How About Some Solutions?

I have often heard from time to time, about exceptional teachers who seem to
be able to make the learning experience enjoyable. It just seems to me,
that we should be able to replicate that so more teachers can do the same
thing. I am not sure how to do that, but there must be a way. Any ideas?

California Poppy...

Jerry, when I was a principal and teacher, I used to just wish the
parents would send their children to school after a good night's sleep
and with a decent breakfast. Children have TV's and phones in their
room and are often up most of the night chatting with friends. So, I
think parents need to get the TV's, phones and computers out of the
children's bedrooms and into a central location where parents can
monitor what goes on.

Jerry Okamura...

I would think your phone idea is not going to work in this age of cell
phones.

Indoarsman...

Get them into the habit of borrowing interesting books and magazines
from the public library.

I have argued for a long time that if we are really serious about getting
more of our children a good education, we need to get the parents/caregivers
of these children to put the education of those under their care at the top
or near the top of their list of priorities. The trick of course is, how to
do that. I am not sure what the downside of my recommendations would be,
but let me plow ahead anyway. Why can't we encourage more parental
involvement in the schools, but having parents volunteer their time for
special events, more often? Why can't parents of different cultures be
organized to present special events that showcase their cultural
backgrounds, every school year? It would seem to me that accomplishes two
things at the same time. One, it provides the children with a change of
pace, a learning experience, and adds some fun to the experience. The
second it shows the children that their parents are really interested in
their education.

In this computer age, why can't any parent know exactly what is happening
with their children in school, via our internet connection, or some other
communication means? Why can't any parent know when their child is not
present in school (apparently a problem when the parents are working), how
they are doing in school, what kind of problems they may be having, etc.?

It jsut seems to me, that the opportunites to learn are just a whole lot
more numerous, than when you and I were going to school. There is the
Internet, which many of us use often to reasearch what we are interested in.
There are TV outlets, like the History and Science Channel. Why can't that
be expanded to include even more subject matters? Wouldn't it be nice, if I
could lean about any subject matter via the internet? So, for instance, if
I really wanted to learn about global warming I could surf the web, and know
what the arguments in suppport of the theory are, and what the counter
arguments are. Or if I wanted to learn about any historical event, or any
other area of interest, I could do my research on the web.

I think we spend way too much time arguing about what is wrong with the
system, and so very little of our time, trying to figure out solutions to
the perceived problem, that would actually work. Maybe if we spent much
more time thinking of solutions, we could actually make a difference.