A proposal for public school restructuring

Here’s a bit of human stupidity: when a cultural tradition becomes a sacred cow because people are comfortable with it even though it is ineffective or even damaging.

Today a person in the U.S. will attend kindergarten through high school grade 12 and many will then go on to a four-year bachelor’s degree and then “start” their career. (Yea, a few go onto master’s degrees and PhDs.) Our inept and gimpy education system is little more than an expensive baby sitter hell-bent on indoctrination. Our focus, our goal, really should be education. Shocking, I know. We need to prepare children to be independent adults and an education therefore should be career/life-focused. It’s not that complicated. People have done it for centuries.

We all know what school work looks like and most of us bitched and complained all the way through about being bored and “I’ll never use this… I don’t see why I have to learn it… This is stupid...” We were right. We were absolutely right. How much of your formal education do you actually remember AND use? (tic … tock … crickets … silence … zzzzz) The system sacrifices children to feed the fatted sacred cow. And we let them. For some masochistic reason we seem to think that if we had to suffer through the public school system “paying our dues” then our kids should as well regardless of the dismal results. How in the hell do people graduate from high school and not know how to read? What kind of education system creates a majority people who do not even read one book per year?

Let’s cut to the chase.

All people need to know 1) how to read and write and 2) how to do basic math. With these two skills they can learn anything else. If education is handled with the least bit of intelligence it will instill and feed a strong desire for lifelong learning.

What is currently considered elementary school (grades K-5) should be only grades 1-5 – therefore five years not six. Generations of people started school in the first grade. Nothing is taught in kindergarten than can’t easily and casually be taught at home. Elementary school should continue to cover the same levels of core study currently covered but do so in only 3 hours per day. If you can’t do it in three hours you can’t do it because regardless of how long you attempt to keep their attention young kids don’t learn much past three hours of study in a day and they need to actually be kids. Children are not biologically wired to sit still and pay attention for very long. Yep, it should be obvious. Anyone with any powers of observation knows this. They don’t need Ritalin. They need a childhood.

Also, if you can’t teach in three hours either the student is mentally slow, the teacher is inept or the subject matter is inappropriate. Many homeschoolers excel with only two hours of formal study per day outperforming full-time public school students.

Those three hours should consist of one hour of combined reading, spelling and language (because they naturally go together). Reading an interesting (that’s key) book will naturally expand the knowledge of language usage and then the new/harder words can be studied for spelling. Most reading books are boring. How many people enjoy reading a boring book? How much do you learn from a boring book?

Math should take about 45 minutes and should be interesting enough to hold the attention of right-brainers. Science should take about 30 minutes and be very hands on with a health and environmental emphasis since we are screwing up the planet and making ourselves sick. When appropriate, the two could be integrated. Social Studies/history/ geography/foreign language should take about 45 minutes and again, be taught simultaneously because they naturally go together. It’s logical. History should be split evenly between World History and American History without rehashing the same damn events over and over.

By the end of the 5th grade students should be interviewed, evaluated, tested and guided into their individual areas of talent and interest. Yes, they already know what they generally like. They are not stupid.

Because so much of what is “taught” or attempted to be taught is redundant, obvious, dumbed-down and overkill what is currently considered grades 6-10 should be taught in grades 6-8. Get to the point. Middle school should only be 4.5 hours per day with three of those hours continuing to be core subjects and 1.5 hours being spent on subjects of individual interest such as art, health, business, history, construction, science … whatever. There should be no homework except for very little “real world” math (10 minutes/day) and an occasional research report because everyone needs to know how to research. Current world events should be discussed and debated often in Social Studies/history.

As anyone knows who’s been through high school and college there is no point in taking four years of high school English then having to take nine+ credit hours of “Communication” which is basically English and Speech unless one wants to be an English major. The same can be said for Math and Science.

Compare the typical class requirements for college-prep high school and the general “academic” requirements for an Associates Degree. Both high school and college require a computer course. Do they think this is the 1970s? Today most kids could teach the computer teachers. Kids should be using computers enough in elementary and middle school to just scrap that archaic requirement.

The high school requirements of Physical Education (how is running a mile physical education?) and Health should also have been covered in elementary and middle school. They should be taught the importance of physical activity and offered the chance to participate in sports if they like but it should not be required in high school. I’ve heard people argue that kids should have to take P.E. because they might not get any other physical activity. Should they force them to eat broccoli and give them each a kiss and hug as well because they might not get that at home either? Should they pass out vitamins and wash their bed sheets? Kids who are athletic will continue to be active because they like it. Kids who are not athletic will not become athletic because they are forced to take P.E. class and embarrass themselves. The more you force it the more they will hate it. It’s just the way people are. You can’t make people get off their butts and sweat.

The High School requirement of American History should be well-covered after 8 years of core study through the 8th grade. Pursuing it further should be an elective.

High school should be a six-hour day and it should start no sooner than one hour after sunrise. High school kids need at least nine hours sleep. It’s basic biology. You can’t learn when you are groggy. You know it. I know it. We all spent that first hour or so half unconscious.

In the 9th and 10th grade four hours should cover what is now considered junior and senior-level English, math, science, social studies, foreign language, and government (including a focus on the Constitution). Two hours should be elective. Math, Science and English should not be the standard mass-taught courses for each student but each student should be able to choose their type of course. For example math could be business math, taxes, accounting, economics or calculus, trigonometry, geometry, etc. Science could be anatomy, zoology, biochemistry, nutrition, physics, etc. – their choice. English could be composition, literature, speech, journalism, scriptwriting, etc.

High school grades 11 and 12 should consist of career-oriented electives only and a high-school diploma should be the equivalent of an Associates or Technical degree. Many high schools are already going in this direction. This should have already been the norm decades ago. A person should be able to graduate high school and go directly into their chosen field and/or start their own business. If they want to pursue a bachelor’s degree it should be sans “general education courses.” A college degree should not cost more than a new graduate could expect to make in a year. Why should they receive more than their teaching is worth?

Of course, shortening the school day would cause and require an enormous shift in parent schedules and the business world should accommodate it because in the end they are at the mercy of the populous. With the Internet and remote access, etc. many people could telecommute at least part of the time. They could also job-share more. Business hours should be more flexible and let the rigid 8 to 5, Monday through Friday schedule become a thing of the past. Who said we all had to strictly compartmentalize the workday? There are 168 hours in a week and there are a myriad of ways to work 40 hours without throwing kids and families under the bus.