Speaking as PI…pragmatic idealist… in a political sense (and high school dropout, as full transparancy factoid of note) it should be no surprise the state of education is a subject kept firmly in focus at my house. PI consider the restoration of public education, and improving the objectively measured abilities of the students being educated, a frontline issue of national security. Needless to say, in my book of rote rants and rare raves is a rather large chapter dedicated to the subject. Allow me to share one idea from that chapter that directly addresses one of the points presented in this article.
When I was black hat management it would have been considered a total botch to throw a raw rookie into the game and expect the same performance as a proven veteran. But with only one teacher to the classroom, and the fact that everyone has to start somewhere, what can be done to mitigate this huge vulnerability in the systemthat can do deep damage to so many lives?
The answer is to reinforce the rookies with a federally funded* mentoring program, the new teacher every bit as much a beneficiary of the mentoring as the students.
OK, sounds good on paper. Now, where do we find and how do we recruit the caliber of people needed to make it work? Answer? From the ranks of those retiring a proven succesful career in any industry but education.
*You recruit them by offering a life long reduction in personal income taxes in exchange for their services(paid, wages split between feds, school, and former employer… who is to be given same preferred tax status on current employees for a period longer than the mentors term of service) passing on what they learned worl not to the next generation but rather to the kids two or three generations up the run of history and the rookie teacher as well. In short, use the public schools to close the grandparent gap that has contributed a great deal to the fragmentation of the American culture.
Fact: you can’t teach what you don’t know, and there are a great many things needed for a successful life that you really cannot learn in a classroom. IMO we desperately need to get the people who have proven they know what they’re doing where they need to be. We can let the far right’s Patriot Movement have those who want to continue the currently miserably inept status qou for psychcoBabble political reasons.
July 15, 2024 @ 11:34 am
Speaking as PI…pragmatic idealist… in a political sense (and high school dropout, as full transparancy factoid of note) it should be no surprise the state of education is a subject kept firmly in focus at my house. PI consider the restoration of public education, and improving the objectively measured abilities of the students being educated, a frontline issue of national security. Needless to say, in my book of rote rants and rare raves is a rather large chapter dedicated to the subject. Allow me to share one idea from that chapter that directly addresses one of the points presented in this article.
When I was black hat management it would have been considered a total botch to throw a raw rookie into the game and expect the same performance as a proven veteran. But with only one teacher to the classroom, and the fact that everyone has to start somewhere, what can be done to mitigate this huge vulnerability in the systemthat can do deep damage to so many lives?
The answer is to reinforce the rookies with a federally funded* mentoring program, the new teacher every bit as much a beneficiary of the mentoring as the students.
OK, sounds good on paper. Now, where do we find and how do we recruit the caliber of people needed to make it work? Answer? From the ranks of those retiring a proven succesful career in any industry but education.
*You recruit them by offering a life long reduction in personal income taxes in exchange for their services(paid, wages split between feds, school, and former employer… who is to be given same preferred tax status on current employees for a period longer than the mentors term of service) passing on what they learned worl not to the next generation but rather to the kids two or three generations up the run of history and the rookie teacher as well. In short, use the public schools to close the grandparent gap that has contributed a great deal to the fragmentation of the American culture.
Fact: you can’t teach what you don’t know, and there are a great many things needed for a successful life that you really cannot learn in a classroom. IMO we desperately need to get the people who have proven they know what they’re doing where they need to be. We can let the far right’s Patriot Movement have those who want to continue the currently miserably inept status qou for psychcoBabble political reasons.