Number ONE --- What school did you go to to learn to take your first step? What school taught you to say your first word?
Children are miraculous little learning engines. They are learning all the time. It is up to us to see that what they learn is pertinent, will give them the skills to succeed, and make them better citizens. All they need is opportunity, motivation, and guidance. Without those, all the money in the world can be thrown at the problem without ever achieving the desired results.
Number TWO --- Schools are NOT factories, classrooms are NOT assembly lines, students are NOT widgets carried along on a conveyor with each teacher / assembly line worker bolting on another part to build a finished product. Then, why does the system continue to have teachers teach single grades? Give them less than a year to get to know their students and guide them and motivate them?
What business could hope to grow and succeed if the owner let go of his entire staff every year and started over from scratch? When you consider this, it's a wonder our schools do as well as they have.
This is NOT a new or original idea. It just sounds like it cuz so few people have thought of it.
The one room schoolhouse with a good, dedicated teacher was in many ways an artist's studio where students could be molded with craftsmanship. Many of the "Greatest Generation" were products of that system. Pick up a history book and you'll see the greatness they achieved after coming out of that archaic system.
