Rol said:
> I heartily second Carol's suggestion that we create a shopping list of
> alternatives for how to impact the quality of education.
During my Thanksgiving vacation in '95 I visited my parents in the
town where I went to school. I took a walk when I was home and went
around the High School. It sure brought back memories.
Particularly of note in regard to ways of affecting education may be
the notion that there's considerable effort to connect people through
Auto mechanics and vocational education with their future job, yet
most academic coursework has no "prize-element" showing the
possibility of applying school-work to life-long work. In fact,
there's little application of school-work to other school-work.
My own memory was that I didn't receive much guidance in how to move
toward either better understanding or employment. So I made out as
best I could.
One problem would have been that I didn't think I needed help.
Another was that what I envisioned as my interest would not be easily
furthered by someone not interested in the same effort. As a
non-personal example, learning "all about Shakespeare" in a farming
community.
More pertinently for the topic here is that perhaps the "quality" of
education that might be longed for may commonly be longed for only by
parents for their own children or closely knit cultures for their
members. In terms of the realities of care for individuals and
appropriate opportunity to work beyond the student's immediate
interests, maybe an opening of the options beyond public schooling
makes sense. Without much information about the topic, one option is
home schooling.
-- Have a nice day John Paul Fullerton jpf6745@acs.tamu.edu