FIRST PUBLISHED SIX YEARS AGO, STILL TODAY'S BIG IDEA
FOR PUTTING EDUCATION BACK IN EDUCATION:
New American Curriculum
A SIMPLE FIVE-POINT PROGRAM
1) REAL READING. No more Whole Word, Sight Words, Dolch Words. No more identifying words by their shapes. No more
guessing, picture clues, and functional illiteracy. Simply pick a good phonics program, mix it up with singing and poetry.
Teach all students to read by the age of seven. (See “42: Reading Resources” for a list of programs. For
expert advice, contact Don Potter at donpotter.net.)
2) REAL ARITHMETIC. No more New Math or Reform Math. No more so-called Standards Math because the standards
are wrong-headed. No more spiraling, fuzzy, guessing, or mixing advanced topics in with elementary arithmetic. No more Constructivism.
Pick Singapore Math, Saxon Math or any other highly popular program and make sure children master arithmetic one step at a
time.
3)
REAL FOUNDATIONAL KNOWLEDGE IN ALL SUBJECTS. No more demonizing memory. No more scorning facts. Students needs basic information;
and the brain is designed to want it. No more so-called critical thinking about things nobody knows anything about. Instead,
students actually learn basic facts, the easy ones first, and then you build from there. Why? Because facts are fun; and knowledge
is power.
4)
REAL HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, GOVERNMENT. No more Social Studies. No more propaganda, indoctrination, and political correctness.
No more multiculturalism for its own sake. History is taught by people who majored in History. You learn names, dates, places
and events. You understand why things happened the way they did. Everybody loves a good story. History is a million good stories.
5)
REAL EDUCATION. No more playing games. What do you think is going on at good private schools, and the best colleges? Education
is not about what kids feel. It’s about what they know. There’s no fuzzy, no guesssing, no bull. Imagine, for
example, you take a course in French; you actually learn French--speak it, read it, write it. That’s the paradigm. At
the end of each day you know more than at the start. Sure, games, jokes, laughter, field trips, movies, sitting in the grass
staring at the sky. There are no rules except that kids must be learning, continuously learning.
People now in charge of public schools--the
Education Establishment--are focused on social engineering and have thus made a hash of public education. They say to the
students, “It’s about you.” No, it’s about them. Their politics. Their plans for our future. These
faux-educators should stand aside. To work in the public schools, people should posses knowledge, love knowledge, and want
to communicate knowledge to the next generation.
NAC 1.0 created
by Improve-Education.org
