A proposal for Education in the State of California for the 21st Century...
March 4, 2010 at 6:46am/ Updated August 28th, 2015 / Updated September 20th, 2015A proposal for Education in the State of California for the 21st Century..
The development of appreciation of the “Permanent Things, in search of that which will last.”
"The most important fact about the subject of education is that there is no such thing. Education is not a subject, and it does not deal in subjects. It is instead the transfer of a way of life." -G.K. Chesterton
“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel” - “Socrates
“Employ your time in improving yourself by others men's writing's, so that you shall gain easily what others labored hard for.” -Socrates
This is a very short summery of an Idea I wrote up several years ago.
To go from the currently common, System of
1st to 6th Grades, “Elementary school”
7th. & 8th. Grades “Junior High School”, (or as sometimes 4th. To 8th. Middle school)
9th. To 12th. Grades, “High School.
To an Expanded system of
3 Pent annual sections for a Total of 15 years of Basic Education.
This proposal would require the addition of 3 more years to the states education system
But with the great increase in knowledge which one is required to know and the saving in a, or great reduction of remedial work at our Jr. College system it should be considered a great improvement at not much greater cost.
The prim difference from our current system is instead of 6 years elementary, 2 years Jr. High school and 4 years High school. Total is 12 years
The proposal is 3 terms of 5 years each, or 15 years.
Now, to what originally got me thinking on this was problems at local school boards as to the distribution of students. The school wanted to re configure the schools, but the parent did not like the idea of having 5th. Graders in the same school as 7th. And 8th graders (they did not seam to have such concerns with 6th. Grades kids, feeling they where mature enough to handle it. So I started to look at how the grades could be better divided up, to which I came up with the 3 Pent annual sections for a Total of 15 years as a solution. I then, seeing the success of some of the home schooled kids, and looking at some of those programs as well at some of the things I felt could of, should been done different in my own early education. This lead me to the other ideas I incorporated in to it.
The other difference from our current system:
1.) 5 years elementary, Basic skills introduction and development.
2.) 5 years Middle school, Refinement of skills. (moving much of the currant High school curriculum into the Middle school)
3.) 5 years High school, Application of skills.
(here comes the radical part) I would propose here a more Classical Education, using the Trivium (Grammar, Dialect, and Rhetoric) and the Quadrivium (Artithmetic, Geomertry, Astronomy, Music) “Great books”/ Classic Liberal Arts education. Returning High school to its original meaning, a school for “Higher education”. The education which was long given, in the Universities of the world, but most have now long moved away from, concentrating in stead on much narrower bands of education, extreme disciplinary specialization like training a technician, instead of teaching a person how to think and learn, as in a broad liberal arts/humanities education.
In response to this problem, already showing up toured the end of the 19th. Century, and to give it's fruits a wider audiences, Dr. Charles W. Elliot, then president of Harvard, complied what would be called, “Dr. Elliot's 5' book shelf”, or as it now known, the Harvard Classics, a collection of 51 books of classic works from world literature which a person, by reading 15 minutes a day, would gain a classic education.
In 1920, Professor Erskine of Columbia University created a program based on the "great books" of the Western canon. Mortimer Adler and Mark Van Doren where junior faculty in this program, but would go on to spread it ideas to other collages and refine the programs. As much as possible, students rely on primary sources, with emphasis is on open discussion with limited guidance by a professor or facilitator. (Thomas Aquinas Collage, Santa Paula, Ca. says, there teachers are the Great Books, the facilitators are to guid in the discussions) This is NOT a passive learning model. (St. John's Collage, Annapolis is another Great Books school, as is Saint Mary Collage). The Great Books of the Western World contains about 517 works, in these are the great ideas, cover philosophy, history, grammar, politics, mathematics, astronomy, theology, economics...
All 15 years would include an Arts component. (and I mean strong Arts, in Music, Painting and Drawing, not “Rec. time”) The Arts are both a form of expression, and an alternative way of understanding. We know now that art encourages cognition, critical thinking, and learning development-“The US Secretary of Education recently published a report on "The Value Added Benefits of the Arts," in which he states, "Studies have shown that arts teaching and learning can increase student's cognitive and social development. The arts can be a critical link for students in developing the crucial thinking skills and motivations they need to achieve at higher levels" (Deasy, & Stevenson, 2002). “and “through art, children learn complex thinking skills and master developmental tasks (Belden & Fessard, 2001)”
Class time would be increased, partly by removing much of the record keeping (required by school districts, superintendents office and State and Federal Governments) from the teachers.
