A few things have to be made clearer from my last post.
First, some of you have the mistaken idea that I was a wonderful teacher. Well, I was a so so middle of the road teacher. I had good days and bad days. I had good years and bad years.
Another comment that catches my eye is that it was something wonderful to be teaching before my 19th birthday. During the war and after the war to the 1960's teachers were in short supply in the western Canadian provinces. They hired many people who did not have any training whatsoever and some had not finished high school. For my second part of grade one I had a guy who had just finished high school. So to be a 19 year old teacher, while not a good idea , was better than some one without training.
I did like what I did and would do it over again in a heartbeat.
At times educators have been too quick and narrow minded to challenge kids to become good citizens. The system concentrated on "learning" information which was soon forgotten and rarely ever used. I know that it was a good thing for kids to learn skills of evaluation of information and relationships.
I have asked the Micro Manager who is a bright woman, to divide fractions. She doesn't know how to divide fractions which was a basic operation. She never had to use it in life . I'm not sure if it was valuable as a skill for any deduction. I've asked about nouns and verbs? No answer. I think most people would be the same.
What I do think is that more emphasis should be put on young people replacing us. Yes, high school students will be directed to some further education and training. But replacing us in society should be worked on. It's not automatic that people get together and make a successful community. We need people to grow up and have a sense of community and citizenship.
