image by sarah mccoy photo

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Deathknell for Dewey

Here are some signs of the apocalypse.  Today this means the ultimate end of the modern educational paradigm a la John Dewey.  (Like Humpty Dumpty, I reserve the right to use this at a later date to mean something totally different).

The Dewey paradigm is a pinball machine model into which students are dumped conveyor-belt style.  They are then ricocheted from subject to subject, level to level, points at each of which bits of substance residue may or may not stick to the students until they are hurled back onto the conveyor belt and mechanically stamped with a smiley face denoting participation.

Signs of the Apocalypse:

  1. Tests where you can bring in a 3x5 card full of your tiniest writing since you didn’t learn the material.
  2. The removal of analogies from the SATs because kids can’t do them anymore [Marge is to Bart as Mary is to _______].
  3. Calculators before high school.
  4. This receipt from last night’s dinner:






No joke.  A spot for diners to round up because they can’t do that and then multiply by .2 in their heads.