Category: education and schooling

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education and schooling

Educational Snow Flakes

Up north, it snows enough that schools can’t just close every time a few flakes fall. But I live in Virginia, just outside Washington, DC, and it doesn’t snow that much here.

Weeks ago it snowed eight inches, a lot for us. The schools in my county — and throughout the region — closed.

But in Washington, DC, the schools stayed open. And controversy ensued.

Was opening the schools unsafe? Was it a waste of money, since only a small percentage of students and teachers showed up? Or was a school day too valuable to lose?

For me, that’s all beside the point. I think a day having fun in the snow is more valuable than a yet another day in class.

This came to mind again when I listened to President Obama’s recent speech about public education. Obama wants our kids to attend school more days and longer hours. Apparently, children in South Korea go to school more and score better on tests.

Not only am I skeptical about such comparisons, and those tests, I’m totally uninterested in educating my kids to best the Russians or the Germans or the Japanese or anybody else.

To me, education is all about encouraging my kids to love learning, and then facilitating their very personal pursuit of their own dreams. It’s not an international competition demanding ever-more hours of drudgery.

So, let it snow.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Common Sense education and schooling general freedom

What Leads Us?

There’s a commercial that asks, “What leads us as a society?” And then answers, “Education.” I don’t agree. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against education (who does?), but I’ve always thought that individual freedom leads our society.

Daniel Pink, writing in Reason magazine, makes my point. “Whenever students around the world take those tests that measure which country’s children know the most, American kids invariably score near the bottom,” Pink observes. But he adds, “by almost every measure, the American economy outperforms those very same nations.”

“If we’re so dumb, how come we’re so rich?”

Well I know: it’s because Americans have been more free than other people to dream and to endeavor to make those dreams come true. So we’re more inspired. You didn’t think we were somehow born better than other people, did you?

Pink calls America the “free agent nation.” The richest man in America and the world, Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, is a college drop-out. In fact, nearly 10 percent of the Forbes 400 richest Americans never completed their college education. Four of these multi-millionaires never finished high school!

Now I have a child of my own starting college next year and I’m sure not suggesting she drop out. But I do think our kids’ futures depend less on some stupid test score, and more on the freedom they have to chase their dreams. And if you need to teach yourself something to chase that dream, you’ll do it even without a professor giving you an assignment.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.