re: Public School Problems...

quote:

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How do you teach math? Drill and practice.
What do they want to not do to teach math? Drill and practice.
How do you teach reading? Phonics. Or more explicitly, phonemic awareness.
What do they not want to teach? Phonemic awareness

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This is actually a symptom of the problem I stated. The reason is simple. If you teach kids math or reading in the way you describe one of the reasons it is successful is because it gives children the tools to expand on their knowledge without direct teaching. This means that the rate at which the smarter kids will improve is increased.

So the educators have devised methods to try to flatten out the results. These methods revolve around trying to get the kids to learn only that which they are directly taught. That's the entire motivation behind the whole language movement that existed for a bit

If the only words the kids learn are the ones you directly teach them you prevent the smart kids from expanding on their base knowledge as rapidly

Make no mistake. The avoidance of the most successful methods has everything to do what's slowing down the smart kids. Because long ago they figured out that this was the only way to avoid the gap which they think is the most important thing in education