What is the point of this article?
I regularly read the progressive online magazine Salon. Lately the quality of the writing seems to be declining. There are too many articles on pop culture for my taste. Some of the articles are nothing but liberal rants. I welcome the liberalism, but I can rant just as well as the articles.
There have also been a lot of articles that I simply can’t make sense of, like this one The article is taken from another Web site, but it is typical of a lot of the articles I have been seeing lately on Salon. It contains footnotes, which makes the complex mess even funnier.
What exactly is the author’s gripe with the current education system? Not that there is not a lot to gripe about, but what specifically is the article complaining about? Is there something simple that I am missing? It cracked me up when, at one point the article says “to be clear,” and then continues with what strikes me as more gobblygook.
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I agree that it is a long-winded bit of complaining without any recommendation. There are some good points raised, that much of educational evaluation is self-referential, but there is no discussion of a constructive alternative.
Sounds like an educational scholar that likes hearing himself opine.
I agree.
The main point is that we do not have an answer for what is the basic purpose of the school system and that, without such, we have no idea what goal we are striving to reach; without this basic information we cannot determine success and failure let alone argue why one method is better than another.
The rest is just lipstick on a pig.
It is similar to trying to grasp the US government budget, everyone has a different opinion as to what is included, no one has any idea exactly how much is spent or where, and everyone has an opinion on what should be cut without really knowing what the big ticket items are (again, depending on who/what you read, it varies) and why what budgets we do know actually pay for.
@whitenoise Thanks, I enjoyed your link. I think it is actually saying something similar but in a much more understandable form.
@whitenoise , Thanks for the link. The clarity of the talk contrasts sharply with the article. It does a pretty good job of explaining why our education system is outdated and why the so called reform movement is just an intensification of everything that is wrong with the current system.
I got hinted to that clip based on a talk by sir Ken Robinson, by one of my students a couple of years back.
Always liked it.
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