The Inanity of School Standards

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I’ve been taking notes for a book I’d like to write, about a “hard-boiled substitute teacher” named Joe Archimedes. It’s been amusing me for years. So it looks like I may have to actually write the thing. I’ve been considering writing it as a blog, and turning it into a “blook” (a book that was originally written as a blog, as if you couldn’t figure that out from the word).

I haven’t started the blog yet, but I have started a companion site that sort of is the “notebook of Joe Archimedes.” The first installation was written today.

Here is how it begins:

“That boy will be hung,’ said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. ‘I know that boy will be hung.”

-Charles Dickens - “Oliver Twist“

State standards operate under the assumption that most people don’t know what their kids need to learn, nor how well they have to learn it. That’s why the State thinks it has to set standards for every school.

But I think every parent knows this much - their child needs to be able to read and enjoy it, and be able to do all the simple operations of arithmetic in their sleep, and to be able to write to express themselves to their own and their reader’s satisfaction.

For the rest, head out to JoeArchimedes.com.

And, as always, let me know what you think. You can leave your comments here.

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