Return-Path: <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id eB9Hxs929774; Sat, 9 Dec 2000 12:59:54 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 12:59:54 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <39.dac840a.2763cc83@aol.com> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: KathleenBombach@aol.com To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-POVRACELIT:309] Re: questions about purpose X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Mailer: Windows AOL sub 100 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Status: O Content-Length: 1595 Lines: 25 Your questions about the purpose of education was so on target. I have a son in special education. hence, we go through lots of school meetings with therapists, teachers, and principals. What he is learning has never come up once in all these sessions. Instead, we discuss his unacceptable behavior (if he already knows how to do something, he refuses to do it again, and again, and again) and his attitude: he says it's boring, the books are too easy, he refuses to do homework because he gets 100s on the tests. At the most recent meeting, the therapist got very blunt: How would my son survive as an adult if he didn't follow rules, refused to do work he doesn't see a need to do, and obey authority. School was preparation for life, and life was having to comply and obey. According to the school team, my son's biggest problem is that he doesn't realize that these are the rules of society and he will have to comply in order to be successful in employment. Once I stopped one of these meetings and announced that no one had brought up what and how well my son was learning in school. Could someone please tell me about my son's learning progress? After dead silence, the young resource teacher (who had never said a word) began to talk very meekly. My son had mastered all the grade level content, the next grade level's content, and her estimation was that he had learned most of the content for the next grade level (he was retained that year anyway). So when you ask what is the purpose of teaching and learning, I think we have an answer! Kathleen Bombach
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