When you fall into a routine you get to know some of the people you pass on a daily basis. It starts with eye contact, proceeds to a nod and finally to words and conversations. One of the people I trade a few words with is a guy who runs an auto repair business.
One day I was feeling the pain of a faculty meeting where we spent our time “group building” and pumping up self-esteem. One of the ideas being recycled is the conflict in education between content and process. Both are important. If you don’t have any content the process is meaningless. Picture tossing a salad with no ingredients. Or watch a kid play “air guitar”. On the other hand if you don’t know how to work the potatoes, you come out with glue instead of mashed as I found out on Thanksgiving. Educators are setting up a false priority by emphasizing process at the expense of content.
I pointed this out to the mechanics. I pointed out that it didn’t really matter how good your customer relations and office ambiance were if you could not fix the car. You would not stay in business long enough to pay your first utility bills. Education does not understand this. They think that software and chrome books will make up for lack of vocabulary and the ability to add and subtract. A young friend of mine taking Algebra II shared how his final was made up of multiple choice questions. That was bad enough but he said there were only a choice of two answers. This sounds like Common Core at its best.
Let us hope that Donald Trump and Betsy Devos can understand the issues.
homo unius libri
Let's hope.
ReplyDeleteSo far a lot of the signs look good. There will be things I don't like but when I compare them with a Hillary moment, smiles all around.
DeleteGrace and peace