

The only thing Laura Ingalls would recognize is the American classroom. - edw519
http://www.slate.com/id/2269307/

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wccrawford
And the houses. And the farms. Are you suggesting we should replace those,
too?

Change for the sake of change is -not- good.

I get that this article is asking for ways to update education, but the reason
behind the question is wrong.

~~~
zbanks
Agreed. Using Laura Ingles is completely arbitrary. What if you brought one of
the first humans on North America around? What if you brought someone from 100
years ago?

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WalterBright
Let's face it, what works is a teacher with a blackboard and a room of
students at desks. Nothing else has ever produced better results. I see
constant attempts to take the effort out of teaching and learning, and they
all fail.

Learning is like exercise. If you want to get strong, there are no shortcuts,
you have to work at it. The same with learning.

~~~
crpatino
Facts strongly disagree with you.

Research has shown time and time again that almost everything beats the old
teacher lecturing the class full of pupils at their desks. The problem is that
none of these are ever implemented because

1\. Lobbies of unionized unfireable teachers refuse to be told how to do their
jobs.

2\. School boards on ever shortening budgets rely on cramming even more
students in the same old class as de-facto cost control tactic.

3\. There's actually very good money to be made in substandard educational
supplies.

p.s. And you are wrong about exercise too. While it is truth that it is not
possible to get any results without breaking a sweat, exercises themselves
have changed over time. It is now possible to achieve your goals in less time
with less risk to injure yourself by hiring an instructor than trying to
blindly emulate what you were taught a couple decades ago in high school.

