{"id":962,"date":"2010-07-24T11:43:41","date_gmt":"2010-07-24T17:43:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/?p=962"},"modified":"2014-09-12T12:02:04","modified_gmt":"2014-09-12T18:02:04","slug":"another-attempt-to-fix-broken-education-by-simply-making-it-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2010\/07\/24\/another-attempt-to-fix-broken-education-by-simply-making-it-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Attempt to Fix Broken Education by Simply Making it More"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Approximate Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><p>I&#8217;ve seen this before. Summer Vacation is once again under attack in the U.S.<\/p>\n<p>See:<a href=\"http:\/\/www.time.com\/time\/nation\/article\/0,8599,2005654,00.html\"> The Case Against Summer Vacation &#8211; TIME<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>There is no question that formal education is broken in the U.S. (To be fair, it isn&#8217;t so hot here in Canada either, but it IS considerably better here than there). Americans wonder why they keep slipping down the ranks when it comes to <a href=\"http:\/\/computinged.wordpress.com\/2010\/07\/23\/cynical-view-how-do-we-get-more-college-graduates\/\" target=\"_blank\">college enrollments<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/12\/04\/AR2007120400730.html\" target=\"_blank\">science scores<\/a>, high school completion, and so on. Of course, the logical result of these things is that the U.S. is also loosing its superiority when it comes to science, technology, and engineering (some would say they already lost their superiority years some years ago, but Americans have a hard time admitting they are not the best at something that matters to them).<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>The answer to these problems does NOT lie in forcing kids to spend more time in school. <\/strong><\/em>I recall a discussion that went on in my former <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cpsc.ucalgary.ca\/\" target=\"_blank\">department <\/a> when they decided to offer two 1st year programming streams: one for students who had prior programming experience and one for students with NO prior programming experience. Both would consist of 2 regular courses. Their answer to making sure those with no prior experience ended up in the same place as the others? Why, more <strong>lecture hours<\/strong> of course. As if talking at them for an extra hour or two a week is going make the difference. We already know that students will learn <em>something<\/em>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/10590460\" target=\"_blank\">even if the teacher is lousy<\/a>, which many of us have known for years (based on first-hand observation of our, shall we say, less than dedicated colleagues).<\/p>\n<p>The answer lies in improving the quality of education. It means, among other things:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>giving teachers the time they need to prepare their lessons<\/li>\n<li>giving teachers the time they need to do professional development<\/li>\n<li>making sure the teachers actually know the subjects they teach<\/li>\n<li>making sure the kids that need help, get it<\/li>\n<li>making sure the better students get the enrichment they deserve<\/li>\n<li>making sure all the kids get a decent meal<\/li>\n<li>making sure kids don&#8217;t get shot in school<\/li>\n<li>making sure kids don&#8217;t even have to THINK about getting shot, or stabbed, or beaten up in school<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8230;.and so on. All of these things COST MONEY. Education is neither cheap, nor efficient. Contrary to the typical American sentiment, more and bigger is not better. <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/programmes\/world_news_america\/8601207.stm\" target=\"_blank\">When it&#8217;s done right, less is in fact more<\/a>.\u00a0 <em><strong>Quality <\/strong><strong>is more important than quantity<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, one of the best investments a country can make in its own future, is to ensure that its population is well educated. It is well known that the three things a government needs to do to keep its population under control (read: oppressed) is to keep it <em><strong>sick, scared, and ignorant.<\/strong><\/em> It takes a government willing to trust its own people in order to create an environment where people are healthy, secure, and educated.<\/p>\n<p>Back to summer vacation. Kids NEED downtime. It is essential for creativity and imagination, which in turn are essential for innovation. Those places where kids go to school almost all the time create good parrots, not good thinkers. Getting rid of summer vacation will have the net result of making things <em><strong>worse.<\/strong><\/em> It will stifle imaginations and drive many of your best students away.<\/p>\n<div class='wp_likes' id='wp_likes_post-962'><a class='like' href=\"javascript:wp_likes.like(962);\" title='' ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-likes\/images\/like.png\" alt='' border='0'\/><\/a><span class='text'>Be the first to like.