James Drogan

From Conversations with Dave 5/15/5

First story. Our daughter was in a program for gifted students in elementary school.  She had this idea of wanting to build a more-or-less working model of a volcano.  Her mentors rejected this as being outside the boundaries of the program.  In other words, she could be gifted, but only within the bureaucracy's definition of gifted.  She declined to stay in the program when it was offered to her in junior high.

While teaching has a component to it that requires students to master the basics, real teaching comes about, I believe, when you help students discover the magic of learning.  Magic tends change boundaries.

You might be interested to know that she is comps and a dissertation away from taking a doctorate in international history.

Second story.  Our granddaughter is becoming bored with school.  She is a very good student, but finds the work unchallenging.  I also suspect that part of the problem is she has classmates that are not quite as focused and energetic as she is.  These classmates require, of course, time from the teacher.  One answer would be more funding and a lower teacher/student ratio. Another answer would be gifted/involved teachers who live and love to teach.  Another answer would be private schools.  Another answer is more involvement from her family (including here grandparents).

As she is coming to stay with us for a week in August we're thinking about the things we can do that will provide her an opportunity to explore challenging things.  She might (will?) wear us out, but we intend that she not be bored.

The following sentences in the Friedman opinion piece caught my attention: "Look at the attention Congress has focused on steroids in Major League Baseball, Mr. Barrett mused. And then look at the attention it has focused on science education in minor-league American schools."

My sense is there is a dependency chain that proceeds from education through health, the economy, foreign policy, and globalization.  Education is the basis for everything.  Yet, America's representatives relegate it somewhere down the priority list.  Existing bureaucracies create rules and regulations that hinder, not enable the learning process.  Really good teachers becomes frustrated and leave.  No Child Left Behind becomes the lowest common denominator. 

There is some very high quality education in this country.  I had a very interesting conversation on Friday night with a senior executive in the communications industry regarding a private school in Manhattan.  His daughter is eleven as I recall.  Her class deconstructed Hamlet, reassembled it in a modern dialogue, and presented it as a play.  Her homework is submitted entirely over the Internet and is accessible to her parents.  Perhaps we can't replicate what appears to me to be an exciting learning environment everywhere, but we ought to replicate it as much as possible and make it as available to as many students as possible.  I know that all students will not respond, but I think we ought to be able to provide an opportunity for every child to live up to their desires and promise. 

Why oh why can't pork barrel projects become education barrel projects?

A volcano for every child ought to be the order of the day.