Education continues to be regular fodder for the editorial pages. Yesterday’s Philadelphia Inquirer carried an opinion piece by Walt Gardner, a long-time teacher in the Los Angeles School District. It is validating to hear from others who believe that a one-size-fits-all education does an injustice to our communities and to our students.
Certainly, many kids are well-served by their education, but there are also many who are under-served - gifted children who are bored by scripted, lock-step reading programs as well as artistically talented ones who attend schools where one art teacher or one music teacher serve over 500 students.
It would be wonderful to see a focus on multiple intelligences take its rightful place among educational policies. Nurturing students’ gifts and affinities will provide benefits long after the school year has ended. Instead, we (the collective we) have accepted the existence of an assembly-line model that seeks to turn students out like so many identical widgets. The skills required for success in many schools are not the skills required for post-graduate success – Ready or Not, Here Life Comes is an interesting read on this subject.
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