Homespun Blogger Symposium XXV
This week's question was:
There seems to be an attitude that we dare not allowcompetition in our schools because that presupposes winners and losers and will make the losers feel bad about themselves. Well, they will have a rude awakening in the real world once they leave the cloistered safety of the schools. Kids will live up, or down, to our expectations. If we let them know that we expect excellence, they will strive to reach it. If we tell them that we don't expect much from them, that we don't think they are capable of achieving anything, they will not put forth any effort.
I also think that we are not only asking the wrong things from our schools but we are also asking too much. We are asking teachers to raise kids and instill values, which is what their parents should be doing. Today's parents, however, appear to be so self-involved that they only occasionally seem to notice that they have children. One wonders WHY they have children.
Obviously, this is a generalization. There are great schools, involved parents, and motivated kids. It just seems like there has been a change in the emphases in education overall since I graduated, and since my son graduated in 1988, because I didn't notice these things so much when he was going to school either.
Other responses include:
Major Dad 1984
Cross Blogging
Dagney's Rant
With all things being equal, are schools today producing better, worse, or graduates of about the same quality as they did the day you graduated high school?Unfortunately, this is going to date me, but I graduated in 1966. I definitely think that today's schools are concentrating on everything BUT an education that will prepare young people for the real world. There is emphasis on giving young people a sense of self-esteem, but in my opinion, self-esteem cannot be given to someone. It comes from within...from accomplishing something, from meeting a challenge, from reaching a goal.
Please be sure to explain your answer AND let us know when you graduated from high school to give us a frame of reference.
There seems to be an attitude that we dare not allowcompetition in our schools because that presupposes winners and losers and will make the losers feel bad about themselves. Well, they will have a rude awakening in the real world once they leave the cloistered safety of the schools. Kids will live up, or down, to our expectations. If we let them know that we expect excellence, they will strive to reach it. If we tell them that we don't expect much from them, that we don't think they are capable of achieving anything, they will not put forth any effort.
I also think that we are not only asking the wrong things from our schools but we are also asking too much. We are asking teachers to raise kids and instill values, which is what their parents should be doing. Today's parents, however, appear to be so self-involved that they only occasionally seem to notice that they have children. One wonders WHY they have children.
Obviously, this is a generalization. There are great schools, involved parents, and motivated kids. It just seems like there has been a change in the emphases in education overall since I graduated, and since my son graduated in 1988, because I didn't notice these things so much when he was going to school either.
Other responses include:
Major Dad 1984
Cross Blogging
Dagney's Rant
posted by Diana @ 3:36 PM
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