The Great (School) Whore of All the Earth
I was always told as a child that saying bad things about other people was never the right thing to do. &nbsp;I also taught myself early on that institutions are not like people and you didn't have to treat them the same way you were expected to treat a person. I don't know when the connection finally came, but I did decide one day that one could attack institutions as much as one likes and that you can still be a good person in doing so. I also added a correlary that people who work for institutions or as a spokesperson for institutions could be painted with the same brush as their employer if they took it upon themselves to&nbsp;anthropomorphize or defend their&nbsp;institution. I suppose to encapsulate the thing I am trying to say is this: you can attack institutions with impunity and you can also attack those who chose to be lackeys of those institutions.<p>
That said, I want to go after, yet again, one of my favorite victims: mass-schooling.<p>
In <a href="http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765616415/Flipped-classrooms-Turning-learning-upside-down.html?pg=all" target="_blank">a recent Deseret News article</a>, the concept of the "flipped classroom" was discussed. I suppose that there are several ways to look at the idea, but I chose to view it like this: kids are asked to do "class-work" at home and to do "home-work" at school. It is a reasonable way to approach what is quickly becoming a very untenable way to conduct teaching to the masses. The old traditional model of a teacher lecturing and demonstrating a concept and making assignments that will be returned and graded at the next meeting has been under assault as the idea of "student success" has risen to the fore through standardized testing and teacher evaluation based on student scores. If the kid isn't making a good grade, the teacher is under the knife. The "flipped classroom" marks a sizable win for altering "education" to this new reality and marks a further retreat from traditional ideas.<p>
In a "flipped classroom" nutshell, teachers record lectures and "all-eyes-on-me" activities for students to view at home or during shrinking cracks in the school-day. While in class, the students are meant to be doing what used to be homework with the teacher keeping them on task as a "guide". This is all made possible by the advent of digital recording and internet technology and it is hailed by all who attempt it as a better solution to the institutional need to have higher test scores and lower absentee-ism. The article readily saw this as a rather amazing thing and applauded it heartily.<p>
Can I say that I think most people who write for newspapers in the realm of "education" are former teachers or those who idolize teachers? Like blacks and "gays", teachers are put on mile-high pedestals and are so far beyond reproach that our "hero" soldiers that "defend our liberties" are criminals in comparison. Of course, teachers are the happy faces of the mass-schooling institution and their angelic personas are promulgated by the industry that feeds from their goodwill. The worst unions, who use children and their futures as human shields, while striking more often than any other is, of course, the teacher's unions. Most people have heard of lounges where union teachers in places like New York City wile away their days drinking coffee and reading magazines because they are not permitted to be around children but they are unionized and tenured teachers that cannot be fired. Now, you must understand that this is an extreme example, but you also know that such extremes hide an submerged&nbsp;iceberg&nbsp;of&nbsp;mediocrity and chicanery below, a reality that your child must face for several hours every day at school and must appease through "homework" during their dwindling "off" hours. Society's answer to this is simple: Make life a hell for teachers who are expected to deserve their impossible acclaim and Make more effective use of the 24-hours-a-day that mass-schooling demands of children and their parents. Teacher-journalists love this stuff because they can serve the industry by holding teachers (instead of themselves) more accountable than God and steer the conversation toward the holy grail of the "kibbutz-ish" full-day/full-life school institution.<p>
My philosophy of mass-schooling and message to teachers is this: if you can't education children in the time you already take, you are doing your job wrong. I am an absolute opponent of homework without any reserve. There are labor laws that prevent my employer from intruding into my off-time and if they try they must either pay me a tough premium or they must go to jail - the same should hold true for schools as the "bosses" of children and overlords of their families.