The Republican case for the Universal Basic IncomeFollow

A lot of these are minority students so obviously the answer is zoology.

Probably the most interesting thing I've seen recently is the introduction of a "mindfulness" program in underperforming elementary and middle schools. The kids are generally coming from terrible home lives and instead of paying attention in class, are stressed out from their home situation. They can't focus in school with everything else happening around them. The program teaches meditation and yoga as a means of helping kids separate home life from school life. So far they've had a pretty good success track rating, although the studies are still limited.

Which is hardly surprising, and just to add to that it probably hints at how helpful the parents can be when their lives are that messed up.

I don't envy the school situation though. The demands on what an education needs to produce to keep pace with a global market have never been higher, retiring baby-boomers are sucking up the education dollars, teachers face declining compensation and less job security, peaking economic stresses are keeping parents less involved, and after all that the students still have to put themselves in a god-awful amount of debt over 4 years of college just to find out they aren't qualified for anything more than an part-time internship.

Yay

Hey, if that novelty is reducing the number of kids who are given suspensions by 75%, I think it's worth it.

Yoga and meditation have been proven to reduce stress levels, high blood pressure, and increase mindfulness in adults. It's not stretching it to see if it could have the same benefits in stressed out kids.

Edited, Jan 21st 2014 1:09pm by Catwho

Crop rotation.

This year we aren't teaching grades 2 or 6. They'll be allowed to run wild on the playground all year and given a pamphlet entitled "Paper or plastic? Knowing your place in the world." This will allow those teachers a chance to recharge and we expect the better grades from next years' 2nd and 6th graders to more than compensate.

Public standardized education should start as soon as the kid is potty trained and finish when they're ten or eleven. They can learn a crap ton of stuff in that time period. Then they take off the pre/pubescent years - or if they can have various forms of phys-ed for 3 years (<3 the monkey bars). Then begin specialized education around 14 or 15.

Set them out on the streets penniless and shoeless.

They'll learn.

Edited, Jan 21st 2014 7:57pm by Elinda

I'm sure we could find a way to make it competitive enough. My kid has whiter teeth and more twitter followers, his art was hung in the center of the wall, while your kid's art was hung off to the side. We also spent $2,000 on his ultra high-definition 128 pack of crayola crayons.

Competitive yoga.

We can do this if we try hard enough.

I actually learned and retained a lot through those years. Then again, I took advanced courses that covered more "new" material rather than recycling the same garbage from elementary school. I would support cutting out high school years before middle school years. I've actually done very minor research on math students in k-12 education and students tend to favor math in the elementary years, but fall off in the middle school years. There are several theories behind that, but the point being is that the middle school years are when students start their educational paths, e.g., science vs art.

What I've noticed personally is that students in high school are much less impressionable and have already decided whether or not they want to learn, pass and or fail. The ones that eagerly seek knowledge and seek higher learning take more challenging courses or courses in their vocational/technical area of interest. Although I fundamentally disagree with allowing students to drop out of school, if I had to pick a group of students, it would be the high school students that are just there because its law. I would allow them to transition out of the system, freeing up resources for the students who do want to learn.

Edited, Jan 22nd 2014 1:14am by Almalieque

I remember two things from middle school, aside from general ennui and learning to read music. 1. That moment in 7th grade algebra when multiplication of fractions finally clicked. That was almost a spiritual moment, and one never repeated in mathematics again until 12th grade calculus when I learned that the derivative of both sin and cos are 1. 2. "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both..."

Hell, even the class I enjoyed in 8th grade, literature, only avoided being a waste of time because the teacher just let me go to the library and write once a week while my peers struggled through SRA reading kits. (Oh hey, those things are on iPads now. Neat.)

Um... You get that it's kinda not possible for me to miss the point about my own argument.

Certainly not twice.

Edited, Jan 21st 2014 7:49pm by Smasharoo