[Winona Online Democracy]
Personal thoughts -- Education needs to be individualized as much as possible. Large classes, in themselves, are not a barrier to this. Our culture or paradigms or mind sets are the barriers. Every child (person) needs to be guided / allowed to learn at their own rate in their own way. Continual improvement for the individual will aggregate to improvement for the whole -- but not if we focus on some arbitrary test scores taken at some arbitrary point in time. Test scores can be used to measure how the system is doing but should not be the focus or purpose of the school system The current education system seems to drive everyone and everything to the average of the group rather than to maximizing individual potential. My two oldest children went to an inner city grade school for a year after having gone to one in a small town. Then they went to an alternative open school for two years and then came here to Jefferson. There was no average apparent at the open school. There sure was at the others. It's no wonder inner city school kids have such a hard time succeeding in our education system. We need magnet or specialty schools -- But, much more so, we need to change our schools to allow for that kind of mindset in each school and in each building and in each room. That means some major changes in how we think of what education is, how we train teachers and how we all participate in our children's education. Craig <(©¿©)> --------------- This message was posted to Winona Online Democracy Please visit http://onlinedemocracy.winona.org to subscribe or unsubscribe All messages sent to the list must be signed with your actual name. Posting of commercial soliticitations is not allowed on this list. Report problems or questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
