Why Children Struggle In School
Our society is spending a tremendous amount on education, talking about education reform (mostly politicians to get elected), and parents' concerns increase as the economy fails.
But all the efforts of teachers to improve reading scores, all the standards developed and debated, all the reform money for professional development and training, all the state assessments and results, and all those "scientifically researched methods and materials" are doing exactly what happened in the past: little or nothing.
The question is, "Why?" When we focus our intents and efforts on a goal, it is easier to achieve it, because we work toward it consistently.
A better question might be, "What are we really focusing on in education?" From the point of view of an experienced educator who has worked with the most challenging students schools and districts have, we are focusing on the wrong things: end results.
This is like a car manufacturer focusing on the appearance of a new car instead of its mechanical and structural integrity.
Our quality of educational product is poor for several reasons, most of which politicians do not care to address.
Assumptions are made about what happens in education, how education happens, and who controls what happens in education.
If you are interested in all the assumptions going on in and about education, go to the website for Easy School Success and read the free PDF files for Seeds for Change.
It might open your eyes to the reality of what is not being addressed in education.
It seems that politicians choose to view education as a process like manufacturing.
But manufacturers can control the factors of what happens, how it happens, and who controls what happens to produce good products.
Why? They control by specifying the quality standards for the raw materials and what happens to those raw materials during the process of manufacturing.
They control everything before and during the manufacturing process, which is why consumers can win lawsuits against them for defective products.
Children are not raw materials that remain constant before, during and after manufacturing processes.
Children are growing, learning, adjusting, adapting to everything in their environment.
How and when they change determines what and how they learn.
No one is attending to how and when children develop the necessary conceptualization skills unique to the developing human brain.
People who don't understand child development have "bet the farm" on Jerome Bruner's theory that anyone can be taught anything at any time.
If anyone paid attention to how that can happen, they would find that many adjustments need to be made to accommodate the learner's developmental stages of readiness for instruction.
Unfortunately, the way education happens doesn't allow for individuals' needs to be accommodated for.
Few people, including teachers themselves, understand all that a child needs to benefit from the instructional content teachers are mandated to teach.
Until the system changes, until politicians stop their rhetoric about 'quick fixes' and really address the complexity of problems, children will continue to fail in school.
Who loses? Everyone in our society loses, because productive lives don't develop and social systems must develop to cope with the massive needs of those unable to provide for themselves.
But all the efforts of teachers to improve reading scores, all the standards developed and debated, all the reform money for professional development and training, all the state assessments and results, and all those "scientifically researched methods and materials" are doing exactly what happened in the past: little or nothing.
The question is, "Why?" When we focus our intents and efforts on a goal, it is easier to achieve it, because we work toward it consistently.
A better question might be, "What are we really focusing on in education?" From the point of view of an experienced educator who has worked with the most challenging students schools and districts have, we are focusing on the wrong things: end results.
This is like a car manufacturer focusing on the appearance of a new car instead of its mechanical and structural integrity.
Our quality of educational product is poor for several reasons, most of which politicians do not care to address.
Assumptions are made about what happens in education, how education happens, and who controls what happens in education.
If you are interested in all the assumptions going on in and about education, go to the website for Easy School Success and read the free PDF files for Seeds for Change.
It might open your eyes to the reality of what is not being addressed in education.
It seems that politicians choose to view education as a process like manufacturing.
But manufacturers can control the factors of what happens, how it happens, and who controls what happens to produce good products.
Why? They control by specifying the quality standards for the raw materials and what happens to those raw materials during the process of manufacturing.
They control everything before and during the manufacturing process, which is why consumers can win lawsuits against them for defective products.
Children are not raw materials that remain constant before, during and after manufacturing processes.
Children are growing, learning, adjusting, adapting to everything in their environment.
How and when they change determines what and how they learn.
No one is attending to how and when children develop the necessary conceptualization skills unique to the developing human brain.
People who don't understand child development have "bet the farm" on Jerome Bruner's theory that anyone can be taught anything at any time.
If anyone paid attention to how that can happen, they would find that many adjustments need to be made to accommodate the learner's developmental stages of readiness for instruction.
Unfortunately, the way education happens doesn't allow for individuals' needs to be accommodated for.
Few people, including teachers themselves, understand all that a child needs to benefit from the instructional content teachers are mandated to teach.
Until the system changes, until politicians stop their rhetoric about 'quick fixes' and really address the complexity of problems, children will continue to fail in school.
Who loses? Everyone in our society loses, because productive lives don't develop and social systems must develop to cope with the massive needs of those unable to provide for themselves.
