It is ironic that she is condemning an institution which made it possible for her to write so well and be able to think so originally and creatively.
Perhaps she has forgotten, or is unaware, that without the schooling she received, without the need to complete those assignments, or prepare for those tests, she would hardly have been so motivated for the future and full of passion because whatever she might say, she knows very well that the education she has received has given her so much and will allow her so many more opportunities.
She does however forget to mention how her visionary education could be? What do we do, not teach kids maths? not teach them the thermodynamic laws which personally I have forgotten but have a vague recollection of them, not teach students of biology, history, geography? Does she suppose that a seven year old, ten, 12, 14, 16, year old can so freely be creative without knowing anything whatever of the facts. Should such student be allowed to imagine what our history was, or how our biology works so that he can be "creative". Does she actually know what to be creative is?
Whatever might be wrong with out educational system, unfortunately some things are basic and simply must be learned. We simply need to teach our kids to read, to do maths, physics, biology, history, art, music, sport, literature. Not simply let them imagine how it could be but yes make them memorise the facts, make them learn the fact. You might forget them the next month, but in the long run you learn the basics of each of these fields. You learn you have a heart and other organs and an immune system and the basic of history, lit, etc.
It is fine to simply shout foul, and for the top in the class that is their past hobby, impatient with themselves, believing themselves to be leaders when they so immature still, but we have been teaching for more than two millennia. You can not simply discredit all this experience with some rhetoric.
As for the creative part, that happens in university. If you did not learn the basics that are taught in primary school, and then on advance, you hardly would be able to independently arrive at this stage of creativity in a meaningful way, that is to gather the facts, learn them, understand them, understand how they relate, synthesise them together, and come up with suggestions as to how things can be improved.
But by all means throw stones as long as your house is not made of glass.
"We have been teaching for two millenia" is no way to defend an educational system that developed during the industrial age. The Montessori method was published in 1912, and experience has shown its effectiveness. It is our current public education system, not its critics, that ignores experience.
The nearest public Montessori school to me has a waiting list larger than its student body. As a result, I'm sending my kids to private school and making lots of sacrifices to do it.
I don't want to say about my kids, "As for the creative part, that happens in university."
It wasn't the Montessori system that put men on the moon. I'm pretty sure it was bright young men sitting in high school math classes, learning to use their slide rules and practicing integration until they got it perfect, then going on to engineering school where they learned even more complex mathematics and physics. Have you ever looked at a math or physics book from the 50s? They lack the full-color illustrations, story problems, and "extra activities" of a modern high school text, yet somehow generations of mathematicians, physicists, and engineers mastered the techniques.
Speculate about the moon landing all you want, but a lot of successful people, Google founders included, credit Montessori education as helpful to their success.
The institution she is condemning is not necessarily responsible for her talent in writing. It is entirely possible to learn facts outside of the modern school system, and many students learn outside of the classroom by pursuing their own interests.
The real issue here is that the modern American school system is not designed to facilitate learning and growth, but rather it is designed to act as a daycare that produces consumer-workers.
Yes, we need to teach children to recall certain facts and apply various algorithms. The great thing about imagination, though, is that we can dream of a world where we are taught these things without being trained to submit to authority or be swallowed up by an organization.
I think her point is that learning the basics that are taught in primary school hardly necessitates being molded to fit within an industrial-age corporation
How can you control a class of twenty students without some sort of authority and without requiring some sort of submission?
I realised what she said perhaps at a younger time than her age, maybe when I was 14, but as I have grown I have come to realise that I do owe much to that very system towards which I shared her feelings. Indeed perhaps it was because of that institution that I was able to even think such thoughts, and have such realisation and gain such understanding about such a great picture as an entire institution.
We should indeed find ways to improve our schools and perhaps even find such ways in this big picture scale. But you can not simply condemn this institution through some rhetoric. She says nothing specific and hardly offers any suggestions seeing as she is fresh from this institution and would perhaps know better than more how things can be improved.
And I submit, that she is unaware that she owes so much to that institution and that institution has offer her so much. She might not like it, but I doubt she could suggest that she is not the better for it.
Also, I do not think students are robots. They have plenty of freedom. Two weeks holidays every six weeks of teaching, six weeks summer holidays, then they have literature where they can be as creative as they like, and arts, and music, and sport, and plenty of afternoon free time. They hardly can be uncritical, but they do as they must learn that criticism, however truthful, has a price, especially if aimed at the powerful, i.e, teachers.
Unfortunately, there is no other way but to teach kids maths, how to read, biology, history, the facts and make them memorise them. If they don't remember the specifics, then their memory would improve, which I think correlates highly with intelligence, especially working memory, and they will learn plenty of other things, such as to see the bigger picture as she has. I doubt that without those literature classes she would have been able to, or without those history classes, or...
She writes well because of her DNA. Both directly (because of her brain itself) and indirectly (because she's innately curious and was hence driven to seek intellectual stimulation just as a beaver builds a dam).
Perhaps she has forgotten, or is unaware, that without the schooling she received, without the need to complete those assignments, or prepare for those tests, she would hardly have been so motivated for the future and full of passion because whatever she might say, she knows very well that the education she has received has given her so much and will allow her so many more opportunities.
She does however forget to mention how her visionary education could be? What do we do, not teach kids maths? not teach them the thermodynamic laws which personally I have forgotten but have a vague recollection of them, not teach students of biology, history, geography? Does she suppose that a seven year old, ten, 12, 14, 16, year old can so freely be creative without knowing anything whatever of the facts. Should such student be allowed to imagine what our history was, or how our biology works so that he can be "creative". Does she actually know what to be creative is?
Whatever might be wrong with out educational system, unfortunately some things are basic and simply must be learned. We simply need to teach our kids to read, to do maths, physics, biology, history, art, music, sport, literature. Not simply let them imagine how it could be but yes make them memorise the facts, make them learn the fact. You might forget them the next month, but in the long run you learn the basics of each of these fields. You learn you have a heart and other organs and an immune system and the basic of history, lit, etc.
It is fine to simply shout foul, and for the top in the class that is their past hobby, impatient with themselves, believing themselves to be leaders when they so immature still, but we have been teaching for more than two millennia. You can not simply discredit all this experience with some rhetoric.
As for the creative part, that happens in university. If you did not learn the basics that are taught in primary school, and then on advance, you hardly would be able to independently arrive at this stage of creativity in a meaningful way, that is to gather the facts, learn them, understand them, understand how they relate, synthesise them together, and come up with suggestions as to how things can be improved.
But by all means throw stones as long as your house is not made of glass.