Another Montessouri ad

I just saw another bench today that compares to the one I previously posted advertising for Montessouri Schools. I am going to skip details about the school, but I do have a class analysis at the previous link, which was further discussed here.


Sorry about the image quality, but it was taken from a cell phone camera in a moving vehicle. The ad reads

1 to 8 VS. 1 to 30.
You do the Math. Our students can.

This refers to class size and student teacher ratios... Of course, it doesn't mention that they can afford to have extra teachers because parents are paying for their children to attend these schools, where as the government has been cutting funds to public schools.

This suggests that public school classes are too big and public school teachers are overworked, I agree so far. But rather than actually doing anything about it or trying to get additional funding to public schools, middle to upper class families should merely put their children in a private school and leave the large class sizes for the children whose families cannot afford this "better" education...

Who needs social mobility when the status quo is so much more advantageous to the elite who write our social policy and decide how much funding to put into our schools... all while sending their children to private institutions.

And, to add insult to injury, they need to include a comment implying that public school students cannot do simple math.

California school district bans dictionary

A California school district banned the Webster's Collegiate dictionary from fourth and fifth grade classrooms because it defines the words "oral sex." A committee of parents and teachers then decided to bring the dictionaries back, but to let parents decide whether their child is to be able to access this dictionary.

I can't get over how far these parental consent issues at school have gone. I don't think it should be up to parents to decide whether their children are allowed to look at a dictionary. I also do not think it should be up to parents to decide whether or not their children should have access to comprehensive and accurate sex education- I think children have the right to this information. There is little that annoys me more than denying people information that they want/need for no reason other than an authority figure doesn't think it is appropriate... why not just present facts and various arguments surrounding them, and teach children to think for themselves?

Nevermind this debate over whether or not it is acceptable for ten year olds to have access to this information, I wonder how many students have actually gone to the dictionary to look up the term "oral sex". I would guess very few of them... although, as punishment for talking in class, I occasionally had to write out dictionary definitions. It would have been slightly uncomfortable (or amusing) had I randomly selected that page... but no more so than with a multitude of other words. It doesn't mean they should be banned from classrooms.

I guess we now need to ban the internet as well. I would much rather my children get information from the dictionary than google... at least I know the stuff in the dictionary has been filtered through various editors to ensure it's accuracy.