Comments about ‘One way to make schools better: Help kids feel safe and respected’

Help kids feel respected? When I was in public school in Utah, I remember standing with my classmates, our arms extended for most of the class period, while the teacher waited for a confession from whomever was responsible for some mischief that had occurred.

"Respect" is earned, even in childhood. Is is not automatic and should not be automatic. Children need to be taught "how to" become respected. And part of that "how to" is by showing the teachers and adiminstrators the respect you think you should have.

Where it matters, I'd bet the educational approaches between Singapore and Finland aren't different.

By this I mean that when either country offers a class in a subject the curriculum has quality material. I'd bet the math classes in either country start with the easy problems and then the medium problems and then difficult problems. I'd bet that in either country, students do proofs of the math theorems and formulas so they know how math is developed and justified.

In contrast, here it isn't uncommon for students to top out at easier medium level problems and then just to be handed formulas with no proof, therefore students have no idea where they came from.

How is it that no matter how they try, American educators just can't get at the heart of what our problems are? For one reason they are poorly educated. My son is majoring in math education, he has to take a gaggle of education classes, which means there classes in many other subjects he won't be taking. He tells me it is accepted knowledge among students that the education classes are mostly just filler, not much substance to them.