Blog Eight

One drop at a time...
Kyle Lawrence couldn't be more right about the importance and urgency of addressing this problem. While Obama has proposed a major improvement on current laws regarding standardized testing, early childhood programs, afterschool programs and a number of other issues, I still think he's missing some very important issues. One of them is the size of the shools. When hundreds and thousands of kids are lumped together in a building than more resembles a prison than an institution of learning, it becomes that, a prison. Especially when the population is comprised entirely of kids going through the most dificult time in their development, physically and emotionally. I think that bulding smaller shools and allowing teachers more freedom with their teaching material and approach would be a benefit for everyone in many ways. First, kids will stay in their communities, they will have to walk their own streets, exercising more and building community awareness. Use money now spent on busing and cafeteria food for building and hiring more teachers. As part of the curriculum, let the kids work in community projects, make improvements to their own neighborhood, build vegetable gardens, water harvesting systems, build and maintain parks, create outdoor art; which they can SEE and ENJOY themselves, building sense of accomplishment and pride. Kids and neihgbors get to know each other and learn to share their space, their abilities and will be more willing to lend a hand to one another.
Another big issue is the discipline approach they now use in most high schools. Suspending a kid from school or sending him to detention for innapropiate behaviour is never going to work. It anything, it only creates resentment and does not teach a lesson to anybody. It's just a leading path out of school and into real trouble.
Recognizing that every kid, especially "gifted" kids, have different needs is very important in keeping them in school. I've met many kids who rather than putting up with the dry, dull school curriculum, choose to get out. There are also those who need more time or who just can't master one subject but excel in another and get frustrated with both when they find no encouragement, nor recognition. I could go on and on, but I think that anyone who has gone through high school has their own ideas for improvement. If only those making the rules were really working for us, and not bowing to the powers of money and greed...sigh!