Category Archives: Education

I Am Passionate About Education

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Education

I’ve always been a news junkie. I watched news shows at breakfast, listened to talk radio at lunch and watched evening news shows as often as I could. What I was most interested in was political news and when I couldn’t watch or listen, I read it on the internet.
 
My political views don’t really match up with the political views of most of the people I know. I’m not a Republican or a Democrat, I’m a Libertarian. I didn’t vote for the current occupant of the White House and I didn’t vote for the previous occupant either. I don’t think either party listens to what the people want anymore.
 
So I’ve decided to become a political dropout. Nothing is going to change on the national level. I’m not even sure things will change on the state level, I don’t think the legislators in Columbia are listening to any of us either.
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First Elementary School of Engineering in South Carolina Opening in Fall 2010

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Education

Greenville County Schools will open the doors of A.J. Whittenberg Elementary School in August as the first elementary school in South Carolina with a school-wide engineering curriculum. The instructional program is centered on engineering processes, real-world skills and technology, and various engineering fields of study.

A. J. Whittenberg will be the most technologically advanced elementary school in Greenville County.  As a LEED- certified building, the school facility, itself, will serve as a learning laboratory with engineering labs visible from the interior and exterior, a “green” roof, and solar energy panels to study how the sun generates electricity.
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Why Boys Fail (Book Review)

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A few weeks ago I blogged about a book titled “Why Boys Fail.” It’s an interesting read. I have a kindergarten-aged son and I’ve seen some of the same things happening in his classroom that Richard Whitmire writes about.

In the introduction he writes about a small school in New Mexico where half the boys were labeled as “special education.” I find that disturbing and Whitmire does also.

“When I looked at these boys they didn’t seem like special education students.” ~Paul Ortiz, teacher

My son’s kindergarten had 16 boys in his class and the teacher labeled eight of them as trouble-makers. (TJ was included in that group.) That mis-characterization became a real problem for our family and we eventually made the hard decision to pull him out and home school for the rest of the year.

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Why Boys Fail

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I was just turned on to a new book titled “Why Boys Fail: Saving Our Sons from an Educational System That’s Leaving Them Behind” by this article in the NY Times. I’m downloading the Kindle version to my iPod so I have it with me wherever I go. Based on what I’ve read so far, it should be required reading for every school teacher and school administrator.

My son struggled in a public Kindergarten classroom because of his teacher’s bias against boys. On several occasions he came home from school with a “red card” because he acted out in a way his teacher considered inappropriate. When he told me what he did, I laughed because my view was that he was just being a boy.
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Nanny State and mental health screenings

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Education

The creeping incrementalism of the Nanny State strikes again.

They’re coming to take you away

Here’s a new question that more and more parents are going to have to answer? Should I allow my child’s high school to screen him for mental health problems? Your federal tax dollars are funding pilot studies that conduct mental health screenings (TeenScreen) to detect problems that might lead to suicide or other violence. Among the questions the students answer: “How often have you felt sad or depressed? Have you often felt grouchy or irritable? Have you thought seriously about killing yourself?”

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