state of education

http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2007/11/28/critics_say_no_child_law_hurts_the_gifted/

http://www.milforddailynews.com/news/x895212567

http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2007/11/28/us_4th_grade_readers_not_improving/

so ... we're spending more money on a more focused curriculum that provides less development of other skills and we're not seeing good measurable improvements. are schools better or worse today than they were 20 years ago? are we moving in the right direction? would increasing the diversity of subject matter and experiences in school and focusing less on a standardized test of basics provide a better education?

i know rj's recent interest in dinosaurs opened huge opportunities at home:

• literacy (he was reading a dinosaur encyclopedia with very little help)
• geography (where the dinosaurs lived)
• history (time lines - dinosaurs were gone well before the pilgrams had their first thanksgiving)
• math (comparing measurements of dinosaur size to people size)
• biology (warm blooded vs cold blooded ... mammels vs reptiles)
• earth science (big bang theory)
• philosophy (big bang theory)

he'll be 6 tomorrow and i know a lot of what we discussed he didn't immediately understand but i'm watching him process the pieces he did understand and apply them in other areas and slowly fill in the gaps that he heard but couldn't fully understand. it's fascinating.

and all this while we were just playing.

-s