[HSList] Tapering off.......

[Dan Holsopple]

VLJensen wrote:
>
>
> My opinions (rantings & ravings) are directed toward the PS system and those
> who think it is the answer to America's ills. It's destruction will relieve
> America of bad teachers and indifferent administrators. Good teachers will
> always find a job, even if they have to open a school of their own. Children
> could hardly become more corrupted out of school (with PS classrooms
> unavailable) than they do by being in school.
>
[Good point! My Interpretation of RESURRECTION(It has to die first)
includes just
what homeschool is an old tried and effective form of education
reinstated. We still
may need some for of PS for inner cities where the environment is not
particularly
attractive to ....anyone.]

> I heard an interesting viewpoint 2 days ago. Children learn by leaps and
> bounds in their preschool years (up until age 5 or 6). Then the amount they
> are able to learn annually appears to taper off. It probably is no coincidence
> that this is the age that they also start sitting in PS classrooms.
>
[I think this "tapering off" is one of the crowning achievements of the
PS sytem. My
son has is now 7 yrs and we delight in disecting a frog and a fetal
pig. I had him
in there with the snippers cutting away ribs etc so we could see the
organs! We also
have a great public library....lots of books with general and specific
focus. I try
to read 2-3 books per week in the area of life sciences we study.]
> Vickie

[TIM BANDY]

In a message dated 4/27/98 1:35:58 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
dho...@Moneynet.COM writes:

<< We still may need some for of PS for inner cities where the environment is
not >>

I do not think we need a new plan. All we need do is go to a school voucher
system. Giving parents the right to take their children to whatever school
they wish will release a dynamic, energy from school administrators and
teachers such as our schools have never known before! There is a major
difference between services provided by salaried bureaucrats and services
provided by providers working in a free market. Here in my state the governor
recently reduced services to the handicapped to a handful of counselors who
contract with private guidance counseling services. Immediately, I saw young
handicapped people who never received much job assistance from their unionized
state counselors (they would take them out and 'help' them get low paying
floor cleaning and dishwashing jobs) placed into good jobs immediately! One
young man whom my family has a relationship with had been struggling for three
years trying to get off SSI and earn his own way. He was fired from 13 jobs
in one year. I told him to keep trying, to focus on his strengths and work on
his weaknesses. Sooner or later, he would find a type of job where his
ability with people, honesty and high moral character would fit and his slow
production speed would be irrelevant. He got no such encouragement or help
from his state counselor. He worked out at a KFC, making the chicken. He got
employee of the month and later employee of the year but this job only pays
$6.00 an hour tops. When our system was privatized, he was sent to a private
counseling center. Within a week, he was placed into a $9.25 an hour
warehouse job. He is long past the probation period and has received two
merit raises to $10.20 an hour. He is also on his way to realizing his dream
of being a truck driver, driving a large van to make emergency deliveries.
So, I do not think we need do anything but free schools from an old, rigid
bureaucracy and see what people making the right decisions form them will do
for our schools. ... Or, so it seems to me
Tim B.