On 5/17/08, ACP wrote:
> Swilley, I have to say I am a fan of yours. You frequently post
> well thought out answers with good food for thought. But this
> time I haven't a clue what you are saying. The same power as the
> Governor or the President? Man! I hope you will agree that
there
> is a huge difference between pardoning a convicted person when
> evidence or arguments suggest it needs to be done, and passing a
> kid who has failed to perform an entire school year just --
> because. Let's face it, there are ad hoc quotas for everything in
> education. Only so many can be sent to alternative schools, only
> so many can fail each six weeks, only so many can fail for the
> year, we feel morally obligated not to fail a student more than
> once in his/her career. This isn't a question about pardoning a
> convict, it is about making sure students have what they need to
> be successful in life.
>
> I do agree a great deal with your second post. We definitely
need
> multiple paths for students....
======================================================
But we don't have those yet, do we? And since, winthin
months, sometimes weeks, the regular "graduate"
1) remembers little if anything of what he has "learned" in
subjects most of which have been presented to him as memory work,
and
2) like his buddy who has been "graduated" in spite of failing his
finally meaningless courses, but who has demonstrated the command
of all they both really need to get on in life, I mean the ability
to read, write, etc.
3) Why is it wrong to graduate anyone who demonstrates his/her
command of those rudiments? It would be a way of awakening us to
the tragic and farcical facts:
a) we are seldom teaching our students *principles of judgement*
of the facts of a subject (except, of course, Math, which cannot
be taught at all without such emphasis), and this in constantly
repeated exercises of ever greater complexity (the only method for
shaping a mind in any endeavor);
b) instead, we rely on memorization of facts and confuse the value
of quantity of facts remembered with the value of quality of
ability to judge them.
c) Thus, beyond our repetition of the lessons of reading, writing,
etc., we are accomplishing nothing except for those students who
find they love one subject or another and continue them as though
they were electives,
d) resulting in our schools' need to face what they really are:
either
1) sorting devices to find students who might profit from their
continuance in privately selected subjects, dismissing the rest as
needing only the rudiments; and/or
2)holding pens to
a) baby-sit our young while both parents work, and/or
b) protect the national labor force from inundation by a flood of
students released from the opprobrium of our otherwise meaningless
school systems.
So, I say, "graduate" any student who demonstrates his
ability in the rudiments and stop the stupid and monumentally
expensive required courses and required years of achieving little
more than the evanescent.
L. Swilley
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