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Education
What's the Concern?
 In
America, the most important opportunity for an individual is education. When
women achieved educational opportunities designed to close the gap, the case
for equal economic and political power was supposed to be made. As a result,
however, everyone was challenged. Because successful schooling is so critical
and everyone is involved, it is the battleground for differences. We are not
only responsible for educating ourselves; a major responsibility for women in
families has always been managing the education of the children.
Parents, teachers, students and the tax-paying general public hold very
different views about schooling. Therefore, the messages to legislators who set the standards and give out the
tax dollars are politically confusing.
Parents' View of School
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- How do I know that my child goes to a good school?
- How early should a child go to school?
- How can my child with serious problems get the right schooling?
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Teachers' View of School
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- Should all children learn the same things?
- Can all children really learn at high levels?
- Who has the right to decide what a child should know?
- What if I don't know enough to teach the required subject matter?
- What if I would rather teach something else that I know better?
- How can I control a classroom when some of the students don't want to learn?
- How can I tell which children are behaving badly and which have serious learning problems?
- How can I help children when we don't have books, paper, or a safe building?
- How do I teach children whose parents cannot or will not help their children?
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Students' View of School
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- Why doesn't the teacher understand me? Why is the class going too slow or too fast?
- Why is it boring? Why do I have to learn this?
- Why do they tease me when I like books? Why don't I have friends?
- Why do they let other children make me miserable? Why do they hurt me?
- Why don't my parents understand about my school?
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We are all taxpayers and some of us
are voters and government office holders. Therefore, we are part
of the process of deciding what happens in school and what kind
of education children can and do get. Problems exist because the
three views of school and learning seldom come together.
Mostly they compete for the voters' attention and voters decide
on answers to the questions by choosing legislators who decide on
standards and rules and tax dollars. |
In public decision making more questions
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- Am I responsible for the education of children whose parents don't participate in their children's education? Whether they can't help or won't help - what difference does it make to me?
- Why should I support a school or system that teaches things I don't want my child to learn?
- I don't want children with serious disabilities or behavior problems in the classroom with my child. It takes away from learning time.
- I don't have children. Why should I pay for other people's children?
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