Parents, China is Not Holding its Children Back!

[papertalker]

Newsweek article: Opting for Creativity (in China)

As American students get buried in homework and Teach N Test classrooms, focused more on their tech toys than on their teachers, Chinese education is getting it.

If you think Chinese manufacturing is robust and healthy (if not at times careless), just wait for China to begin harvesting the fruits of a truly fun and playful education system.

Our education system is stuck in its own wrong-headedness, bolstered by a Government that ‘supports’ teachers and kids by pushing and intimidating them.

Almost a whole generation that has grown up with this mindless maze of numbers (and mind-numbing practices) under the state and federal mandated tests and a standardized one-size-fits-all scheme of schooling will ‘graduate’ into an America that is slipping into economic irrelevance.

Yes, we may have our Disney movies and Ipods to amuse us, but our short answer education and that hunger for expensive toys cancels out a hunger in our kids for discovery and purpose.

Parents, I have often been told that the destiny of American education is in your hands; that teachers' hands are tied and their voices are muffled. I happen to believe that this is preposterous. We all need to take our individual stands, and stop hiding behind the children who are, even before teachers, encamped on the front lines.

Just listen to Sir Ken Robinson on the way schools are killing the minds of children. Ask yourself, dear parent, if Sir Ken's plea for a creative learning culture makes sense, then why on earth are we stuck in the Dark Age of learning?

What an incredible irony for America to suffer: China in love with creativity and ensuring that its schools immerse the young in it, while America’s kids dwell in the gulag of accountable education.

I would ask every parent with a young person in America’s system of education whether they can live with this situation, and if they can't, they should begin circulating petitions and sending them to their Congressman. If parents can't do this, it means that America will continue to fail and cheat our children.

Our Government should support teachers with training to be the best in the world and to make the disbursement of funds evenhanded. Beyond this, Government should stop looking over the shoulders of teachers and let peer review take care of quality control.

China gets it. An open, innovative learning culture is one that will create a way to sustain a robust, healthy economy and way of life for decades, if not centuries. Folks, it's time to get busy re-inventing our schools.

[ktan]

I quite agree with this. Sir Ken Robinson's talk was really enlightening. Everyone seems caught up in the current system of education and the more we get into it the lesser the chances of bringing out teachers who think outside the box. Let's prevent this from happening.