March 2022 – The Afterclap

Who’s Responsible for The United States K-12 Education System?

Thoughts and Opinion

Another “A Nation STILL At Risk” entry.

Who’s Responsible for The United States K-12 Education System?

The short answer: Every Adult.

Because it is unreasonable and illogical to hold children responsible for the K-12 Education system.

And if Marion and Howard Brady are correct, the world is an interconnected system of systems. All revolving or emanating out of learning.

Our modern K-12 Education System

Our K-12 Education system is designed to; Build upon the parent or designated proxy work, who taught and prepared their children for formal learning, including continuous parental support from birth through high school graduation.

It is also a system designed by a government dominated by elected political faction leaders to leave your child behind:

1. When parents fail to prepare and support their children’s formal learning.

2. When the children’s learning speed is incapable of keeping up with the state-mandated assembly-line pace.

3. Where teachers have no control over the State mandated expectations.

4. Where some education and political leaders are too cowardly; or ignorant; of the State designed system to inform parents of the negative results in a transparent manner. And,

5. By losing learning opportunities through the stereotypical concept of age group promotion.

It is also a system designed:

To fail new teachers through the absence of an efficient new teacher professional development program. Unlike the old Guild system with an apprentice program, recent college graduates or adults transitioning into the profession are given the same responsibilities as the masters-of-their profession without a functional apprentice program. Yes, some colleges use an embedded K-12 school program for their student’s soon-to-be teachers. However, anecdotal evidence and the number of new teachers leaving the field within the first five years during normalcy show a failed preparation of new teachers at college alone.

After college, we need a process that includes two or more years as an apprentice plus two or more years of mentoring; Working in the field with master teachers.

Why? When we fail our teachers, we fail ourselves.

And when we compare ourselves to the other stumbling systems around the world, we appear to be excellent.

In Retrospect

While studying the field of education, I became more thankful for teachers’ heroic efforts to overcome a government-designed system of failure. Bracketed between a human-sized blender on puree and a mammoth woodchipper at capacity. Where teachers metaphorically:

1. Brave the fire.

2. Function as inflight-learning-missile mechanics. *

3. And suffer abuse spewed by some educational leaders, politicians, and others who appear to have forgotten the purpose of our schools: teaching and learning.

QUESTIONS:

If parents always know what is best for their child, wouldn’t that also mean they know all the instructional strategies used in the classroom?

Doesn’t someone have to know what is best to know what’s best?

However, I suspect most parents know their children need an excellent level of learning during the K-12 years. Yet, how many parents were told they were responsible for preparing their children for a formal learning environment and supporting them through high school graduation using their Academic Parenting skills? The skills parents should have learned during their birth through high school graduation year and beyond because children don’t come with instruction manuals.

* The short definition of who qualifies as an inflight-learning-missile mechanic; A teacher who has the skills to change instructional strategy during instruction to reach and engage more students. By using one or more of the thirty-plus instructional strategies, a master teacher may have in their professional instructional toolbox.