CompuServe Messages

Kurt, The one thing you can be sure about in education is that whatever methods are popular this year will have faded away within five years and have been replaced with something new, and therefore bound to be wonderful. Most teachers can do a fairly good job of teaching if given a reasonable number of students, a reasonable amount of material to be taught, and a great deal of freedom in the way they teach it. We're doing fairly well on the teacher/student ratio in most places, I think. But everyone in the country has several pet topics that he insists the schools should add to the curriculum, and no one is willing to remove any of the old things, so there is far more to be taught than time permits. After all, little kids can handle just so much in a given amount of time! And in recent years, everyone has wanted to tell the teachers exactly how to do their jobs, and is convinced that anyone in the world other than an experienced and trained teacher can do the job better. Given the same restrictions for all, I just cannot accept that. —Betty