The Education System

In my heart there are a few things that I often think about, one of these is education. I was homeschooled every day of my life (apart from pre-school, 3 months in mexico and some time at allan hancock college in high school) and I consider myself to be generally quite different from the stereotypical homeschooler.

That being said, I believe some things have changed in the way we view education, and some things should change in the way we view education.

Sadly, it seems to me that our public education system has embraced daycare rather than education. I surveyed 45 of my friends who went to either public or private school and some of them said that during high school 90% of their time was wasted. The kids that thought it was most useful were most often private school students.

I know a lot of kids that half their senior year was spent watching TV shows in class. Even when there is teaching, I am convinced that for a majority of students what they learn outside the 1 on 30 classroom is more beneficial to them than the time they spend within it. It should be said that some students clearly buck this trend, however, it seems to me they are in a minority.

I am thinking this blog may turn into developing a clear thought process on how to influence the next generation of educators into seeing a child and seeing an opportunity to give that child the most valuable knowledge to enhance their life, and to do it in a way that gives them an opportunity to use it, maintaining high expectations of them.

...if it were up to me, I'd start by eliminating any federal education system. What does somebody in washington D.C. know about educating a child in Solvang, CA that somebody in California (or even better, Solvang) doesn't?

...in the classroom, I would switch my thinking to having 50 minutes 5 days a week to teach important concepts to enrich my students lives. -I'm sure some teachers already think like this, but we've all had teachers who are just there to click through their slides and generally discourage us from ever thinking about US History again, or at least beyond friday's test.