Supporting a sacrilegious sanctuary, scientific society, and solace for Southern secularists.

Boy, the SFS has been full of slack lately. (Praise Bob)

I am trying to get back into the swing of things after being forced to cope with the simultaneous assault of holidays, family interaction, and apparently involuntarily allowing my lungs to serve as the substrate in which a particularly nasty pathogen has been allowed to grow and breed in the grand cosmic experiment (joke?) we call life.  But luckily it has moved from there into my head where it can do less damage.  It may be the pathogens have entered my brain, but as of today, I as a human being am declaring a War on Ignorance.  I don't know how we are going to fight it.  I don't even know what it means really other than I hate ignorance, and as an American, we seem to have a penchant for declaring war on vague ideas or objects.  But in any case, this for now is our rallying point and I will with much appreciation, take into consideration, any ideas to expand, or engage larger numbers of innocent people in this, our noble endeavor.  Be creative and help out any way you can.  Remember, only you can prevent species self extermination through incompetence.  Now, on to the rant.

You know what's wrong with our public schools.  I am referring exclusively to primary and secondary schools here, mind you- no public universities or colleges.   Our schools are managed under a completely different ethos than our universities.  Many of our universities still hold international prestige, yet our schools seem to be slipping further and further into an educational abyss.  But we can't seem to bring ourselves to make the connection that maybe we need to take a few lessons from those parts of the educational system that do work.

1.  Create an environment that is rich with active scholarship and has true academics on the faculty.  Teaching at a public school is, for too many, a job.  I understand that many people who teach are good people who love children and want to see kids succeed.  Those are good and necessary qualities.  Maybe they need to be part of a cooperative team for early grades.  But all of our children need to be exposed to educated adults who are passionate about the material they are presenting.  They need to be active scholars, doing research, writing, and keeping up with professional news related to their field or even branching out into other fields of interest.  They should have academic freedom and academic passion.  The children should be able to see that and be guaranteed quality information in the process of their education. 

2.  Relax rigid pacing rules on student achievement.  Especially in the higher grades.  Too much emphasis is placed on being finished with these classes by this deadline so you may graduate with "your class".  Half the people I know didn't bother to show up for their college graduation ceremony.  The majority of those that did, attended more for the benefit of proud family members than for themselves.  The students should have more opportunity to learn at their own pace.  This is not to say that the educators should not bother students who are slouches, but there currently is far too much social pressure to accomplish goals on a certain schedule.

3.  Split classes into certain time periods on certain days like a college schedule.  If I am someone who likes to get everything out of the way at once and have my evenings free, I take all morning classes.  If I am someone who has difficulty sitting through two or three long classes and staying focused, I will split mine up throughout the day.  Your overachievers and your hyperactives are both satisfied within reason. 

4.  Provide more variety in classes.   Every once in a while  a class that most people would consider "fun" would help students- prior to college- get used to the idea that there are some interesting ideas in the world, and a good education is the only way to find them.

5.  Differentiate teacher pay according to area of specialty and student achievement.  It's funny how we are so big on standardized testing and cracking down on teachers who are not giving our children a quality education, but I believe only one state had the gonads to actually pay teachers more who have students which exceed expectation.  If a teacher is phenomenally successful educating his or her students, and another with the same amount of experience has students just staying above minimum proficiency, most schools will pay them the same.  And we have to face reality people, no offense intended, but to get someone really academically qualified to teach AP Physics in High School, you may have to offer to pay him or her more than you pay the Gym Coach.  Right now, most places have a flat "teacher" pay rate that doesn't differentiate for subject area.  Colleges do differentiate.   College physics professors tend to make a little more than college philosophy instructors.


6.  I am not sure if this is only a  local practice in the state of Georgia, but currently most school systems local income is derived primarily if not solely from property taxes.  How egalitarian is this?  Rich, well-to-do, suburban kids with educated parents and a relatively carefree life in a wealthy subdivision gets to go to the school with all the best amenities and all the best teachers because it has a lot of money to dole out on the little darlings since the wealthy owners of homes in the subdivision pay a hell of a lot of property tax.  Meanwhile, the poor little rural country school has students who come from uneducated families, are miles away from resources like (good) libraries or museums, have to deal with struggles at home and in a community that is slowly crumbling while being too poor to even realize that there is much more out there.  These kids have the fewest resources at school as well and are more likely to have less qualified faculty.  After all, a small shack on a tiny dirt plot, miles away from anything except acres and acres of cotton, peanuts, and soybeans, does not have a value that brings in large sources of property tax revenue for the school district. This is an antiquated and harmful system that reinforces socio-economic divides in our culture.  It should be abolished in favor of a more fair system of school revenue.  And no, don't sell me that baloney about privatization.  It would have the same result of poor kids going to shoddy schools and rich kids going to snobby schools. 

There are more ideas where those came from.  We really need to have the guts in this country to let go of "tradition".  Scrap the whole damn system if you have to and start over.  I don't care if it worked for you when you were growing up, because a) it didn't work for half the country because they were too ignorant to see that Bush was a moron...twice and b) it isn't working now.  Where's that American pragmatism I have heard about?  That's actually the subject of an upcoming post.  In the meantime, keep you mind open...but not so open your brains fall out.  And by the way...I am a public school teacher and I approved this message.

Until next time, keep your powder dry.
The Southern Fried Skeptic

"The skeptic does not mean him who doubts, but him who investigates or researches, as opposed to him who asserts and thinks that he has found."
-Miguel de Unamuno