Apr. 28, 2003 - 22:42 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

Can You Tell ?

Pondering about something in my past tonight and being a bit at sea, wondering what could be done then and what should be done now.

I think it was in the second half of 7th grade I had a class which I can see now was way ahead of my capacity and capability. It was a class teaching business practices, I can't remember what it was called. There was a Zu Tavern kit that went to each student containing all the things used in the class.

They tried to teach us a bit of everything and in my eyes a lot of nothing. We supposedly were learning such things as how to fill out a sales slip and other forms like that, interest simple and compound, business terminology, inventory. Too many things in too short a time, not enough time for each element I think.

But then I think that most of my classmates passed rather well. So I wonder how it can be determined if a child is ready for a certain section of his education ? I was having a hard time in English which caused me a lot of trouble, struggling in plain mathmatics. It is obvious to me that class should have come at a much later date for me.

Seems to me that education has been put on a mass production basis a long time since. Makes things efficient of course, each child progressing to the next grade up and staying with his age group. There should be a better way, maybe, for a kid to progress at his own level of learn-ability in different subjects. It would be complicated I am sure. But thinking about it, a child could be at the third grade level in one subject and sixth grade level in others. Progressing at his or her own speed. In a way it progresses in a similar manner, at the lowest level comes simple arithmetic, then math, then algebra on up.

Communication skills, reading with understanding, writing efficiently all follow a certain track. But in my mind I am wondering, couldn't there be a method where grades K through 12 could be all in one building ? A pupil going to class in a subject at his level. That way a pupil could go his or her own speed and graduate when all the courses required were completed.

One thing I think a great mistake is made in having a kid skip a grade. I was out of school for most of fourth grade. When I returned to school the concensus was that I was one smart kid and could go on to fifth grade. I might have been somewhat smart but still there was course work that should have been covered by me. I never actually caught up in English and Mathematics through school. Of course back then I guess they thought that a kid being behind a grade would be an object of scorn or some such weird thing. I did my best, but I was always failing or of the verge of failing in those two things. Maybe the thing for schools to do is to have a summer program with required attendance for those kids behind so as to be tutored, as it were, in their failing subjects. That might be one way to keep a child with his class and kids of his age for most of the day during the rest of the year.

Its a very intricate, convoluted subject this education bit, schools going downhill and vouchers coming out with little effort being put out to cure the ailing public school system. What can we do and when, how Can You Tell ? . . . . . . . . . . . .

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