Mathematics Education from Inductive and Critical Path Perspectives
what should be learnt, when, where, how, why
Children may be taught to provide opportunities or to provide skills and
knowledge that immediate family or society at large may want, value or
need. Parents and guardians may have a responsibility to educate their
children. Schools and teachers may hired or delegate to help and further
define or lead that responsibility. In some times and places,
apprenticeships were part of the early or late education of an
individual. Today, in the more fortunate parts of the world, schools and
their teachers try to develop and perfect skills and knowledge which
require reading, writing, arithmetic and some reason.
Children to the onset of puberty, between the terrible twos and the
terrible teens, appear to have the patience to sit down and be schooled.
Schooling can provide a solid base for further work and studies, and for
many kinds of citizenship (docile to thoughtful) for students who have or
find the will to sit down and study, or live a family in or society where
the latter is required. At the onset of puberty and their
transformation into young adults, teenagers try to become more
independent, and with that need to be given reasons for work and
study. In societies, where teenage years are a form of postponed
adulthood, waiting for adulthood and adult-like responsibility leaves
time for reflection and mischief. Making education compulsory and
extending and extending the number of years spent in school for the sake
of education for general objectives that are not supported by compelling
needs or reasons is a source of alienation for teenager - leaves them
with the sense that education is a formality - a path to nowhere.
Schools and teachers are of little value to students who cannot be
engaged or who cannot be required to sit down and study with all
the work and attention that demands. For deliberate and effective skill
and knowledge development or perfection, compulsory school attendance
needs to be accompanied by coercion or by course design and
materials which provide with values, means and ends to inspire and guide
students and teachers.
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