To no small degree what’s wrong with “education” in this country is that too many of those who should know better go on expounding on the nature and value of the liberal arts as if clarification and greater understanding of that would stem if not reverse the failure, or at least widely held perception of [...]
Archive for the ‘Education’ category
Schooling is not education
June 11, 2010More on the calculus as the language of mathematics
June 7, 2010I know I don’t have a right to say this, that calculus is the language of mathematics. I’m not a mathematician, nor am I even good at math. Whatever it is that I’m calling mathematics, I do like, and have at various points in my life, all in the times since my own schooling, not [...]
Mail to Michael Goldstein
May 31, 2010Michael, Sometimes I pass my time reading articles stored on my laptop. The most recent one was: “Where is American Education Going, Report on a Convocation.” If you skim over it a bit yourself you will recognize most of the voices and be already quite familiar with most all of what is being said. Many [...]
MR. GORBACHEV, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL! Mr. OBAMA DON’T BUILD THIS WALL!
May 29, 2010Reading William Finnegan’s Letter from Mexico one wonders why more of them, more Mexicans don’t come here, illegally if necessary. We should be surprised that so few citizens of this failed, or nearly failed land (not yet a nation) do remain at home, do not try to cross our border. If you’re not convinced read [...]
Jaime Escalante’s Example to which few have responded
April 2, 2010Andrew, it’s just not going to happen. (I’m writing this in response to Andrew Coulson’s piece in the WSJ today, Escalante Stood and Delivered. It’s Our Turn.) Andrew, “Our Turn” is just never going to be. Only a tiny few will ever respond in their turn, if at all, to Escalante’s example. Instead, what works, [...]
“… the idea of making them less dumb.”
March 17, 2010There are any number of writers on education whom I admire, and not only those of much earlier times going back to the Greeks. In my own lifetime there have been many whose words have shown me the way forward, as it were. What they have written on the subject of education has stimulated and [...]
More on School Reform
March 10, 2010In my earlier Blog I said that if Diane Ravitch had read George Santayana’s Reason in Common Sense she wouldn’t have written her most recent book, The Death and Life of the American School System. Here is why I said that. Santayana in the passage quoted, says this: Progress, far from consisting in change, depends [...]
On School Reform, Part One
March 6, 2010In her new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, the educational consultant and historian, Diane Ravitch, tells us that she has changed her views on the very public school reforms that she herself, during the past 30 years or so, did so much to fashion, promote, and support. In particular, [...]
More on the Schools from Today’s News
February 1, 2010Three comments from today’s news concerning the performance, or failure to perform, of our public schools, two from the Times, and one from Time Magazine. First Ross Douthat, in an op ed piece. He cites the sociologist, Kristin Luker who in her history of the sex education debate concluded that, “… it is surprisingly difficult [...]
More on Chester Finn and school reform
January 16, 2010Chester Finn, no less than Arne Duncan and his “Race to the Top,” labors under the (mis-)conception that student achievement levels depend primarily on what the educators, – the teachers, administrators, and politicians — do, and that downward or flat, as at the present time, achievement levels call for additional reforms. Maybe, but so far [...]
