Friday, January 02, 2009

From the UK - School teaches children how to blow noses

I think this is funny, in a sad sort of way. School teaches children how to blow noses:

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The five- to 11-year-old children at Broad Oak Primary School in Manchester have been shown a DVD telling them the right and wrong ways to act when they have a cold.
But one parent condemned the exercise as "a complete waste of time".
The parent added: "I send my kids to school to learn, not for someone to show them how to blow their nose.

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I wrote two years ago that one of the big problems with public schools is they try to do so much. Jim Collins says in Good to Great, that great organizations are great because they have focus. Every time someone implements another problem in public schools, it diffuses the teacher's focus and weakens their ability to do the core job, that of giving the children an education.

It would be better for the children if government schools just backed off trying to solve all problems and taught children how to read, write and do arithmetic. Then maybe some child will have the education he needs to one day solve world hunger. It is clear that government schools won't.


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Technorati tags: government schools, children, public school, public education, education

3 comments:

Luke Holzmann said...

The shift in focus from education to parenting may be based in the move of parents believing that the public educational system is supposed to do their job as well. This may be due to the idea that these are "experts" and the parents need do little else.

~Luke

Lori said...

but .. children can't learn to read and 'rite and 'rithmetic in school if they are all home sick - or, more likely, sitting at their desk sick and infecting the kids around them.

having owned a private school, it makes complete sense to me that the school would spend 10 minutes teaching students how not to spread their germs. we had children of college professors who thought nothing of wiping their nose with their sleeve and coughing in the faces of their friends.

simply teaching children to cough into the crook of their elbow rather than their hands helps tremendously. of course, you could send a note home and ask parents to go over this with their children, but the majority would never see and/or read the note. if you want something done, take care of it yourself.

Henry Cate said...

I can understand reaching out to things like teaching nose blowing, if the schools were doing a good job on their first priority, teaching basic academics.