Temporary Archive: Suzanne Brockmann's Message Board

"-Focus education on future requirements not the past-" What do you mean by this? What future and past requirements? Okay, was doing some work with local elementary school and started with this, "You are not allowed to answer this question until the end of this session-why are you teaching my son cursive writing?" Immediate bristle and attempts to answer--but here is the point, My kids will NEVER have a need for cursive writing--yet they will spend hundreds of hours learning it. Hypothetically, this could be extended to a lot of math. Now, people wil respond that the fundamentals are good fr trainnig the brain--but, where is the research? So, my specific point is spend some time to determine what capabilities our current fifth graders are going to find most critical in 2020..which is precisely what we were doing for the Navy in the think-tank. I assure you it won't include cursive writing--so you have oppurtunity cost in all those hour spent teaching cursive instead of say, programming language
"-Attain or exceed parody with the educational achievements of all other countries-" Assuming you mean parity (please correct me if I'm wrong b/c I know what happens when you assume ;-), to which other countries do you refer? Are those countries' standards or scores for all students or just those they deem educable e.g. males?
You say toematoe I say tamahtoe--yes, I meant parity--specifically China. They are positioned to clean our clock.

"-Instill the critical and vital strategic parameters-" What would these parameters be? They would have to be determined. I am a firm believer in allowing people to lead themselves and maximize their initiative---but it requires parameters. For instance, I am very clear in setting parameters for performance in my people--failing inside those parameters is acceptable--succeeding outside those parameters will get you fired. Enron is a great example of out of the box thinking---seriously, those guys were making tons of money thinking out of the box--but they skipped the step of mapping the box to determine which sides it was okay to think outside of. So, you need to allow latitude but there has to be some rules that are unnegotiable. I don't know what they are though
"It would be lean and stripped of cumbersome technic (You mean technique, right?)or requirements. It would have diverse instructional methods and it would have diverse measures of success." This part fascinates me b/c it seems that no matter what system is used to measure "success" in education, someone cries "unfair". What kind of testing would you suggest to ensure that our children are learning? Would you use multiple choice or open ended questions? Who would create and grade the tests? You recognize that there are different kinds of learners, how would you measure their education? Again, I don't know. I do know that a number of children are labelled because they just don't think like other children. The point would be to put effort into determining how to teach different identified learning styles. I think it could be done if a similiar effort was placed in education as in HLS. The key is to recognize that the "bell" curve for educational issues is a lot flatter than presumed so more kids are falling outside the traditional learning patterns and create a multiple path system to address that. I venture that we all know someone who was a "late bloomer" and we surely all no someone who "never lived up to their potential"

One more question "*in that, it would acknowledge everyone’s inherent right to succeed—if that required differentiation at a local level, that would be acceptable-" What do you mean by local level? I would say that can be as segmented as the classroom. I think you already see this with teachers willing to stay late, or alter assignments for specific needs. So, it was a disclaimer that not-differentiating was about the rights of each child--regardless of IQ, race, personality--not how you might actully have to teach to achieve that goal (Strategic vs tactical consideration).

Note I didn't say that your opinions were automaticaly wrong either :-) Of course not--it's not like we are married!