On 9/21/04 9:40 AM, "Jim Mork" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I tend to think may be we should be "culling" and retracking. Can someone > explain to me how that could be worse than dropping out and learning to sell > drugs?
Well, I don't know if I can explain why "culling" and retracking is worse than dropping out and selling drugs, but I can see how folks would have a problem with it. The first problem I see is the potential for abuse or misdiagnosis, for lack of a better term. Say you have a kid who's got lousy grades or struggles to earn mediocre grades. Sounds like a good candidate for a vocational program, right? What if instead, the problem was the kid had bad eyesight or a hearing loss and nobody realized it because the parents had no health care and the kid never went to a doctor? Or what if the kid had a learning disability or something along those lines that nobody realized? I think part of the problem is that much of school work is simply boring and tedious. Who actually remembers enjoying doing worksheets or answering the questions at the end of the textbook chapter when they were growing up? I know I thought it was lame. I think the better approach is to try and do more of what I think our magnet programs are intended for - give kids opportunities to figure out what they are interested in or passionate about. Then use that interest/passion as the means for teaching the basic skills we think our students should master. It shouldn't be that hard to do. Take something like clothing design. At first glance, you may not see where reading, writing and math fit in. But you could use clothing design as a basis for teaching math through something like estimating design costs or measuring how much fabric you need or estimating return on investment for a new product line. Likewise, you could teach reading/writing through preparing design proposals or promotional materials, etc. You can even teach science through exploring something like how natural fabrics are grown and how synthetic fabrics are made and how dyes work and such. I think something like this could be done for a variety of possible careers, whether vocational or college-track. Some may be fairly detailed towards a specific career, others may be more general towards an area of study. But I think the key thing is not to lock any student into some particular track. Today's wannabe clothing designer can very well end up being tomorrow's accountant, chemist or advertising executive. Mark Snyder Windom Park REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
