Republican Family Values (Part 3)

Now the traditional education does not mean I support prayer in schools. Having a prayer is an individual choice and should be handled as such and not with a mandate by the education system or government. Traditional education, excluding capital punishment, and any other approach to teaching is an area where I personally do not have enough information (professionally) to make a decision either way. As for parents involvement they are a necessary part of the education process not only for schools but society as well.
This is because it is not the school that teaches hygiene or manners. The school can reinforce hygene, but it is not the school's place to teach how to brush your teeth. That is for the parents to do. Teachers can reinforce by requiring please and thank you, mostly in the younger grades as a part of a child's mental development in sharing and cooperation.
Parents play an equally important role in the classroom. Parents should be aware of what their kids are learning. If a school begins a mandatory course for students in the fourth grade on sex ed, a parent should know about it.
Now I am going to speak for individual education. I speak a lot about what I feel in this, and I apologize for so many personal examples. In high school I have experienced the traditional, or mainstream education along with the individual based, or alternative education. In the mainstream the group learning is centered on the teacher's lectures, notes, and direction. The homework is either collected or corrected in unison as a group. At the Alternative Education the teacher is present, but the learning environment is much different. This program exists as an understanding that some students are unable to learn in a fast paced group learning environment that resembles in many ways an AA meeting.
An example of an AA meeting is necessary to prove this is not just a joke. No offense to the teacher in this class since I have heard this is true of other teachers as well. It is the style of education not the teacher in this example. In my former math class we would take notes in class. We would do homework based on the notes. When we come to class we correct the homework problem by problem as a group with one student answering one question going around the classroom. When a student didn't know the answer we paused, sometimes a student would be brave enough to admit they didn't know the answer, and we would correct it on the board going through the process we followed in the notes. When that was not enough, we would all shrug our shoulders, admit we didn't know what was wrong, and move on to the next one. For every problem that would come up, we would go through the admittance stage of an AA meeting every time. Admit what was not right, admit it was our fault and why, and move on to the next person.
That approach doesn't work for everyone. The Alternative Education program allows for no more than six students to a class. To continue with the math example, in my Alternative Education math I am given an assignment. No notes. The assignment is in the book. I open to the page. I read the book. In my class we do what parts we understand and check with the teacher at every point where we think we may have gone astray. If we have, the teacher writes what would normally be in the notes, then will outline the area where we went off track. The teacher checks our work problem by problem as they arise. When we hand in the assignment, the next day we do another assignment. Sometimes we will get the same assignment again that we handed to the teacher. We will go through what was wrong and correct it. In the traditional classroom, once an assignment is done you take the quiz if you don't get it you fail. At the Alternative Education classroom you correct your mistakes, learn not only the lesson but where you went wrong, and are prepared for the test.
The disagreement will be cost and benefit. Sometimes the Alternative Education program is at a slower pace for some students. It goes at the students pace, which allows for true learning and no child is left behind. This program was around before the No Child Left Behind Act. I personally believe this program is the best learning environment for higher grade level students. This ties into a stronger America because it has educated students and not factory workers coming out of schools. This is not an insult to factory workers, just analyzing the style of work: come in, do the process, go home. Traditional education does that every day. Instead of earning a paycheck like a factory worker, you gain stress. At the Alternative Education you gain an education.