NP - "What's the question about your question that you dread being asked?

[alice wellintown]

As Dewey sez, "there is no educational value in the abstract," and, by this
he means that what works with 5 year old native speakers of English
in England may not work with 5 year old native speakers in the United
States. We can even say that what works with rich children in the Bronx,
NY, USA won't work with poor children in the Bronx, NY, USA. So, if in
Finland or Denmark or Norway, often the oranges compared with our apple,
children start school at age 7, and this is quite successful, applying this
idea to poor children in the Bronx, or even to wealthy children in the
Bronx who live in a house and in a neighborhood where English is not the
first langauge, would be malpractice. Phonics, as the debates and studies,
often with whole language advocates, may be quite appropriate given a
particular learning population. Pragmatism, as Dewey stressed in his
writings on Education, is that something that doesn't suck in US education.
But the workers, that is, the pedagogues, are being stripped of their
freedom to use what they know works with the pupils they know learn best
when the methods they have created for these particular students are used.
That said, there are too many weak and poorly prepared teachers in the USA.
The salaries suck. Raise them and we will see the best and brightest
in education.


On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 8:55 AM, Prashant Kumar <
siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com> wrote:

> Interested in your answer. Is it just that the metrics used to measure
> "accountability", "progress", etc. are coarse averages? I mean, for all
> your failing schools you're still the intellectual and scientific centre of
> the world, so you know, *something* doesn't suck.
>
> Also, what do you think of teaching via the "Phonics" method? Had a debate
> re this today.
>
> P.
>
>
> On 7 April 2013 21:38, Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>> Why are US schools behind much of the world?
>>
>> This is way more complicated than tax-slashers or "accountability
>> experts"  or "higher standards"  folks want to think about.
>>
>> Bekah
>>
>> On Apr 7, 2013, at 1:17 AM, Prashant Kumar <siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > What question about your field do you dread being asked? Maybe it's a
>> sore point: your field should have an answer (people think you do) but
>> there isn't one yet. Perhaps it's simple to pose but hard to answer. Or
>> it's a question that belies a deep misunderstanding: the best answer is to
>> question the question.
>> >
>> >
>> http://www.edge.org/conversation/whats-the-question-about-your-field-that-you-dread-being-asked
>> >
>> > Various responses there; any p-listers willing to chime in?
>> >
>> > Prashant
>>
>>
>
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