! Much of the American educational system has become ludicrous. Sure we should be grateful; our children have so many "opportunities" (hmmm) for learning & growth. But at what price? What do all these wonderful educational opportunities cost our families, our creativity, our leisure (what's that?), and the simple joys of childhood? And then the really hard question is this: Is it really working for us???? oooo...ouch...not so much...
So, Dan Powell, I'm wondering - what did you do in response to your child's staggeringly-useless memorization assignment? Seems like we've got to instigate a revolution, if anything is going to change. It's time to march into the principal's office and rebel! Whether our kids are in public, private, or home school situations, we need to step into the fray, and refuse to allow these useless, busy-work, baby-sitting assignments devour our lives.
It really is so backward and bizarre... We are the taxpayers (or private/home school tuition payers) and are thus giving paychecks to teachers & administrators. WE are the CUSTOMER! And yet in most school environments, students and their parents bow down to the mandates given by the person they are BUYING from. This is ridiculous! It's like walking into a restaurant, handing over your wallet, then cowering as the waitress tells you exactly what you are going to eat, how to eat it, sit-down-shut-up, and go home to practice eating just like this for 3 more hours, till you are so maxed-out that you puke. Then we all turn around and do it exactly the same way the next day... How does this compare to any other business, political, or service model in the country??? The American educational system stands alone in its ludicrosity. (yes, I made that word up...creative, eh? tho the 6th grade grammar curriculum doesn't agree.)
So, what to do? Every revolution begins with one step; one person willing to defend their home-front, their family, their very life. Can you imagine a few hundred parents picketing in front of a Denver middle school, "No More Homework! No More Homework!" Ah well, I can dream...
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