Arts, civics, language and literature, mathematics, music, physical
exercise, science, and other disciplines are essential for the
Minneapolis School curriculum. To the best of my knowledge, all the
students in the school district are Cro-Magnon as a species. Although
named for the European branch that left cave paintings about 40,000 years
B.C.E., we also have forms of pictographs and other symbols from Chinese,
Egyptian, Mayan and many other cultures. Commercial and government
specialists probably developed alphabets and Arabic numerals to simplify
abstract records and tallies of events and goods. We suspect historical
events, medical practices, religious rituals, scientific and other
knowledge passed from generation to generation through chants and songs
before and after writing. Since we are here, we might theorize that
Cro-Magnons are genetically predisposed to learning even abstract
knowledge through visual and auditory means. Smell may be important too,
but that is currently beyond the available technology of the school
district.
While we have our "Doubting Thomas'" for whom "Seeing is Believing",
we can not provide statistical studies of the above theory. The
historical subjects died too soon. Current genetic mapping has not yet
discovered a genetic pattern that would prove that theory. Of course, no
one may be looking.
Since a "Picture is Worth a Thousand Words", our school district's
text books have drawings or pictures of geometric shapes and formulas or
trees and leaves. From Kindergarten to high school graduation is only 13
years. We do not have thousands of hours to get the concepts. A
combination of pictorial and abstract visual stimulus is much more "cost
effective". Reading Rainbow, Seseame Street and the Alphabet song help
imprint the information to make text and illustrated diagrams
understandable. While in high school, I learned that IBM built a building
when I was in grade school that housed the first major electronic
computer. Now, I am using this laptop. New information and technology
occurs too quickly now for the school district to dump the info into the
students heads.
While a basic education needs to teach certain basic principles, it
is more important to stir up the connections of our Cro-Magnon brains to
allow flexible learning. Minneapolis is already an International City in
composition. To assume that our Kindergarteners will face an economic or
technological world similar to ours today is possibly short sighted.
While artistic techniques aid scientific information flow, they also
reveal and shape the culture of the society that will support or suppress
science. While musical techniques improve mathematical agility and
memory, they also reveal and shape the culture that will support or
suppress ideas.
The improvement that I think would be helpful for the Minneapolis
School District would be a better coordination of art and music into all
subjects. Artistic techniques for political cartoons and scientific
illustration should begin early in the education cycle. Musical
techniques for math and language should continue and expand early in the
education cycle. Are current drawings of a gravity well accurate, a
misunderstanding a new facts, or just too simplistic? Is Rap music a form
of Country Western or Protest songs or either? While art and music
classes are necessary to reveal basic techniques, they are often ignored
as aids to helping students clarify and develop ideas.
Since I have thrown out a number of suggestions that may not be clear
without a lot more explanation, you can yell at me off-line. Having
received my education in the United States, I am only partially fluent in
the American dialect of English. I have no usable skills in Spanish,
Portugese or French - other common majority languages of nations in the
Western Hemisphere. Having served four years in the US Navy, I understand
many short Anglo-Saxon words. I will probably not respond to messages in
that language.
Thanks
John O'Neal
Holland Neighborhood
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