If one cannot afford to send one's children to once colonial and semi colonial places where they still serve up traditional British style education; you know, India, Singapore, Malaysia et al, then home schooling is just going to have to be the go, with a bit of help from the now burgeoning digital learning economy.
Ironically, it has been Covid that introduced a lot of that, and while it was a much less than satisfactory outcome, much has been learned, just as it has been with not going to the office anymore.
The only way the Woke are going to learn is the hard way, which is withdrawel of students by parents who no longer trust or have confidence in current education authorities as bona fides interlocutors and who are prepared to protect them, if necessary, at great personal cost and sacrifice.
very interesting, especially in light of the school choice debate that goes on in the states. i think what you describe is the school parents want to choose, but there arent enough to meet demand, hence the trap. im working on a new piece about this.
hot take: the big irony for covid is how it might have actually saved the West. forced us online, parents saw rampant ideology, kids were at a distance from the school, and homeschooling got a boost. and our entire culture starting to pay attention to education, like the cultures you mention always have: India, Singapore, Malaysia -- where many parents are downright obsessed with ed.
My favourite line: “An army of woke teachers is a pox.” Teachers and administrators should indeed check their politics at the school door. There should also be a balance between student-centred learning and learning as a class.
Actually I deliberated on that word choice, just went with the shortest word in the end 'pox'. Yes, leave it at the door Or check it at the door, my sentiments as well. And third I am certainly a strong proponent of learning as a (whole) class.
agreed, and, fair enough. I suppose most teachers (95%) think their teaching should be 95% student-centred. so once there's a slavish devotion to an idea, the whole of it can become uncritical; just tell 'em the new thing is student centered, how can they refuse
Totally agree! Anti-education education-system, devouring itself, is a late stage in the long march through the institutions and we have to walk it back." Thank you for these timely ideas on how to do so.
One quibble. There's overlap between ideology and methodology, but I would argue you can teach the ideals of liberty and justice using student centered methods. There is legitimate recent research on how humans learn, cooperatively as well as independently it turns out, that shouldn't be thrown out for nostalgia's sake. My field of second language acquisition has benefited greatly from student centered approaches. I wonder if TC and SC means something different in your context?
as above: agreed, and, fair enough. I suppose most teachers (95%) think their teaching should be 95% student-centred. so once there's a slavish devotion to an idea, the whole of it can become uncritical; just tell 'em the new thing is student centered, how can they refuse
It's my 6th year teaching in asia, so, second-language with lit/language arts approach every day. yes i think its likely we we do think tc and sc mean different things. my sense of the climate in education is that sc is good and tc is bad. and that's just outta-whack. think of the above distinction by jim M 'between student-centred learning and learning as a class' -- im not sure what this means. I think SC dominates the discourse and turns it all into mush. you may a technical idea. but for me 'learning as a class' charactizes the entirety of the course. well we do an ISU but, i dunno, thats independent, maybe not sc. what else is there? what is sc? lol =)
if the medium is the message, then the ideology can be the methodology - sure, SC could be a pure thing methodologically and not infused with dei crt sel. but it is. there's no reason why masking should be politically charged, yep, it just is at this point.
When you speak of “patriotic teachers” are you unaware that being “patriotic” is political now? To declare the basis of a teaching philosophy to be ideally “non-political,” then, would require the teacher to NOT express any patriotic stance. The left has very successfully incorporated loyalty to America’s founding ideas to be “political” and thus verboten for teachers to promote.
One problem I see with this approach is that a bevy of facts that we all used to recognize (two genders, 2 + 2 = 4, free speech is a common good, etc.) have become Political. Fencing off anything “political” from a teacher’s approved commentary means the “woke” nonsense goes unchallenged.
If one cannot afford to send one's children to once colonial and semi colonial places where they still serve up traditional British style education; you know, India, Singapore, Malaysia et al, then home schooling is just going to have to be the go, with a bit of help from the now burgeoning digital learning economy.
Ironically, it has been Covid that introduced a lot of that, and while it was a much less than satisfactory outcome, much has been learned, just as it has been with not going to the office anymore.
The only way the Woke are going to learn is the hard way, which is withdrawel of students by parents who no longer trust or have confidence in current education authorities as bona fides interlocutors and who are prepared to protect them, if necessary, at great personal cost and sacrifice.
Hi sir. I referenced this point in my piece on school choice on my unchanging.substack.com
very interesting, especially in light of the school choice debate that goes on in the states. i think what you describe is the school parents want to choose, but there arent enough to meet demand, hence the trap. im working on a new piece about this.
hot take: the big irony for covid is how it might have actually saved the West. forced us online, parents saw rampant ideology, kids were at a distance from the school, and homeschooling got a boost. and our entire culture starting to pay attention to education, like the cultures you mention always have: India, Singapore, Malaysia -- where many parents are downright obsessed with ed.
My favourite line: “An army of woke teachers is a pox.” Teachers and administrators should indeed check their politics at the school door. There should also be a balance between student-centred learning and learning as a class.
Actually I deliberated on that word choice, just went with the shortest word in the end 'pox'. Yes, leave it at the door Or check it at the door, my sentiments as well. And third I am certainly a strong proponent of learning as a (whole) class.
agreed, and, fair enough. I suppose most teachers (95%) think their teaching should be 95% student-centred. so once there's a slavish devotion to an idea, the whole of it can become uncritical; just tell 'em the new thing is student centered, how can they refuse
Totally agree! Anti-education education-system, devouring itself, is a late stage in the long march through the institutions and we have to walk it back." Thank you for these timely ideas on how to do so.
One quibble. There's overlap between ideology and methodology, but I would argue you can teach the ideals of liberty and justice using student centered methods. There is legitimate recent research on how humans learn, cooperatively as well as independently it turns out, that shouldn't be thrown out for nostalgia's sake. My field of second language acquisition has benefited greatly from student centered approaches. I wonder if TC and SC means something different in your context?
as above: agreed, and, fair enough. I suppose most teachers (95%) think their teaching should be 95% student-centred. so once there's a slavish devotion to an idea, the whole of it can become uncritical; just tell 'em the new thing is student centered, how can they refuse
It's my 6th year teaching in asia, so, second-language with lit/language arts approach every day. yes i think its likely we we do think tc and sc mean different things. my sense of the climate in education is that sc is good and tc is bad. and that's just outta-whack. think of the above distinction by jim M 'between student-centred learning and learning as a class' -- im not sure what this means. I think SC dominates the discourse and turns it all into mush. you may a technical idea. but for me 'learning as a class' charactizes the entirety of the course. well we do an ISU but, i dunno, thats independent, maybe not sc. what else is there? what is sc? lol =)
if the medium is the message, then the ideology can be the methodology - sure, SC could be a pure thing methodologically and not infused with dei crt sel. but it is. there's no reason why masking should be politically charged, yep, it just is at this point.
When you speak of “patriotic teachers” are you unaware that being “patriotic” is political now? To declare the basis of a teaching philosophy to be ideally “non-political,” then, would require the teacher to NOT express any patriotic stance. The left has very successfully incorporated loyalty to America’s founding ideas to be “political” and thus verboten for teachers to promote.
One problem I see with this approach is that a bevy of facts that we all used to recognize (two genders, 2 + 2 = 4, free speech is a common good, etc.) have become Political. Fencing off anything “political” from a teacher’s approved commentary means the “woke” nonsense goes unchallenged.