Bigthink - User Ideas Feed

Questions for Joel Klein

Bigthink — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:42:34 +0100

- What is your definition of "education"?

- How can you tell a good education from a bad education?

- What responsibility does a student bear in education?

- Are there differences in learning for skill and knowledge? How do you handle these?

- Is a school supposed to enforce an education? Or provide good opportunities for students to educate themselves? Or a mix of both?

- When paperwork requirements become too large, assistants are often employed to take some of the burden so more important work can be done. Should teachers get secretaries? (Or pools of them.)

Re: No Child Left Behind Act- For it or against it?

Bigthink — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:34:20 +0100

Its hard to be for or against it based only on its name and some vague feelings from what I've heard about it.

I am against allowing legislation to be named the way it has in recent history. It becomes very hard for politicians to justify being against "No Child Left Behind" to our current press when all they may be against is "poorly written, likely to fail, or otherwise bad legislation".

The meaning of legislation should never be allowed to be boiled down to a title. We can't rely on the title to understand the content of a bill or law. Bills and laws should perhaps only be numbered, or named after the people submitting them to congress (so we know who gets the blame, or maybe credit)

From Mouths of Babes

Bigthink — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 15:58:32 +0100

: My 10-year old daughter asked, "Does the word 'politics' come from 'poly', which means 'many', and 'ticks' which means [parasites]?".

First mistake: not defining "education"

Bigthink — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 05:54:11 +0100

: Here's the definition we came up with in our house. We've worked on this for a while with some educators (all high-school or lower grades; no college educators.) "Education is the process anyone uses to improve skills, knowledge or attitudes in themselves with the help of others." "Others" includes teachers as well as authors of published works such as books, articles, films, audio programs or other means of communication. This implies a few things often left out of conversations about education: - there is more to be learned than simple facts (knowledge). Skills, for example, are gained by training. That is, trying one's skill, evaluating it and trying again. - only the student can change things on the inside of the student. Obtaining an education really comes down to the student doing the work of improving himself or herself. - schools provide an OPPORTUNITY for someone to build skills, knowledge and attitudes within themselves on certain subject matters; nothing more. Opportunity for proving mastery is given in the form of tests. Opportunity for help is offered for students having trouble mastering some parts of a subject. In short, a school provide an opportunity for students to educate themselves.