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SEATTLE, WA — I wish that we on the front lines were able to draw from public funds and public support to be able to help our students navigate through the unhealthy world that assails them daily. And that the education system could be more loving and patient, more compassionate by offering multiple pathways for students to feel wanted and competent—where they find and make meaning in their lives, where the educational material offered to them allows them to begin immediately to feel competent and to see their lives have meaning.
Accessible education that makes sense and addresses the underlying needs of our students is needed more than ever. To focus on standardized testing and improvement points, or whatever they are called, that our funding is now based on, using curriculum that is so far removed from the actual lives and needs of students is not going to help heal the foundational needs/wounds that are going unmet in a world run by the masters of for-profit enterprise.
How about getting students to question and consider the real problems in their lives that keep them from personal success? I know we have to deal with what we’ve got, but, one example of an immediate problem in our students’ lives is this Pearson GED and, in K12, the Common Core curriculum and testing. This is holding back a lot of students from achieving success. Even one of my long term tutors, a former engineer, who has been really good at rolling with the punches in our ABE/GED programs, and has written hand outs to help with the new math GED, because, as he reminds me, “we have to do this thing,” rolls his eyes at some of the social ttudies questions he is called upon by students for help, when he is not doing math with other students.
These corporate created educational methods and content could be what is holding back a lot of students from achieving success. This educational system creates another way in this society in which people feel hopelessness and their frustration that can erupt in detrimental ways. Are human beings being molded to fit into a dis-eased society or can a disturbed society be molded into a healthy one?
You can reach the author at marcialeister@fastmail.com/
