A New Way to Educate K-12 Students

Critically Thinking Outside the Box

Anytime serious citizens discuss what needs to be done to fix the US Public School System, the inevitable conclusion is that multiple major issues need to be properly addressed. Regretfully, in almost all situations, good people just give up.

Fully aware of the multi-headed dragon part, my strategy is to break this complex matter down into simpler elements. My reasoning is that if we just look at the whole task — e.g., sending a man to the Moon, and bringing him back — that the enormity of it will likely stop all productive progress. On the other hand, if we break down a huge matter into digestible components, all of a sudden it becomes doable.

As to reforming the US K-12 education system, I believe that the first order of business is to address the curricula. Refining that even further, step one is to fix the Science curricula, which has been seriously corrupted.

Since forty-nine (49) states are using the NGSS as the basis for their Science curricula, suddenly the first order of business is crystal clear: meaningfully upgrade the NGSS! That is a manageable challenge. To spell out what this would entail, I wrote a Report — which explains ten (10) ways that the NGSS needs fixing. They are all doable.

Unfortunately, instead of immediately working together to clear up this very solvable problem, some conservative allies then threw up another roadblock. They said: “OK let’s say we fix the Science curriculum. How do we get around the reality that many teachers are now from Marxist education colleges? Those important people will resist the needed curriculum changes, or outright undermine them. How do we fix that?”

That indeed is a good question about a legitimate concern. My answer has been: “We should solve one problem at a time. Let’s start by fixing the Science curriculum issue, then we’ll cross the teacher certification bridge when we come to it.”

The reality is that if we keep getting caught up with various issues, zero real progress will be made. This famous phrase applies: Perfect is the enemy of good!

A New Idea —

I’m open to considering any reasonable new idea and have been sent several. The most recent, and maybe most interesting so far, is about MacKenzie Price and her education alternative called 2-Hour Learning. In my looking this over, I can see several major benefits over the current system. I can also see some shortcomings.

Here are some substantial plusses:

1) Achieving very high test score results

2) Education is tailored to the individual student

3) Limited negativity influence from biased teachers

4) Significant time every day is spent on learning Life Skills (I’m a big fan of teaching more Life Skills in K-12. Here is my list of some suggested material to cover.)

Please watch this 3 min teaser: Five Mistakes from Traditional Schools:

After looking at that, and you would like to know more, watch her 21-minute video, which has a more detailed explanation of what this is about:

I also saw some potential shortcomings, so made up a list of constructive questions. I emailed her organization to see if I could have a chat with a representative. I’ll let you know what happens. BTW here is an example of what I’ll be asking them:

Your websites say (e.g., here) that “Kids need two things to learn” and then say that they are “Motivation” and “Personalized Coursework.” IMO there is a major item missing: “Critical Thinking.” Without that skill, it is unlikely that true learning (vs rote learning) will happen. Agree?

In your good Five Things video Critical Thinking is not mentioned. At the end of the overview video, you do mention Critical Thinking. However, I don't see any mention of Critical Thinking on your websites.

Is Critical Thinking prioritized?

If yes, exactly how do you teach Critical Thinking to students?

If you have some other questions you’d like asked, please post them in the Comments, below.

Takeaway —

The bottom line is that the US K-12 Public School System is in dire need of major reform. For multiple reasons, I don’t believe that scrapping it is a reasonable option.

Instead, we need to apply creativity and Critical Thinking to this nationally significant matter. A good first step would be to take it out of the hands of the Education Bureaucracy “experts,” who have had decades to solve this and instead have only made it worse.

I can provide numerous citations about that, but here is one that just appeared this week: How Academic Elites are Undoing Centuries of Progress. Although the article is about higher education, every bit of it applies to K-12 as well.

---

Here is other information from this scientist that you might find interesting:

Please vote for Michele Morrow to be part of the new Department of Education.

I am now offering incentives for you to sign up new subscribers!

I also consider reader submissions on Critical Thinking on my topics of interest.

Check out the Archives of this Critical Thinking substack.

WiseEnergy.org: discusses the Science (or lack thereof) behind our energy options.

C19Science.info: covers the lack of genuine Science behind our COVID-19 policies.

Election-Integrity.info: multiple major reports on the election integrity issue.

Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from COVID to climate, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2024 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time - but why would you?

Thanks for reading Critically Thinking About Select Societal Issues! Please pass a link to this article on to other associates who might benefit. They can subscribe for FREE to receive new posts (typically about once a week).