Teacher Education and Preparation: A higher value should be given to learning subject matter and less to techniques of teaching.
A person learns how to be a great teacher by learning from great teachers. The best teachers are often those who love and know their subject.
Classes are to be challenging, for I have come to the conclusion we lose more student by having classes too simple, thus boring than we do by having challenging classes where a student has a little struggle to achieve and a real since of accomplishment at the end.
The purpose of Education is not to quench the thirst for knowledge, But, to create a vessel to enable one to better drank from the well.
There is a famous saying, that they like to say in the College of Piping in Glasgow, Scotland and which my bag-piping friends like to tell, “To the make of a piper go seven years of his own learning and seven generations before. At the end of his seven years, one born to it will stand at the start of
knowledge, and lending a fond ear to the drone, he may have parley with old folks of old affairs.” (Neil Munro-“The lost Piobaireachd”).
Now,(and make no mistake, it is a cantankerous, difficult Instrument) but I come to realize that it has far deeper meaning than that, it referring to life and learning, of the attainment of knowledge, and that Graduating, is not the end of the Journey, but the beginning.
WHY, or What the purpose for Education?
Now, this really is a telling question, and upon it anserw rest the directions which we should be striving. It is an inportant question, for us, as a people, as a Nation, as a society and as a civilization to ansew, and the results of it, will determine, both the types of solution we will want in Education as well as what our civilization will become in the future.
Now, as I started delving in to Published theories on Education, I started to fine to my surprise that the debate before us, which most do not realize is raging, has been actually going on for over 100 years.
To Sum it up, it is, Educating people for what they need to Work, or Educate people to be fully rounded human beings, capable of participating in the diabetes of the day in Politics, Theology, Science and Life, to be a person fit for a Free Society, that is Educating for Life.
Thomas Jefferson understood this when he wrote a proposal for the State of Virginia to provide 3 years of public education at the Public (tax payers) expenses. (Virginia Statutes in 1797) That for a Democratic Republic to work, people had to be educated to think. ( the plan then gose on, with the best and brightest then offerd higher education, the rest, with this good base, ready to take there places ion the farms or shops, learn there trade, and advance there own learning.)
In the first, Educated to , or what needed for Work, the ansew is, “man is a machine”, a cog in a great machine of the nation state, but still only a cog, like any other cog. The child machine is to be educated in only what they need to grow into a useful cog in the machine, training in the skills necessary to be an efficient cog, and a little bit more, to make them easy to control, to distract them during there hours of non-work.
(And this is not an exaggeration, but the driving force behind education by tracks, by fields, at an early age, to test children, deciding then if they are to be a Labor, a technician, (and then in to sub categories of that, Medical, Law, Engineering...) and educating only what needed in those fields. Many politicians and Educational experts to day, are pushing in this direction. Part of it is they say is it the most efficient use of scare resources, and part they say is that one just dose not need to know all that other stuff.)
(“Consider This: Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition, by Karen Glass)
In the latter, Educated for Life, that is a well rounded Education.
It was
in support of this, that John Dewey wrote Education and Democracy,
1916. and My Pedagogic Creed, 1897
That Dr. Charles W. Elliot, president
of Harvard, compiled his famouse list of classic workers that he
belive the public should have access to and read for there own
education, those not so fortunt to go to Harvard or the like.
That lead Professor Erskine of
Columbia University to creat a program based on the “Great books”
of the Western canon in 1920.
Mortimer Adler and Mark Van Doren, who
have spent a life time each, teaching, writing and helping others
with programs based on the Great books and classical education.
Alan Bloom, who also wrote and
worked to protect and popularize Classical education, including his
best seller, The Closing of the American Mind, published
in 1987A strong feeling that academia had failed in it duty, by abounding the Great books, or, more percseilly, the writings and the ideas contained in them.
And it really the intent of, “God
and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of “Academic Freedom” by
William F. Buckley. Jr. 1951 Showing how a University, was failing it
students and it mission, by abandoning the very principles on which
the school had been founded on, and on which it Prestige as an
Institution of higher learning rested on.
It really too bad that the wake up
call issued by William F. Buckley. Jr. in 1951, thou written about
one University, was most unfortunately true of the vast majority of
the Insitions. Was not headed, and so that in 1987, When Proffessor
Alan Bloom published his book, it was still true, and worse .
