An interesting post. I think it goes toward my point about there being no “one best way” to educate students. The education you experienced, transplanted into an urban setting, would be a recipe for disaster.

I don’t think that the context (parochial school) is as much of a distinguishing characteristic as I am tempted to think. Many of our African-American students attend church weekly and sit through services that last several hours. These are the same students that tune-out after 15 minutes in the classroom.

I think that the key is to reach consensus around exactly what “well-educated” looks like. Standards are a start, but frequently do not address the “soft skills” we hope for our students. Once we determine the desired outcome, we can focus relentlessly on achieving results. Results, then, become arbiter of success. In that way, learning Latin, diagraming sentences, writing papers AND ebonics, projects, technology, whole language, and collaborative learning can all be judged by the results they produce, not by popularity and relationship to past efforts.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96039969

Why can’t public schools be open to trying this in more districts. I get frustrated with departments of education that develop “Standards” that unforutnately turn into lesson plans for teachers in the classroom who are scared stupid that any misstep or divergence will cause them to have kids fail the standardized exam. School officials should really stop trying to control knowledge and allow teachers to be the professionals they are. That will be another blog post, I think
thanks for your thoughts Dave

I had the opportunity to go to a talk this week given by Michael Pollen on “The Food Issue”, a talk based on his recent article in the New York Times Magazine (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html?ref=magazine), and thought I’d go ahead and share a reaction [Note: I guess it's worth saying I am biased as I agree with much of what he says on a fundamental level]

One premise of his talk was that, in order to reform things like Health Care, the next president will first and foremost need to deal with the food issue: how it’s grown, processed, and transported, how the government does (or does not) support sustainable farming, as well as making us all conscious and educated eaters. To this latter point he suggested ‘food education’ – a school-based program that would not simply teach kids about the food pyramid but would truly educate students through full working gardens at schools, having them help serve and plan nutritional meals, and hands-on helping with food preparation in the cafeteria kitchens!
Yes, I am naturally excited as local and sustainable food is a strong interest of mine, but, more importantly for this blog, what a great example of education through responsibility and empowerment!!
I think that when given the opportunity to actively participate in all aspects of their learning experience students will truly flourish – wouldn’t it be great if his suggestions were implemented? I think we would see great results.

“School is predicated on the values and practices of the middle class and so lower and working-class kids are automatically at a disadvantage.”

Not only is the point well made, but in reading the article (which I received from you before I read this post) it rang true for experiences that I have had. Even in my limited experience I have more then once heard reference to the ‘theirs vs. ours’ mentality in reference to specific courses, programs, extra-curriculars, etc.
Unfortunately, even with the ever increasing alternatives such as computer-based learning, which by its very nature challenges ‘traditional education’, I fear that these differences in ‘Individualism’ and social class are going to continue to plague public education….even programs such as IB, which brings to public education such a unique and empowering curriculum, continue this divide as those wishing to take full advantage of the program (by earning the IB diploma) must pay $65 per subject-test.

That is not to say that I think that we are all doomed (I, for one, remain very optimistic for the future of education), but that the issues presented by Kusserow should remain at the front of the minds of those looking to reform education; any true challenge to to this problem (or, for that matter, reform in education) is going to have to carry with it a challenge to these long-standing issues.