think but this, and all is mended,
that you have but slumb'red here
While these visions did appear."
"A Midsummer Night's Dream V,i
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| Education in the 21st Century | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 03/20/2000 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| No matter what you think the world will be like... think again because everyday we gain new advances that alter the world for us all. Right now these advances can only get us so far because of the things that have put a choke hold on America's Education System. Heaven help us if someone tells me again that Teachers are just babysitters and or parole officers. A babysitter gets $5/hr at the most basic rates. Today's classes have 20 - 30 students. Seven hour days; 5days a week. Public schools have a 180 day school year; 36 weeks. Teachers salaries at this rate would equal from $144,000 to $189,000. Tomorrow a starting teacher would get approximately $24,500 a year. You do the math. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| There will be a major revolution in the teaching profession. Not in teaching styles or materials, but plain and simply said, a Mutiny. The world will wake up one day and the teachers and administrators will be at home behind locked doors and barricades. The youth of the world shall enjoy anarchy supreme and terrorize any adult within sight. For example... there are 8 High schools in Raleigh, with around 3,000 students each. Lets assume that there are an equal amount of Elementary and Middle schools of similar size. 72,000 hyperactive children between the ages of 5 and 18. A third of these children have access to vehicles and of the remaining children a fourth have a older siblings with access to vehicles. Malls, beaches, arcades, and McDonalds would be destroyed. Parents might be forced to quit jobs and deal with these children. The economy would be shattered. Chaos would once again tip the balance of otherwise sedated or restrained problems. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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| Once the smoke clears and the refugees (teachers) come back things will begin again. Teachers would take a firm hold and become business oriented. Money has never been the issue a simple 20% raise would have satisfied many, but now job openings are everywhere and teachers are waiting for the highest bidder. The idea is Supply and Demand. You need a whole teaching staff for your school and starting bid just went to $65,000 at the school three miles away. Professional and private these teachers would come in take control and establish a school that would be firm, efficient, and use all it's resources. Something that the education system has been thwarted at doing or at least maintaining for awhile. The Internet is taking control now and it surely will keep a firm grasp on everything we do from here on in. Classrooms will have at least 4 computers and the teacher would have a PC of his own. Schools begin to regard televisions as obsolete and install inroom projectors or network WebTV. The schools that fail to entice us fall behind and end up becoming part of the Web. A few teachers who decide to gain some extra cash start Web classes at these disappearing schools. The use of Web cameras, the internet, email, and multimedia tools available to anyone with a few computer chips and a phone line, become the basic tools of the online teacher. Tutor sessions and college equivalency classes have already been established and have been proven to work. | |
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| During our supposed "Mutiny," parents were forced to take there children's problems into there own hands. PTA becomes a demilitarized zone of the schools. Teachers are from the community and are often parents themselves, thus the hand of discipline falls to a simple few who say yes, no, and never again. Do something wrong get punished immediately and according to rules. Students as of the 20th century did not have rights while at school. Treat them like adults and use the systems of law that govern everywhere else to prosecute those that misbehave all while at school. There is no such thing as the oxymoron Juvenile Delinquent. That is a social problem that was of our own causing. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| The twenty first century brigs us a school that is run as a business. It is effective, clean cut, state of the art, and always aware of it's mission statement and objectives. No one wants or needs schools that are factories to spit out little good citizens, but hopefully individual identities with a vision, an intelligence, and the ability to survive and maintain the society that it lives in. The 21st century will hold surprises around every corner, but a little stepping stone of social upheaval will pop in and say hello a few times. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| "If we shadows have offended think but this, and all is mended, that you have but slumb'red here While these visions did appear." "A Midsummer Night's Dream V,i |
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