jon kelland wrote:
> First, education is indoctrination.
in-doc-tri-nate
(in-doktr-nat)v. tr. in-doc-tri-nat-ed, in-doc-tri-nat-ing, in-doc-tri-nates.
1. To instruct in a body of doctrine or principles. To initiate by means of
doctrinal instruction: indoctrinate new members into the party. 2. To imbue
with a partisan or ideological point of view: a generation of children who
had been indoctrinated against the values of their parents.--in-doc'tri-na'tion n.
---------------------------------------------------------
Excerpted from American Heritage Talking Dictionary
The meaning that I had intended is in the second part of the
definition, "To imbue with a partisan or ideological point of view."
I believe that education should not be partisan, it should present
multiple perspectives, alliterative views and theories. In the
case of teacher education, the purpose is clearly to "imbue
with a partisan or ideological point of view."
> Second, I do not agree that progressive education has
> failed.
It is impossible to distinguish progressive education and
the public school system, given that the progressivism has
been the governing philosophy in the public schools for the
past hundred years. I believe that the faulty philosophical
assumptions in progressive education are one of the major
factors in the failure of the public school system. Perhaps
you could identify the basic philosophical assumptions of
progressivism for the list members.
> I would argue that the public school system
> that has failed is a system which relies far too much
> on memorization of facts, preparing for standardized
> tests, and too little on the students themselves.
Given that the progressivists, have for the most part,
purged memorization from classrooms I don't see
how this could possibly be true. The perspective that
memorization is bad was a reaction to school practices
in the late 1800s, when memorization was believed to
"exercise the mind." Progressivists assert that
memorization is bad because they think that forcing
students to do something "unnatural" will somehow
result in mental damage; an absurd and scientifically
unfounded belief.
The truth is that memorization is a essential process
in many fields where large numbers of interdependent
bits of knowledge are required for higher level
thought processes; this includes areas such as chemistry,
advanced mathematics, history, etc. It is amazing to
me that progressivists have been able to gain so much
ground in their campaign to rid the schools of memorization,
given that it runs counter to the public's common sense
(as WizardMarks points out in his post).
And, this issue of "teaching to the test" is a play on
the public's lack of understanding of testing.
Any knowable expert in testing and evaluation can
tell you that it is almost always possible to create a
test that cannot be taught to. Think about a test
for reading comprehension. How can you teach
students who cannot read to pass a well designed
test that intended to measure student's ability to
comprehend paragraphs? There's a entire theoretical
aera in education that researches how to design
valid tests. To assert that it is impossible to create
a valid reading comprehension test is absurd. If
"teaching to the test" is a problem in schools, then
we need better tests (and smarter teachers),
not the elimination of testing.
> How
> many MPS look more like something Dewey was wishing
> for (progressive) than a factory, or common school?
Why don't you tell us?
Michael Atherton
Prospect Park
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