I know it’s probably gauche to brag about one’s children, but both of my daughters are exceptionally bright. My oldest’s reading ability is literally off the charts. They don’t have tests that challenge her. My youngest too is well beyond her classmates in most areas. Georgia is a straight A student, iMac could be if she’d just pay attention a bit more (she’s more like me, scatterbrained and possibly having ADD which, honestly isn’t tha…. SQUIRREL!).
We cannot afford private schooling for them both. Maybe one of them at a time, but that’s not really an option. We’re also not in the position to homeschool them and thus are relegated to using the public school system. Hint to progressives, if you didn’t tax me so hard, we could easily afford better schooling as could practically anyone else.
Already we’ve had issues with the school. At one point, even though Georgia was reading several grade levels ahead, her teacher “wasn’t allowed to give her an Above Level rating because then she’d have nowhere to go”. *facepalm*
My fear is that all it will take is one bad teacher and both my girls will lose their love of learning. Reading The Smallest Minority and all the items that Kevin Baker has written about the education system, that appears to be an intentional part of the schooling system. And reading this blurb from Daily Pundit just exacerbates that fear
Even if Khan is truly liberating students to advance at their own pace, it’s not clear that the schools will be able to cope. The very concept of grade levels implies groups of students moving along together at an even pace. So what happens when, using Khan Academy, you wind up with a kid in fifth grade who has mastered high school trigonometry and physics—but is still functioning like a regular 10-year-old when it comes to writing, history, and social studies? Khan’s programmer, Ben Kamens, has heard from teachers who’ve seen Khan Academy presentations and loved the idea but wondered whether they could modify it “to stop students from becoming this advanced.”
Got that? Can’t let the students learn at their pace. That would allow them to be individuals and would promote inequality. We have to put on clown noses and handicap radios so that everyone is finally equal.
I fully plan on looking into the Khan system on my own. I may not be able to spend the full day educating my children, but a few hours a week letting them learn on their terms will hopefully reduce the damage the public school system can do to them.
Khan’s programmer, Ben Kamens, has heard from teachers who’ve seen Khan Academy presentations and loved the idea but wondered whether they could modify it “to stop students from becoming this advanced.”
the other thing that came out was that my teacher assumed that I couldn't read because when she called on me to read in class, I NEVER knew where we were in the book. It turns out this is because when other students were struggling to sound out words, I was just getting irritated, and reading several pages ahead on my own, instead of following along...
I had the same issue in the second grade.
I wish I had been pushed harder, though, and taught how to study. Like a lot of people who skated through high school, I hit the wall in college due to non-existent study habits.