Chapter 5 Book Study

Page 70
Quote: "Homeschooling goes against the spirit that moved Horace Mann and his colleagues to advocate universal schooling in order to integrate people from diverse cultures to share common knowledge and values."

I approve of homeschooling for certain people. However, students who are homeschooled do miss out on diversity. Unless their house has a mother from Germany, a father from Australia, a daughter from Honduras, and a brother from Russia, the student is deprived of natural diversity that occurs in schools all across the United States. There is also the pressure on the parents/guardians to provide a diverse culture to their child/student so that they can be prepared to have the same common knowledge and values, and not hit a huge culture shock when they enter out into the real world. However, I went to public school, and when I came to college, I was in a huge culture shock because I really wasn't introduced to much diversity. With that said, if homeschooling can provide a more diverse outlook on education, instead of a school where everyone is either black or white, and there are no differences, then homeschooling accomplishes was Mann and his colleagues were hoping for.


Page 71
Quote: "Workplace learning has been rapidly expanding over the last 25 years as companies and the public sector have realized they need to continually re-educate their workers to handle complex equipment and solve novel problems."

I found this quote meaningful because I agree with it. However, maybe this is just my teacher bias, but I have found that life is never-ending learning. So it is no surprise to me that companies have to reeducate their employees. They should be learning along with the changing of the times, similar to schools. However, I do sympathize on employees having to learn how to operate more complex equipment. For a teacher, or a factory employee, who went to school with books instead of tablets and iPads and now has to learn all of this technology, it is like going back to kindergarten and having to learn the basics all over again, just this time, it's in a foreign technological language.

Page 74
Quote: "The military has spent billions of dollars developing simulations that put learners into virtual worlds where they practice the skills they will need to carry out their jobs."

I have to laugh when I read this quote because the military spends billions of dollars for them to play games to prepare them for "real-life combat." Yet, our education system is so far behind. We're spending billions of dollars, too, but we're not preparing our students with the skills they will need to carry out their jobs in their futures. If we were, we would be spending money on technology, and following up on technology as it evolves so our students can evolve with it, too! Our military is one of the best of the world. Maybe we should take a hint from the military, and have our kids play games that will prepare them for their future jobs and careers. These games don't prepare them for being blown up; however, they know the technological skills necessary to not get blown up. Our students are still using only age-old computers and calculators, and schools are just starting to introduce the SMART Board; however, once they get out into the real-world, they are going to be blown away with the fact that they have to go back to school in order to learn the technology necessary for their careers.