On Mon, 23 Apr 2001, Paul Smith wrote:
> I see our friend Miguel Roig has another letter to the editor published in
> today's NYTimes. It's a response to an article about high school guidance
> counselors counseling seniors to take a year off from school and get in some
> adventure and experience. The point of Miguel's letter seems to be that we'd
> enjoy having older students in our classrooms, but that it would be more
> helpful to have classrooms in which all students have "a genuine interest in
> learning".
>
> Nicely put, Miguel.
There are a number proposals to reform the education system.The
best one I have heard is by an author(?) and I think the book is titled
Jefferson's children. It is proposed and I tend to concur that we
should stop compulsory ed in the 10th.grade and that 11th/12th
grade should be reserved for those going on to higher ed and specialized
fields.In fact the 11th/12 grades should be part of the community
college system and more stringent requirement to get into those
grades.Students graduating from the 10th grade may have other interests
that could develop into careers.
The trend to start High School at a later time is in.Here
in Florida a county will HS classes at 8.30.There is even
talk to start at 9AM.
I do not agree with the idea that we need better classrooms to motivate
students.This emphasis of controlling the environmemt to elicit
appropriate behaviors is quintessentially Eurocentric and Western.
We should not be going around believing that behavior change will
only take place in manipulating the environment. I know of many countries
where students are still using slide rules instead of calculators,
have classes underneath the mango tree,and Elian Gonzalez is doing
excellent in school in the land of El commandante Fidel and I am
sure that his classroom is not wired with computers.And they all
tests better than students in the U.S
Students must learn to adapt their behaviors to the new classroom
realities and their maladaptive behaviors may be cause for them
to quit the classroom and come back later when they are ready
Michael Sylvester,PhD
Daytona Beach,Florida
