School Board query

[DemoLady]

We should be teaching students how to think

That may be the purpose, but is it reality? If it is about ensuring that students receive a top-notch education, why is most of the focus and concern on the lower 25% of the students? Isn't that portion of the classes the focus on the testing improvements? What about the top 25%? Sure, there may be AP classes here and there, but why is there such a focus on the bottom 25%?

Certainly one of the characteristics of a top-notch school system is its ability to challenge ALL students, including the top 25%.

That's my concern about a School Board that "cherry picks" which literature students can read, which plays they can produce. . .How can you ever have excellent AP classes when the curriculum is limited by the values of a certain segment of the population? How can students learn to evaluate literature or scientific theories THEMSELVES if our school system does it for them ---keeping everything but the most conservative/bland out of the libraries and out of the curriculum?

Teaching students to be "critical thinkers" means they have to be confronted with ideas or thoughts that may be foreign to them and their values. How else will they be challenged to invent, to create, to dream -- if all they are taught is to accept the status quo? "We should be teaching students HOW to think; instead we are teaching WHAT to think."

 

[GoodWitch58]

Yes, and it is heartbreaking. I work with college students every day who have no idea how to think...critical thinking skills have had no place in their high school experience. (This certainly is not true of every student--but, unfortunately, it is true of the majority I see.)

Instead, they are concerned with process. Asked to write a 1,000 word essay, they approach it by asking how to begin paragraph one; where to put the thesis statement...can I say this, or that...they are attempting to write as they would take a true or false test!

None of them has any idea of how to convey a message, because none of them has ever been taught to find the answer to the question: what do I want to communicate?

It is so bad that I designed a Writing Class for them and called it: "Beyond the Five Paragraphs"..apparently the English portion of the FCAT requires them to know how to write Five Paragraphs. It is pathetic.

We simply must do a better job teaching our students critical thinking skills; teachers can not do that when they are boxed in to only teaching so called
appropriate materials.

If we allow our students to explore and learn how to use their imaginations, they and we as a society will be better off for it!

 

[Andy A]

Her resume could say 1 year and she is still more qualified.

Your factchecking is more like nitpicking.

Why? Why would she be more qualified? Her great education in our great and glorious colleges that attempt to teach you not to think for ourselves but to walk in lock step with what a particular professor believes? While it is true that was not the case when Ms. Wilkerson went to college, every indication I see now says it is so today. As I have said repeatedly and what has been totally ignored by the "intellectuals" on this board, is you don't need a college degree to serve intelligently and effectively on a school board. You need "common sense" and the ability to listen, analyze and act on suggestions made to you by your constituents. It helps if you also realize that if you raise the millage rate you also raise taxes.

 

[Andy A]

Several responders in this thread have commented that post high school education isn't as important a qualification as other qualities.

Education does matter. That's the purpose of a school board -- to see that students receive a top-notch, broad education. To "pooh-pooh" that quality in a candidate seems to go against the very thing we're working for in the school system. If "street smarts" is all we need -- why spend more tax dollars to improve Walton County schools?

One of the goals of secondary education is to prepare students for college. We need school board members who understand what that means. We need school board members who can evaluate the weaknesses or strengths in a curriculum-- because budget considerations are often at stake. We need school board members who have read broadly and can look at the arts and literature through the eyes of an educator.

And it is absolutely necessary to have a structured higher education to do this, huh? Of course education matters. It doesn't have to be in the form of a college degree to be effective, however. Oh, and by the way, we are so intent on preparing EVERY student for college that in many of our schools we have lost sight of the fact that not every individual wants to or should go to college. We need to educate our students that desire it in the vocational arts as well. I am not sure we do so in our schools here. Please enlighten me if such is the case.

 

[idlewind]

Certainly one of the characteristics of a top-notch school system is its ability to challenge ALL students, including the top 25%.

That's my concern about a School Board that "cherry picks" which literature students can read, which plays they can produce. . .How can you ever have excellent AP classes when the curriculum is limited by the values of a certain segment of the population? How can students learn to evaluate literature or scientific theories THEMSELVES if our school system does it for them ---keeping everything but the most conservative/bland out of the libraries and out of the curriculum?

Teaching students to be "critical thinkers" means they have to be confronted with ideas or thoughts that may be foreign to them and their values. How else will they be challenged to invent, to create, to dream -- if all they are taught is to accept the status quo? "We should be teaching students HOW to think; instead we are teaching WHAT to think."

We should be teaching students how to read and write.

 

[shellak]

if robert actually strung up an effigy of obama and had children hit it as a pinata, what in the heck is he doing running for any office here????? this is the first i've heard of it. it certainly makes me glad i didn't vote for him!

 

[ShallowsNole]

if robert actually strung up an effigy of obama and had children hit it as a pinata, what in the heck is he doing running for any office here????? this is the first i've heard of it. it certainly makes me glad i didn't vote for him!

I sure do wish someone would show me a picture of Robert holding a pinata shaped like a black man. The one I saw showed a pinata that looked like a blue donkey.

 

[John R]

I sure do wish someone would show me a picture of Robert holding a pinata shaped like a black man. The one I saw showed a pinata that looked like a blue donkey.

wouldn't the addition of a picture of someone attached to a pinata personalize it to an effigy?

ef⋅fi⋅gy
   /ˈɛfɪdʒi/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [ef-i-jee]
?noun, plural -gies.
1. a representation or image, esp. sculptured, as on a monument.
2. a crude representation of someone disliked, used for purposes of ridicule.
?Idiom
3. in effigy, in public view in the form of an effigy: a leader hanged in effigy by the mob.

 

[Andy A]

So does anyone know why Robert Nelson hasn't commented on this thread? He is normally so quick to respond, I find it interesting that he is M.I.A here.

It is only a guess but probably because he has the good sense not to do so. After all, the whole thread, except for two or three of us, is negative toward him.

 

[ShallowsNole]

wouldn't the addition of a picture of someone attached to a pinata personalize it to an effigy?

ef⋅fi⋅gy
   /ˈɛfɪdʒi/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [ef-i-jee]
?noun, plural -gies.
1. a representation or image, esp. sculptured, as on a monument.
2. a crude representation of someone disliked, used for purposes of ridicule.
?Idiom
3. in effigy, in public view in the form of an effigy: a leader hanged in effigy by the mob.

No. I haven't seen a picture of the picture of Obama, just a rumor that there was one. And unless Robert was the one who built the pinata or pasted the supposed picture - which has not been a part of ANY version of the rumor - I don't have a problem with it.

And I REALLY have a problem with people finding the untimely holding of a stupid pinata - which, yes, was a lapse in judgement - worse than the opposing candidate announcing on the radio that the decisions of the School Board don't raise or lower taxes, just the millage rate.