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sad commentary on Amurca
I need to share this anecdote. ?I was reminded of it by the map in mominatrix's bio.
I had to attend a primary school class for a paper I'm writing. ?So I went to a Montessori school (I'm a total convert, btw). ?They watched a video on pennies for peace, then the older kids excitedly ran off to do research on Pakistan and Afghanistan. ?They drew the flags, wrote reports, etc. ?Oh, and the biggest display in the room was on Africa, their focus for the year.
Contrast that with a conventional public school I attended. ?The class was taught by a friend of mine, so I asked her a few questions. ?The first thing I asked about was the globe I saw. ?It was at least 20 years old. ?I first noticed Burma and was wondering if they'd stopped putting Myanmar since Bush refuses to call it that. ?Nope, USSR and Yugoslavia were there, too. ?So, this friend said her pull down maps were exactly the same. ?But, then, "It doesn't really matter. ?1st graders only need to know where America is."
!!!! ?Speechless.
Re: sad commentary on Amurca
Were you at my elementary school?
J/k... I actually had pretty good teachers, but I can imagine that coming out of the district I went to.
FWIW, I went to a Montessouri school for part of elementary school, and it was awesome.
It could have been my elementary school too. My seventh grade teacher gave me an "F" and sent me to the principal's office because when assigned to write a paper on an area of the world where there is conflict I wrote about Chiapas.
She had never heard of it, and rather than look it up, she yelled at me for making the entire thing up and turning it into a "creative writing assignment."
Whoa.
You've got to be kidding me. I've never heard of it either, but I'd at least have the good sense to know I was right before doing something like that. Did they principal know about it? What happened?
The principal was a nun, and she hadn't heard about it either.
So they scheduled a meeting with my parents, and I brought in the last week's worth of the Chicago Tribune, which referenced the conflict, sometimes on the front page. The teacher was embarassed and had to rescind the "F", but she hated me for the rest of the year and would go out of her way criticize my work in front of the entire class or make fun of me for knowing stuff. She was a real peach.
Wow.
Well, if I had any doubts about whether to sent sst to Montessori school or public school, I sure don't now!
We are lucky to have really good public schools in our area (one of the best school districts in the state) but that is becuase Orange County has $$$$$$$$$$$$$. So I was lucky to be able to get a good education in public school. The state of our public schools in some areas is just disguisting though. SO sad that teachers honestly think that 1st graders dont need to know where any country other than America is.
I LOVE Montessori schools though, and I am positive that my children will at least attend them for pre-school. (Especially since most of the other preschools in this area are religious)