Quote:
Originally Posted by Columbine
I'll second that. My school was basically falling down around our ears, literally! our english rooms were condemned, we were still using old wooden desks from the 50's and asides from text books there were basically 0 resources; whiteboards were about as high tech as it got. The toilets were outside in concrete sheds and the 'sports hall' played all roles as assembly hall, drama studio, theatre, exam room, etc. This primitive environment was a fully working high school in 2000 with 5000 students. But the teachers were incredibly GOOD. They were paid fairly, the area itself wasn't poor and run down and they put in a lot of initiatives. In 8 years, the whole place has been turned around and it's all modern. There were grants, BUT, even when it was a dump, it was still in the top 50 schools in the country. throwing money at it didn't make for smarter students. Happy teachers who held a mutual respect for their students and treated even the youngest like they could think for themselves made it great. Money just meant better desks and a heating system that worked.
Forth grade is what? age 10? 11? That's more than old enough to be able to hold an opinion and distinguish between right and wrong. It's also young enough to still be able to reach the ones most vulnerable to ditching in their education and I think efforts should be made. The kids will likely ignore it and forget whatever was said within a month. But they'll always remember that someone important bothered to speak to them. That's not a waste of time, or effort, and in itself is an action that IS doing something for American education.
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Fourth grade? Then you'd say it should not be shown to younger kids? Because the speech will be shown to all kids, kindergarten (5 years old) through high school...