The Sunday Education Weekly Reader: 10.16.11

Welcome to the Sunday Education Weekly Reader for 10.16.11. This week features the math that is being taught in some classrooms with disastrous results and wasted time, the importance of teaching your children how government works, a letter to the OWS supporters, and a clever (and insightful?) 3 year old British child.

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Here's a youtube video of unintended consequences of math curriculum that hinders children, rather than help them. Fortunately, the parents have worked with this young girl so she understands math. If she relied on what she learned in school, it would have been a waste of her time and resulted in a wrong answer. This is a fascinating look at what public education is teaching some children in math.

It's no wonder our children are not STEM ready.

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Another issue in our radar this week are the DESE social studies standards and our amazement that students are not being taught they live in a republic vs a democracy. Children need to learn words do matter and so an understanding of society vs state is critical as well.

Teach your Children How Government Works from the Classic Liberal is an important civics lesson they probably won't learn in school today.

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An education for the OWS protestors from Judge Napalitano in the form of a letter.

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Here is a story from Britain about a 3-year old who escapes the first day of nursery school undetected, crosses a busy street unscathed, and returns home to a very surprised mother.

"I'm Not Staying Here!" declared the child. Why did he want to go home? What would you do with a child who escaped institutionalized education for 3 year olds? Would you take him back to class or determine if the child was better off home?

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Education thought for the week:

Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.
C. S. Lewis