thinkbrit

iamlittlei:

girlwithalessonplan:

creative-education:

adventuresinlearning:

“Instead of trying to bully young people to remain in classrooms isolated from the community and structured to prepare them to become cogs in the existing economic system, we need to recognize that the reason why so many young people drop out from inner-city schools is because they are voting with their feet against an educational system that sorts, tracks, tests, and rejects or certifies them like products of a factory because it was created for the age of industrialization. They are crying out for another kind of education that gives them opportunities to exercise their creative energies because it values them as whole human beings. ”- Grace Lee Boggs

Will policy makers ever listen to what educators since Dewey have been saying?

GWALP objects:  They’re not voting with their feet or crying out for another kind of education if they refuse any type of learning at all.

Our school offers half-days to kids who financially or medically need it, community-based programs for kids with cognitive delays, on the job training for kids of all levels that can lead to certification, four different degree programs, college credit, vast electives and a variety of clubs.  We have over 50 educators in our building who care about childrens’ success.

When I look a child in the face and ask the following:  ”What’s your dream job?  What would you like to do in this class?  What’s your goal?”  and the answer I get is “I dunno.  Nothin,’” then that child has failed himself by not being able to work with anyone.

I get really tired of educator reformers who cry out for this free, creative, unrestricted educational process that flies in the face of how our culture actually works.  Yes, we need creativity and art (hello, I’m a theater teacher), but the economic world is not driven by vast, open, creative process that lacks books or exams.  Toyota just added 400 new jobs to my area.  You think they want 400 free spirits who don’t know how to work a line (literally and figuratively)?  There are deadlines, forms, and aptitude exams in the real world.  How else are we to prepare them for these and let them see, in data form, what they’re capable of?

You can’t teach the unwilling.  And it’s not the EDUCATION system entirely that’s making them unwilling.  It’s their support system at home, it’s the poverty, it’s the hunger, it’s the drugs, it’s the health, it’s the debt.  

And another thing:  I’m really tired of seeing education reform propaganda on tumblr that depicts public schools as a factory stripping kids of their souls. 

HOW DARE YOU REFER TO ME AND MY PROFESSION AS BULLIES.

You know nothing about the job, or you wouldn’t dare callously throw that word around.

All of the applause to GwaLP, as per usual.

Indeed. Well put, GWALP.