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class='like' ><a href=\"javascript:wp_likes.like(962);\">Like<\/a><\/div>\n<div class='unlike' ><a href=\"javascript:wp_likes.unlike(962);\">Unlike<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Approximate Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span>I&#8217;ve seen this before. Summer Vacation is once again under attack in the U.S. See: The Case Against Summer Vacation &#8211; TIME. There is no question that formal education is broken in the U.S. (To be fair, it isn&#8217;t so &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2010\/07\/24\/another-attempt-to-fix-broken-education-by-simply-making-it-more\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9,14,24],"tags":[44,41,256,393],"class_list":["post-962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-educational-technology","category-general","category-teaching-learning","tag-american-society","tag-education","tag-school","tag-teaching-learning"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Hsb6-fw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1540,"url":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2011\/01\/14\/scientists-fault-universities-and-other-mewling\/","url_meta":{"origin":962,"position":0},"title":"Scientists Fault Universities, and other Mewling","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"January 14, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Scientists Fault Universities as Favoring Research Over Teaching - Research - The Chronicle of Higher Education. Yup. Heard it before. The entire time I was at the University of Calgary I kept hearing about how important research was and based on how resources and rewards are handed out, how UN-important\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Academia&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Academia","link":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/academia\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1119,"url":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2010\/09\/24\/comments-on-the-overblown-crisis-in-american-education-in-the-new-yorker\/","url_meta":{"origin":962,"position":1},"title":"Comments on &#8220;The overblown crisis in American education&#8221; in The New Yorker","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"September 24, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The overblown crisis in American education : The New Yorker. The author is claiming that things aren't that bad. More people are going to school than they did 100 years ago and there are lots more wanting to get in. Sadly, more is not better. The fact that a greater\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Educational Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Educational Technology","link":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/educational-technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3180,"url":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2012\/11\/18\/where-ive-been-online-to-nov-17\/","url_meta":{"origin":962,"position":2},"title":"Where I&#8217;ve Been Online (to Nov. 17)","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"November 18, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"U.S. Doctorates in the 20th Century (pdf) NSF June 2006 The availability of new types of data on doctorates, the significant changes in doctoral education known to have occurred in the past 25 years, and the close of the 20th century make this a good time to reexamine the long-term\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Educational Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Educational Technology","link":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/educational-technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6265,"url":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2016\/07\/18\/worth-sharing-teaching-by-numbers-learning-reimagined-medium\/","url_meta":{"origin":962,"position":3},"title":"Worth Sharing: Teaching by Numbers \u2014 Learning {Re}imagined \u2014 Medium","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"July 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"A curious thing has been happening in UK education and it\u2019s a trend that\u2019s occurring globally as the craft of teaching is being transformed into a \u201cscience\u201d. The Economist recently published an article titled \u201cHow to make a good teacher\u201d that proclaimed: \u201cThe premise that teaching ability is something you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Academia&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Academia","link":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/academia\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2307,"url":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2012\/06\/16\/a-new-definition-for-stem\/","url_meta":{"origin":962,"position":4},"title":"A New Definition for STEM?","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"June 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"There's a discussion going on on on of the LinkedIn forums. Someone is trying to come up with a definition for STEM. Here's the draft: STEM Education Defined: STEM Education is the integration of the interdependent educational disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math; with the aim of optimizing student\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Educational Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Educational Technology","link":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/educational-technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6994,"url":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2018\/08\/13\/just-in-time-for-the-start-of-term-the-guide-to-simulations-and-games\/","url_meta":{"origin":962,"position":5},"title":"Just in time for the start of term&#8230;The Guide to Simulations and Games","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"August 13, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Available for a limited time for $9.99(US) with this coupon.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Academia&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Academia","link":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/academia\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=962"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":971,"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962\/revisions\/971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}