Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

425 prospective teachers not only in the context in which they will work—the classroom—but also in the context of where their students will work—community and workplace settings in business, industry and the professions. “Teachers need to understand much more of the pedagogy. Teachers need to understand how it applies in life settings,” says Dean Russell Yeany. “We don’t just want to perpetuate academic learning—at some point it has to be applied to the workplace....” …A long-term goal is to have a much more effective school-to-work transition for students. “Schooling should transition right into work and I think schooling has become so academic that it isn’t transitioning well into work,” says Yeany. Funded for 18 months by an initial $864,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Edu cation, the Teacher Development Pre-Service Model of Excellence Initiative is one of the college’s largest and most ambitious projects ever. “This is a big investment by the federal government to develop a model they hope will become available to other colleges,” says Yeany. A student orientation to area business and industry will include both on-site and virtual observation of manufacturing and business processes. T HE N OVEMBER 16, 1998 EDITION OF T HE A TLANTA C ONSTITUTION CARRIED AN ARTICLE entitled “Education in a Relaxed Atmosphere: Brain-Based Method—Teaching Trend Emphasizing Creativity, Flexibility and Informality Growing in Area Schools” by Delbert Ellerton. The ac tivities described in the article are typical of the exercises promoted by Sheila Ostrander, Lynn Schroeder with Nancy Ostrander in their book Superlearning 2000 (Dell Publishing: New York 1994), an updated version of their earlier book Superlearning. The following are excerpts from the article: At the front of Amanda Neff’s softly lit, first-grade classroom in Henry County, a plant sits next to the glass case that is home to Riley, a small black rat snake. As Riley slithers around inside the glass box at Wesley Lakes Elementary School, a group of students eagerly crowds around. Riley is just one of the several ways Neff is bringing life to her classroom by teaching students in ways that emerging research says they naturally learn. Instead of just reading books about snakes, the students have the real thing right before them. Teachers such as Neff are part of a national group embracing an approach formally called brain-based learning. The trend, which surfaced in California in the 1980s, is based on teachers being flexible and creative. It also is based on the belief that eliminating the sterile, institutional environment encourages children to relax and learn. In addition to using Riley, the snake, as an educational tool, Neff softens the mood in her Wesley Lakes classroom by dimming the bright overhead fluorescent lights and turning on lamps in corners of the room. She plays soft music on a computer CD player throughout the day.... “It’s making children feel more comfortable and taking away the threat. They’re more open. They don’t shut down on me when I ask them something,” Harris said. Harris’s students sit in groups of three in an arrangement educators call “tribes.” The setup is said to encourage teamwork. Teachers in Henry and Clayton counties have received brain-based learning training through staff development workshops. One such workshop in Clayton County is called “Symphony on Styles” and focuses on effective teaching meth ods for students’ diverse learning styles, said Bobbi Ford of Clayton’s staff development The Noxious Nineties : c. 1998