Yet one more reason I really think I'm going to home school when I have kids...

[vg_ford]

Courtesy of blue_vervain - this makes me FURIOUS. Absolutely furious. And happier than I have ever been that:

a. I graduated long before this ridiculous NCLB crap started and
b. I went to a semi-private high school, so my teachers actually cared about teaching AND got the support of the administration that they needed.

Steaming here, just steaming.

Comments

[tangled-fortune.livejournal.com]

Ok, my first reaction was for my brain to overload with a jumble of negations that got so garbled one with the other that I was incapable of pinning them down.

Thus my second reaction was: KILL! CRUSH!! DESTROY!!!!

Then the overload abated and I was able to think again.

I can't say I really know a damn thing about "No Child Left Behind". It sounds like a lame slogan of the variety used to mask a pervasive sort of apathy that governments typically display towards the welfare of their electorate. The kind brought into play usually during an election year, or when public demand has reached critical mass and the pollies need to seem like they're doing something, but don't really have a clue what.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. It's too late at night to go do adequate research on the subject now :P

All that aside, I have to say that that Althouse person clearly doesn't know crap about either basic psychology or children. If you teach a child that reading is a chore, a thing associated with long hours of nail-slowly-driven-through-the-brain boredom, how the HELL do you expect them to EVER want to pick up a book on their own time? They won't! Flat out! They'll avoid it like the fricking plague! Not merely novels, but ALL reading.

And what the F**K does s/he mean by implying that novels have no eduational value. There are whole WORLDS inside books. Politics, theology, ideology, philosophy, science, and yes even history all lie within the artist's scope. You want to learn about the French revolution? By all means pick up a text book. Then go read "A Tale of Two Cities". Want to learn about politics vs. theology, go read something by Salman Rushdie.

If you want to create a truly enlightened person you can't go about it by filling their head with only what you want them to know. They need to be taught to seek the knowledge for themselves. Teach the kids to love reading! If that's ALL they get out of school it will enough, and it will mean they'll get a damn sight more in the way of education than their teachers will ever cram into their heads >:(

[vg-ford.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's basically a crap article, by someone who has no idea what they're talking about. NCLB is one of Dubya's pet programs, so it needs no further explanation.

Personally, I think it's an ass-backwards program, but I wasn't asked when they implemented it, so there you go. :)

[ynfytyn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we're definitely homeschooling. The reasons just keep piling up, both on the con side of public schooling and on the pro side of homeschooling/unschooling.

[vg-ford.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's going to depend on family situation on our end (this is kind of academic right now, as we have no children) but if we can continue to work different shifts, then we're definitely home-schooling.

Or private school, if we're working the same shift. But we're still going to do a lot of homeschooling, regardless.

[snitchcat.livejournal.com]

It's a wonder there's any progressive thinking people emerging from schools anymore, considering the 'wit' with which that article was written.

If reading fiction is truly without value, then, drat it. Let's do it -- 'cos, you know, anything that's not good for you must be great!

::thwaps Althouse::

Idiot.

[snitchcat.livejournal.com]

Great fun, I mean. =^P

(So much for hitting the preview button! :p )

[vg-ford.livejournal.com]

LOL, I figured that's what you meant. ;) And yes, I agree!