Comments | oxowhitney: Child Is Father To The Man

oxowhitney

Child Is Father To The Man

Feb 24, 2006 06:06

I've had a very interesting evening tonight. After everyone had gone to bed and the kitchen was clean, I went out to the Shed and played guitar. Things out there are disarrayed at best. My eyes fell on a manila envelope and a notebook. The envelope contained a copy of my birth certificate, some inoculation papers from my schooldays and every report ( Read more... )

Comments 5

misslam2u February 25 2006, 01:47:41 UTC

Well, I don't think Conman and Richman hate you ( ... )

oxowhitney February 25 2006, 05:57:25 UTC

I think, in a convoluted way, both this post and the previous one are strangely connected. Thank you, my love.

anonymous February 25 2006, 02:01:28 UTC

You can't build a Mars Rover and further the knowedge of humanity unless you have a Ph.D.; you can't get a Ph.D. without advanced math; can't do advanced math without calculus; no calculus without being good in algebra; the basis of good algebra is arithmetic and you can't do arithmetic unless you've memorized your math facts.

It's not what your taught, it's how you're taught it. A lot of school reformers have screwed up by confusing subject matter with teaching technique and proceeded to throw the baby out with the bath water. So now, in an effort to eliminate the "drill and kill", they're giving calculators to first graders, and the wheels fall off when they get to high school.

It's even worse in reading: in the rush to get rid of "rote memorization", phonics instruction was almost completely banished for years from public schools. It's still a dirty word in ed schools. So now instead of memorizing the 60-odd different sounds of the English language (which will allow the decoding of any world she'll ever see), a child in a " ( ... )

anonymous February 25 2006, 02:46:44 UTC

Gack! Just a further note...I only chose the math/science angle because that's the way I'm wired (as anyone who's heard my songwriting will agree); not as any kind of specific reply to your post. OK, whew...

J

oxowhitney February 25 2006, 06:32:21 UTC

Yeah, it's not school I hate it's the principal of the thing.
It's not a bad rant, my friend. You write pretty well yourself.

It's nice to know you're dropping in. Hope to see you very soon.