I realize that we are in a dwindling economy and that money is tight for every business, organization, and school...it is tight for EVERYONE. And what did the Des Moines School Board do? They are facing a $27.7 budget shortfall with 84.4% of districts operating budget is used to pay for salaries and benefits, seriously!!!! They are then cutting 300 positions, as well as cutting band and orchestra for elementary students; music, art and physical education time will be cut by more than half (in fact PE will now be 30 minutes per week).
To read the full article, click this link http://www.kcci.com/education/22753790/detail.html
In addition to the district cuts, my daughters school will be losing their half-time guidance counselor, leaving the school with NO guidance counselor and they will not be filling their Montessori consultant who is due to retire this year. I find this absolutely ridiculous, unacceptable, and deplorable!!! My daughter is in PreK and all of this bullshit just makes me want to home school her, where I know she will get the education (including music, art, and physical education) she DESERVES.
Why are teachers not standing their ground, why are they allowing this, why are parents allowing this? Citizens elect the school board officials and I'm sorry, they are not doing their jobs! I don't care what the economy is like - our children are the future leaders of this world and as we continue to allow our children to attend a broken school system we are in essence failing our children. We are short-changing them and will have more and more students not know who Picasso, Mozart, or even if they have a musical ability...how sad.
How can we change it? Schools (DOE) needs to get rid of the testing, categorizing, labeling, segregating, and institutionalizing our children. Teachers often fail to realize that sometimes it is the less formal examples of learning that are often the best examples of learning, focusing on the exercises that students and the governments tells them what is expected from their students.
We need to change the system - schools so often focus on what is failing that they rarely see what is working. And it needs to start with the teachers "teachers shouldn't expect people outside the classroom to improve their working conditions; all their problems were created by people outside the classroom. Teachers must take charge of their own professional lives."
The above quote is from The Book of Learning and Forgetting by Frank Smith and I recommend anyone and everyone to read the book, most importantly anyone who is going to become involved with education. His book describes how schools and educational authorities (DOE) obstruct the learning abilities of children while continually blaming teachers for the problems that the government authorities have created. It focuses on the classic view of learning versus the official view. And the other thing I found fascinating is that most people in the field of education are not educated on the history of schools and where the official learning theory came from, which was based on a militaristic model and thus changes based on what is working at the government level. Instead of focusing on what students are actually learning, schools focus on what they are expected to learn or shall I say memorize.
The school system needs to be overhauled, teachers need to say no more cuts, parents need to say no more cuts...the students are saying it, but will anyone listen to them?
"Schools should be places where students and everyone for that matter--can find opportunities to learn everything that is worthwhile in the world outside (emphasis on the doing, not on the teaching). That is the whole point of schools, not to deprive students of the experience but to provide enriched opportunities." Frank Smith
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