Thursday Musings

Blonde's don't have more fun, but having an American accent sure gets a lot of attention. Hmmm.

I got asked today if I celebrate the fourth of July. I don't know if it is worse than the "journalist chap" I met last summer who honestly believed Canada was a state of the U.S. What are they trying to teach kids in the schools over here? You'd think that because once upon a time the British had a gigantic empire and that at least they would want to educate their flock about what was once or "could have been" rightfully theirs. But nope, geography is not on Cameron's list of priorities...unless it involves fracking - then you you have his full attention.

Rant coming.

Now that I've started on the topic of education, I've begun to explore the (to me) foreign concept of institutionalized education - which is mostly all education these days (see Sir Ken Robinson's Education Paradigm on Youtube). Is the school system even teaching children anymore or just another name for daycare and filling quotas so that people have jobs? Too bad it is unrealistic and not cost effective to have qualified parents getting paid to teach their own offspring - not when you can pay one qualified parent (or non parent) £9 an hour (I might be very generous here) to educate a class of 25 kids all at once (with the help of 1-2 terribly paid TA's). Basic math = that's £0.36 per kid per hour. How are they supposed to receive quality education?
As a kid, I didn't understand the concept of homework. My family took care of this five year old after her kindergarten on some days and she had learnt nothing at school. Her teacher sent her home with "homework" for her mother to teach her how to read. My eleven year old sister at the time taught this five year old how to multiply and read! What was the point of going to school if she wasn't learning there but expected to learn at home anyways? It seriously perplexed me.
And because I'm considering a career in teaching, because I celebrate learning, I don't want to become a paper-pusher or filling quota's. Maybe I would make a better tutor or university professor? But then that is only for elite. A child's brain is a sponge and should be properly exercised.