notes for later

"A reflective essay, three to five pages in length, which discusses the candidate’s
understanding of the purpose of public education and how the complex issues
facing secondary educators are going to affect the candidate as a teacher."

So much of the current hoopla regarding the purpose of public education is focused on the social and cultural ways public schools should be improving the citizenry...but no one's really talking about HOW that is supposed to work.

In order for someone to be able to "think critically," I believe they first have to be taught HOW to reason, be given a wealth of facts to draw on, be shown how to synthesize new information from multiple sources, and finally, how to effectively communicate their newly minted ideas to others to prove they've gotten the aforementioned right.

In order to encourage tolerance of cultural diversity, shouldn't we be focused on the provable, measurable, empirical evidence that (for instance) blacks and whites are equal?  This is biologically and chemically true, and easy to prove...and provides irrefutable evidence for the value of the 14th Amendment, while applying a rigorous and logical definition of "equal" from STEM...everything ties into everything else - and *that's* what we have to teach students to see.  The ability to apply knowledge and reasoning from any area of study to any other area is worth teaching because it will provide us with a citizenry capable of thinking through situations outside whatever specialty these students may someday pursue.

more thoughts to come.