Let's Fix Education / by Bruce Deitrick Price
Savvy, practical insights on where our Education Establishment went wrong and how most schools can be improved.LET'S FIX EDUCATION explains the many dysfunctional theories and methods operating within our schools. This podcast is intended for parents, teachers, and community leaders who want education reform.
Each week, LET'S FIX EDUCATION examines another problem in our public schools, such as: Constructivism. Learning styles. Sight-words. No memorization. Cooperative learning. Prior knowledge. Reform math. The dilution of knowledge. Common Core. Project-based learning. Student-centered, etc. In fact, there are DOZENS of counterproductive learning and teaching theories, all made worse by ideological motives.
Bio: Bruce Deitrick Price is a novelist, artist, and education reformer. He has analyzed the problems in education for more than 30 years. Price is the author of "Saving K-12: What happened to our public schools? How do we fix them?" (190 pages) His main education site is Improve-Education.org. For more information about book and author, visit Lit4u.com. Newest novels are "Frankie" (about a harmless robot) and "The Boy Who Saves The World" (about a boy who saves the world).
"Bruce Price’s SAVING K-12 is a MUST read! It is precise, concise and powerful. Action is required…for the sake of our children, our grandchildren and the future of the American Republic!” Robert W. Sweet, Jr., long-time President of The National Right to Read Foundation
Let's Fix Education / by Bruce Deitrick Price
Episode 168: Back To School: Don’t Let Children Be Culturally Illiterate (Wed., Sept. 18, 2024)
Episode 168: Back To School: Don’t Let Children Be Culturally Illiterate (Wed., Sept. 18, 2024)
All of education depends on starting small and building on that foundation. Our public schools have gutted the early stages where you learn the basics, also known as cultural literacy.
Demand that children learn more facts and knowledge from kindergarten onward.
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Listen to PODCAST or read TRANSCRIPT.
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For a 2-page explanation of how
everyone can help fix education,
visit Education Reform
When you need a smart gift,
give Saving K-12 .
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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.
Under construction but worth a look.)
COMING SOON: "THE BOY WHO SAVES THE WORLD"
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Let's Fix Education explains to Americans why their schools are so bad. The people in charge prefer mediocrity because they are socialists of one kind or another. If people work together to promote real education, we'll have it.
LET'S FIX EDUCATION by Bruce Deitrick Price
Episode 168: (Wed., Sept. 18, 2024)
Back To School: Don’t Let Children Be Culturally Illiterate
We hear a lot about a dictatorial Deep State. If it exists, we can be sure they want children ignorant and limited. That's what our K-12 does so well.
The first steps are not to teach much content, i.e. knowledge. Don't teach reading, don't teach math, or science, or anything. So children end up culturally illiterate, that is, they lack basic knowledge about the world, their society, their history.
Traditionally, a high school education required a foundation of general knowledge. However, our Education Establishment figured out a way to avoid providing this essential service. Thus our public schools are every year setting new records for dumbness.
The only thing more irresponsible than our public schools is the irresponsible public that puts up with these schools. Seriously, is it written in the stars that parents must let their children be dumbed-down from day one?
Our Education Establishment ignores everything they used to teach. They shamelessly declare there’s no need to teach vocabulary, multiplication tables, history, why George Washington is famous, where is Paris, what is MPH? Etc., etc., etc.
My favorite dumb question for years was, what were the two sides in the Civil War? A very popular one on the Internet now is what is 3×3×3? Try to think of questions so tremendously simple that you assume everyone has to know. But millions can't answer. That’s a quick way to show that our schools do a terrible job.
Years ago, I explored the outer limits of simplicity. I tried to come up with 100 super-easy questions. I called my test The Quizz. (100 Questions That Everyone Should Know).
The Education Establishment, be warned, is ready at all times to mock and discredit anyone who questions the nobility of dumbness. They have a way of quashing upstarts who try to make children learn. They sneer oh, our children don’t need to know that. Of course, that is all the stuff schools used to teach.
My easy questions deal with fundamental information. For example, what are diamonds and coal made of? This question. by the way, an easy way to introduce chemistry. New knowledge can usually be used as a bridge to even more new knowledge.
The Quizz is a piece de resistance on my site Improve-Education.org (which has been sidelined by a hosting company that lost control of its own software; I'm waiting for them to replace my site).
In the meantime, here are some substitutes. I made a YouTube graphic video with just 12 questions and the warning, if you don't score 12 of 12, you should consider suing your public school.
And here’s the big rule about instilling passivity and obedience. The first steps are not to teach anything substantial. Don't teach reading. Don't teach math or science or anything. An empty head seems to be the goal in so-called progressive schools.
Here are a few examples from The Quizz:
9 times 9 equals what?
Clouds are made of what?
Shakespeare wrote in which language?
A hexagon has how many sides?
How many pounds in a ton?
Napoleon ruled what country?
Name an important event that occurred during the 19th century.
If it’s winter in the northern hemisphere, in the southern hemisphere it’s what season?
Water boils at what temperature?
Non-fiction means that it’s true or that it’s false?
What is the chemical composition of water?
Now, please do not let these disingenuous pretenders tell you that most knowledge need not be acquired. Every one of these basic facts is inherently interesting. And each can be used like lego blocks to create a fuller reality.
So the message here is, teach more; make it easy for children to learn more.
Finally, here's more of The Quizz:
The Amazon flows into what body of water?
The body of water to the west of California is what?
The Pilgims came from what country?
Bats can see in the dark. True or false?
Which brothers invented the airplane?
Sharks are fish but whales are mammals. True or false?
2 to the third power equals 8, 10 or 12?
President Kennedy was killed in what city?
Name an “Old World” country.
The Taj Mahal is in what country?
The moon is one quarter, one half, or the same size as the Earth?
Name three planets besides the Earth.
See video : World’s Easiest Test
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLiPSb_w9z4&t=79s
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Here is the Quizz itself on a page floating around the Internet from my damaged site;
http://www.improve-education.org/id37.html
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From Quora, here's the most instructive anecdote ever.
The girls at the nearby table watched strangers read a map but couldn't understand it. One of these girls whispered to her friends. “They've got something like Google, but it's on paper.”
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLiPSb_w9z4&t=79s
World’s Easiest Test