Public Education - Response to #7

Comment by SydTheSkeptic on March 14, 2010 at 9:26pm

Reading, writing, arithmetic- just the basics. The rest is up to parents.

Thanks so much for doing this Ruth!!

Comment by JustAnotherUserName on March 14, 2010 at 9:38pm

I should say that I mean the elementary years...obviously their world expands as they get older and their education should as well...but I've just seen too many kids get out without basic skills.

Comment by NatureJunkie on March 15, 2010 at 4:04pm

Working in higher education myself where I see WAY too many college freshman who are deficient in the basic skills of reading, writing, and math, I agree that a goal of public education should be making these skills the foundation of all other learning.

But I don't agree that public education should stop at the basics. The sciences, the arts, history, philosophy---these aren't educational frills. This is the body of human knowledge and a public-educated citizen has as much of a stake in it as more privileged citizens who can buy a quality education. And while I agree that religion and character development should be the domain of parental guidance, I think that understanding sex should be taught in biology courses beginning at puberty. Reproduction is one of the most fundamental processes of nature and civilization, and it seems irresponsible not to educate people of reproductive age about it. Why should any area of science be relegated to home teaching?

Comment by JustAnotherUserName on March 15, 2010 at 8:58pm

You go girl! Everything you say is right on...it is a broad subject difficult to respond to in 2 minutes!

There are more things I would include in "basics," but I stand by my statement that too many kids are moving forward without fundamental reading and writing skills. Just today at work, we all had a laugh at a letter we received from an insurance company so replete with spelling and grammatical errors it was almost not understandable.

Anyway...like I said..don't hurt me :-) !

Comment by NatureJunkie on March 17, 2010 at 1:08am

Don'tcha worry none, Ruth. We agree far more than we disagree.

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