K-12: Nothing Taught. Nothing Learned. (Episode 141: Wed., March 13, 2024)

K-12:  Nothing Taught. Nothing Learned.

(Episode 141     Wed., March 13, 2024)

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Here’s the premise:   K-12 is best understood as a hoax. 

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(This podcast is short because there are 4 supplemental articles
 that reinforce the main points:)

1)  Why Communists love a good con?
Because they are determined to destroy US.

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2)   Sight-words are a con?? Of course. 
See Episode 123

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3)   A Letter From the Trenches: Parent Describes K-12 Dystopia 

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/12/

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4)   Rita Kramer explains how ed schools became subverted by guess-who.
https://twitter.com/educatt/status/1764128871065018650

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Podcasts are presented as voice and print  (i.e., TRANSCRIPT)

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Here are two ways to help….
When you need a smart gift, give Saving K-12 .

Visit Support Education Reform 
for a 2-page explanation
of what we can do.

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Word-Wise Education
757-455-5020
Bruce Deitrick Price

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Bio: Bruce Deitrick Price is a novelist, artist, poet, and education reformer.
(For a list of literary titles, visit Lit4u.com. 
Still under construction but worth a look.)

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RE: the episode graphic. K-12 is a magic act
that makes education disappear.
.
.........

LET'S FIX EDUCATION:  OVERVIEW

 Recurring themes. Big ideas. Unifying concepts.

Transcript

LET'S FIX EDUCATION       by     Bruce Deitrick Price

Episode 141     Wed., March 13, 2024

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K-12: Nothing Taught.  Nothing Learned.

Here is the shocking thing about modern educational theories and methods. Big gains are promised. Minimal results are considered normal. 

Imagine people with a daily diet of weeds and pond water. There's nothing to look forward to, nothing nutritious or tasty. Well, there is your exact parallel with K-12 education. Can we fix that?

We have a super-rich school system with lots of facilities, computers, people, etc. It should not be possible that students learn next to nothing. But if that happens, there are only two explanations. The people in charge are incompetent (and should be replaced). Or they are saboteurs (and should be indicted.)

Educational failure should be rare because:

1) Even ordinary children have good memories. Parents are often surprised that their eight-year-old knows the names of a half-dozen dinosaurs (or equivalent feats).

2) There are 1000s of simple things that most children can easily understand. Start there. (If a subject is difficult, wait another year.)

3) There are now, as never before in history, an extraordinary array of teaching aids, e.g., all the material on the Internet, such as a billion videos on YouTube; all the cinematic material created by Hollywood; all the digital reconstructions of historical events; all the wonderful models of machines and processes.

4) Children are typically curious and optimistic. If something interesting is presented in an interesting way, children will be interested.

5) Furthermore, Americans from the start emphasized education, constantly experimenting with new ideas but constantly coming back to the basics: reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, history, science, and literature. Do what works.

QED: All of the above proves American educrats have little interest in education as historically understood. Either these pretenders are bribed to be incompetent, or ideology drives them to be anti-education. 

The collapse of American K-12 is so blatant that only a hired PR firm could have anything good to say. I urge the world to be coldly objective. Study the landscape of American K-12 and you won’t find one good idea. The actual M.O. of our professors is to invent counterintuitive theories and then to confect endless jargon and confusion, so that no one can figure what is going on.

(For example, consider the horribly wasteful, 100-year war against phonics, conducted by ideologues who knew all along that phonics is superior. Consider the 60-year war against direct instruction, conducted by extremists who knew all along that explaining things directly to beginners is often the best way to go. Consider the insane war against elementary, arithmetic; if you don't teach that, everything stalls. Consider the bizarre campaign to demonize memorization even as students always do better if they have lots of basic information in their brains..)

I like condensing things to the essentials. Here are two features that all early education materials should possess: they are easy and fun. Our Education Establishment has no ability in either direction. Our schools are full of gimmicks that confuse or embitter children from day one. That's how you know the people in charge are malevolent. K-12 is largely a hoax. We can do so much better.

Here is perhaps the most critical education insight of all. If nobody tells you something, you don't know it. There are 1000s of simple things that children need to be told starting on day one. How many quarts are in a gallon? How many eggs are in a dozen? How many inches in a yard? What are the colors in the rainbow? Why are highways called interstates? Give children the basic information that defines the world they live in. Children need to know so much just to move confidently in the modern world.

Please find points in this article that you like; discuss them with others; figure for yourself what the truth has to be. Spread the word. 

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Podcasts are presented as voice and print  (i.e., TRANSCRIPT)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here are two ways to help….

Give Saving K-12 when
a smart gift is appropriate.

Visit Support Education Reform  
for a 2-page explanation 
of what we need to do.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Word-Wise Education
757-455-5020
Bruce Deitrick Price

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