|
Tuesday, 06 November 2007 13:01 |
|
For over fifty years, public-school officials and politicians
have tried one education fad after another. They have all
failed. Children should not be turned into victims and
educational guinea pigs by public-school authorities. Here"s why
public schools can waste 12 years of your children’s lives and
destroy their love of learning:
1. These schools teach children to read with the whole-language
method (now called "balanced-reading instruction"), which
cripples children’s ability to read. That is why after 12 years,
millions of graduating high-school students have poor reading
skills, and some students can barely read their own diplomas.
2. Public schools teach the “new” or fuzzy math which can
cripple a child’s ability to do math and destroy their
self-confidence. A child who is afraid of math won’t have the
confidence to pursue a career in science, computers, or
engineering, thereby cutting them off from these rewarding
careers.
3. Because these schools can cripple children’s ability to read,
they must force children to read dumbed-down textbooks in
English, History, and many other subjects. These textbooks are
geared to the slowest learners in the class and water-down the
subject matter. These dumbed-down courses therefore waste
children’s time.
4. Most “teaching” in public-schools consists of students having
to memorize facts from dumbed-down textbooks, only to
regurgitate these same facts on dumbed-down tests. John Holt, in
his book, “How Children Fail” points out that most students
forget the facts they memorized within a few weeks after the
test. So most children learn little from their classes except
how to cram their heads with useless facts which they soon
forget. This goes on for 12 years.
5. Public schools force children to study subjects they hate,
can’t do, will never use in their lives, or which bore them. For
example, many schools force students to study geometry and
trigonometry, French or another foreign language, or world
history. Children should be studying subjects they love and are
good at. When they have to study subjects that bore them, the
only thing children learn is to hate learning.
6. Ben Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Edison, and Mark
Twain all went to a formal “grammar” school for less than two
years. All were home-schooled by their parents or self-taught
after they learned to read. Author John Gatto, in his book
“Dumbing Us Down” said that most children can learn to read,
write, and do basic arithmetic in only 100 hours of intense
study. Yet our public schools keep children locked up for 12
years, yet can barely teach them to read.
7. Once children learn to read and write well within two years
of intense study, they doesn’t need a public school at all. With
their parents’ help and guidance, they can direct their own
studies and education at home. Over two million children do this
right now—it’s called homeschooling.
8. Public schools are a government-controlled monopoly. Bad
schools don’t close down because compulsory taxes prop them up.
Incompetent or mediocre teachers aren’t fired because tenure
laws protect them. That’s why public schools will never improve
and will always waste children’s precious time.
9. A study by the National Education Commission on Time and
Learning found that middle-school and high-school children spent
on average only about 50 percent of their school day on core
"academic" subjects. The rest of their time is spent on classes
about sex-education, personal safety, family life, consumer
affairs, AIDS and drug prevention, save-the-environment,
multiculturalism studies, "cooperative-learning" projects, study
halls, electives, homeroom, counseling, sports activities, or
pep rallies (high school).
If parents value their children’s time, passion for learning,
and future success in life, then they should consider taking
their children out of public school, permanently.
|
