My son and I, enjoying his school's internationally-themed day together.
Schools these days are getting far more complex and sophisticated, and not necessarily systematically in a bad way. I do not agree with the intense focus on testing on all levels, which perhaps has long existed, but which was really stepped up with George W. Bush's "No Child Left Behind" program, which was a way, essentially, of convincing the American people that the education system could be greatly improved and enhanced, all without raising taxes. The idea was that children would be made to be better prepared for testing of their skills, and that teachers would be held accountable for the results.
Sounds simple enough, and a lot of people bought into it. But the result have been, in retrospect, rather predictable. Children were indeed made to prepare for testing, but the extreme focus on making sure that they would be prepared for testing came at the expense of other elements of their education. Also, teachers were blamed for results that were not up to overly high expectations, and thus, became convenient scapegoats.
Not a surprise. After all, tests are intensely focused only on the end result. Nothing else really matters but the results, and that is a reflection of our society. Nothing really matters but the numbers, the quantifiable facts in black and white. Everything else is ignored, including what could be, truly, some great individual, and group, educational experiences and advances. But those do not matter if all you care about are results of some periodic tests.
In short, this method of enhancing and improving the quality of education for our children simply did not work. Yet, the idea that it was that simple, that all you had to do was bring in more testing, and then prepare the kids for more testing, was attractive enough that it kept appealing to people. It was a lazy way of thinking, an overly simplistic expectation of working our way out of the problem that was, in fact, quite complex. But so long as people wanted to believe, it was the flavor of the moment - so much so that President Obama kept this intact, essentially just tinkering with it a bit. Overall, though, this system is still very much in place, even if the results have been, frankly, less than stellar.
The thing is, with all the advances in technology, you really might think that education would be a little easier, that our kids would indeed have more opportunities at their fingertips, literally, then any generation has had before. Instead, things are growing ever worse. It has gotten so bad, that it is almost seen as a joke. I saw a little false headline from The Onion, that read this:
"Chinese Third-Graders Falling Behind U.S. High School Students in Math, Science NEWS" • Our Annual Year 2013 • High School • ISSUE 49•09 • Feb 27, 2013
http://www.theonion.com/articles/report-chinese-thirdgraders-falling-behind-us-high,31464/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=LinkPreview:NA:InFocus
Yet, the problem persists. And since Americans tend to be very stubborn, and reluctant to change their mind, even when all of the evidence, and often facts, points to our approach (not restricted just to education) being wrong, simply stated. It is like some knee jerk reaction: if the simplest sounding solution seems like it should work, then surely it must work. If it doesn't, then surely the individual is doing something wrong, for it cannot be our collective thinking on it, right? So, let's just take more draconian measures. Let's make sure that we cut even more out of the school budget, or let's make sure that we never, ever take steps, no matter what, to making our healthcare system any closer to what exists in Western Europe, or any other damn system! We're Americans, damn it! And we do things our way.
The problem, of course, is that you can actually learn from the examples of others. But that requires some effort. it also requires some actual looking into what other countries are doing, and unless that means spying on other countries for useful military intelligence, Americans tend not to be too good at seeing anything outside of their borders at all. As bad as the test results for math and reading and other subjects might be, I think we would all be appalled if we tested American children on their knowledge of world geography. Hell, I think the results might even be more appalling if we tested American adults, for that matter.
But I digress. The point is, our modern technology, properly utilized, could go a long way towards making people - not just kids - a lot smarter about the world. But one truly sizable obstacle within American borders is that people just do not want to hear much about the rest of the world. They should know better, and frankly, they should know enough to at least not get in the way of their kids learning more about the world. But the level of resistance to any greater exposure about the world is staggering, and too often is allowed to get in the way of the education of American children.
That is why it is encouraging when there are signs of something different. My son's school, for example, had a sort of international theme for an event at the school recently. Each kid would search their own background, particularly nationalities, as well as religious, and then focus on what the traditions would be for the holidays. This was a sort of "International Day", if you will, and I was thrilled to see them doing it. My son was given a paragraph about French traditions for the holiday, and I really wanted to make sure that he got it down, since he was to read that in front of the entire second grade (this part wound up not being the case, as it turned out).
A whole huge event was planned out for it. Each kid would bring in a dish or two from their country. My son brought Madeleine cookies. I was half expecting to gear up and bring a whole bunch of things all about France, but that was unnecessary. Just the food and the speech. Still, that would be very cool, and parents were invited.
So, I went to it. it was this part Thursday, on the 19th. The food was delicious. And again, even though he did not read it before the entire second grade, he did read it before the entire class, as well as many parents. I would estimate that somewhere between thirty to forty people were in the classroom. And, I am proud to say, my son read it beautifully. All the kids did, it seemed.
I was very happy with this event, which seemed to me to be very much in the holiday spirit. So, I figured I would share it with you. There are pictures here, as well as a link to a video that can be found on Youtube (my first, and so far, only video ever downloaded to Youtube).
Hope you enjoy!
This was the picture that we took maybe a minute before, where he does not look happy at all!
A much happier looking child here. In the background, you can get a glimpse of some of the international foods that people made for this event, although most of the kids were not all that daring and, for the most part, went to town on the familiar desserts.
Here is the video of the speech/presentation that he had to give.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVa8b-WvE5o
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