Today's trendy New York Times articles feature an op-ed lamenting (yawn!) the lack of standards in modern college education. Professors Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa report that a large percentage of college students report not taking any classes requiring even 40 pages of reading per week or 20 pages of writing over the course of a semester. Furthermore, the average college student spent a mere 12 to 13 hours a week studying, which is less than half the average of students in the 1960s. (In fairness, though, the quality of television in the 1960s was nowhere near what it is today.) Arum and Roksa further note that these slacking students still manage to earn solid B's.
Just below this article, as of this writing, is a story about the increasing number of Kumon (and Junior Kumon) tutoring centers in the New York area that cater to a younger set of students--much younger. We're talking 2 to 3 years old. As one Kumon executive explained, "if they're out of a diaper and they can sit still with a Kumon instructor for 15 minutes, we'll take them." For those horrified at the thought of two-year-olds sitting in a classroom, you'll be happy to know that everybody gets the equivalent of an 'A.' (All students are allowed to keep redoing the assignments until they're "perfect.")
The advent of Junior Kumon seems somehow the logical consequence of the concern with academic rigor displayed by Profs. Arum and Roska. Perhaps if we start drilling students in the immediate post-embryonic phase of development, they will be accustomed to rigorous studying by the time they reach college. They probably won't be particularly good at creative or critical thinking, but at least they'll be able to sit still and reproduce rote learning,
Maybe the whole "diaper" thing is negotiable, too.
Solipsistography
"Fast-Tracking to Kindergarten"
"Your So-Called Education"
Kumon (pronounced "Come On!') is not a new idea. Nor is it a new concept. Indeed, every few years we get one or two that prtomise to teach YOUR baby how to become the next supergenius. Most recently it was "Baby Einstein"... and look how well THAT worked!
ReplyDeleteThe fact is, there are always going to be very bright kids, very dumb kids, and, mostly, very "average" kids. Some very bright kids will get help from their parents, from their environment, and, even, from the latest "new" thing. They will succeed. Everyone will say THIS is the new new thing that everyone must subscribe to... until it's not! I knew a kid who could read and write (even poetry!) at three! He went bad after that and became a teachere, but that's not the point! He didn't have "Summer a-Kumon in" to help him. He just had a learning environment as part of his natural upbringing.,