Xtian Fish Badges 4775

BlackWater

I think you're at least partly misdiagnosing the problem. On the one hand, what you're calling the prescriptive, procedural approach was actually failing a lot of kids. We don't measure things now the way we did then, so comparisons are always tricky; but there was a reason why Sputnik caused a panic in the ed biz, and that was that for many children the '50s style of teaching was simply not working. So he goes off to be an auto mechanic instead of a physicist; who cares? We can't do that now.

On the other hand, you're underestimating the 'diversity' argument Dave was talking about. I went through new math; and nobody in our clbuttes had that much trouble. We also learned our times tables; you need a mixture. But we had teachers who understood that. It's when you get teachers who only half understand what they're doing (a la Tom Lehrer's New Math: it's so simple that only a child can do it) that problems arise. And there were a lot of those.

Perhaps it's left-wing to hope that when you present a new curriculum, the teachers will be able to learn it and teach it well. I guess then it's right-wing to buttume that teachers will do unto others as was done unto them. I prefer the gradually evolving theory myself.

Again, you need a balance. A lot of kids *did* end up being uncreative and hating school; and it showed. It's still true today, of course; there isn't a holy grail. But trying to banish self esteem and creativity doesn't exactly look like an improvement, unless you prefer Stepford Wives.

I can't speak for your school district; I can only look at statistics. I don't think they support your case (especially with a turnaround in 2001).

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