To day, if one want to recive the
Education which made Harvard, Yale, Princton Columbia, Stanfoprd in
to world famouse Insitution, it not to them you would apply, but
eather be home schooled, or attend a Collage like Thomas Aquinas
Collage, or Saint Johns.
As I look more into this, I finding
a lot of material now for Prochiel schools and home schooling.
Is it just our public education
system who asleep at the wheel?
I am not a Professional educator, thou I believe every one, by way of having experience from education, has some understanding of it. Yes, I realize there are many details I am probably missing, but this not a complete proposal, but a set of thoughts and opinions which needs further development and refinement, much of which would need to be from those who education is there field of expertise.
I originally wrote this up as a proposal for Public education, but it probably easiest to implement in the Parochial school systems and the Charters schools.
John Dewey (October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, Geologist, and educational reformer said,” vocational training, training for particular jobs, is not education of a free men and women.”
“The entire art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of the young mind for the purpose of satisfying it later.”- Anatole France
Curtis Neil Copyright 2015
March 4, 2010 at 6:46am/ Updated August 28th, 2015 / Updated September 20th, 2015
A proposal for Education in the State of California for the 21st Century..
A Personal Perspective
I, as a child, was not a good student. I had a curious mind, a desire to learn, but it did not come easily to me.
I do not think most of my teachers knew what to do with me, and the result I was ignored, or placed in lower level groups. Grade school often felt like a prison to me, or a place to pass the time.
My parents worked with me, and also took me to tutors to help me acquire the skills I was having trouble with. (I had the right personality type, I would have done well with home schooling)
I spent a lot of time going thru the pages of World Book Encyclopedia, National Geographic and such, studying every picture for what information I might be able to gleam, trying the read the captions beneath them.
I liked when we go to museums and historical sites, in those days, they did not cater to children the way they do to day (I so glad, I saw them then, looking at the displays for kids to day, there so dumbed down, that they leave little to learn from them these days.)
So, when I speak or write about not simplifying something or recommend aiming high, it not from the point of view of some one who these things came easily too, but one who struggled to learn it.
I had to work hard in high school, and Collage, and spent a lot of time doing home work.
It was not easy for me.
The Paideia Proposal: An Educational Manifesto by Dr. Mortimer J. Adler. 1982
SBN-13:
978-0025002401
ISBN-10:
0025002406
Education: Free & Compulsory by by Murray N. Rothbard 2012
ASIN: B0072QGTXWDemocracy and Education: an introduction to the philosophy of education by John Dewey(1859–1952)
ASIN: B0082ZJ6WSMy Pedagogic Creedby John Dewey
ASIN: B00CMX44GEBy William F. Buckley - God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of Academic Freedom (50th) (1/26/77)
ASIN: B00HTJW08AIn Defense of a Liberal Education 1st Edition . Fareed Zakaria 2015
ASIN: B00RZXW0Z8Closing of the American Mind
by Allan Bloom (Author), Saul Bellow (Foreword), Andrew Ferguson (Afterword)ASIN: B003719GL8
The Lost Tools of Learning by Dorothy Sayers
ASIN: B00AOBDUIOThe Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education by Kevin Clark
ASIN: B00DMJTVZQThe Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric by SisterMiriam Joseph
ASIN: B007XHIUJGConsider This: Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition by Karen Glass
ASIN: B00OG3VNFSThe Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had
By Susan Wise BauerASIN: B001PNYJ12
The Story of Western Science: From the Writings of Aristotle to the Big Bang Theory
By Susan Wise BauerASIN: B00NUB4ESK
How to Read a Book (A Touchstone book) by CHARLES VAN DOREN and MORTIMER J. ADLER (1902-2001)
ASIN: B004PYDAPEA Student's Guide to Liberal Learning (ISI Guides to the Major Disciplines) by James V. Schall, S.J.,
ASIN: B00LMPBBLYA Student's Guide to the Core Curriculum (ISI Guides to the Major Disciplines) by Mark C. Henrie
ASIN: B00LMPBBB4The Idea Of A University by Cardial John Henry Newman (1801-1890)
ISBN: 0615952097ASIN: B003APYOUO
The Case for Classical Christian Education by Douglas Wilson
ISBN: 1581343841ASIN: B0028BEE2E
The Harvard Classics in a Year: A Liberal Education in 365 Days by Charles Eliot and Amanda Kennedy
ASIN: B00OF9SEYGBeauty in the Word: Rethinking the Foundations of Education by Stratford Caldecott
ISBN: 1621380041ASIN: B00CWR3YCA
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