That’s not just a question for teachers or education experts.
Increasingly activist parents want a say, and it’s becoming a partisan football, kicked this way and that.
I’m sure schools have changed since I went through the K12 grades and college in the 1950s and 1960s. I was a bright kid able to soak up the kind of education described in this Mother Jones article, but most of my reading then was standard textbooks.
Now retired, with more time, I’m reading stuff I missed (I knocked off War and Peace years ago, but Brothers Karamazov is still on my bucket list) and more. (Photo: book pile beside my bed.)
Not everyone is an avid reader. In fact, few people are. We’re not a nation of serious readers. Most people not only lack time but also inclination. They spend three-day weekends at BBQs or family gatherings (nothing wrong with that!), not in the reading chair.
What should public schools teach the non-gifted masses? It seems obvious, at least to me, that everyone needs basic skills (called “reading, writing, and arithmetic” in past times). Schools have a role in socializing students, and I’m not on board with excluding inclusiveness; diversity adds to students’ knowledge base and social ability, not subtracts from something else.
I liked this Mother Jones article because it covers a lot of interesting ground, with a focus on cultural education, LGBQT students, and charter schools. I’m not a fan of charter schools. A charter school is a private school supported by taxpayers’ money with no public accountability for who can attend, what is taught, or whether children learn.
The most important education is that pursued after formal education ends. K12 and college should prepare the ground for lifetime learning by making us curious, and people should not lose sight of that when debating education.