My daughter is in third grade. One of her homework pages was a test of general knowledge: What are the names of the five Great Lakes? Which months have 30 days? What are the colors of the rainbow? (I’m not sure how she is supposed to know these things, but at least she knows that Google knows.)
She struggled with every one of these questions until she got to one that asked: “What are the three R’s?”
“That one is so easy,” she said. And she proceeded to write in her answer:
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
That, in a nutshell, sums up how much things have changed since I was her age.
and 
. You can also watch it on 
I don’t even have a problem with that.
Technology has changed how we live our lives every minute of every day, why shouldn’t ‘education’ change right along side.
It won’t be long until your daughter has some type of portable device that has google built in anyways so why shouldn’t the school systems teach something that kids really care about. (not to say very simple geography lessons should go by the wayside, just that I think there is plenty more opportunity to educate kids about issues relevant to 2008 and the future)
@#1 Tom
Yes! Although I’m pretty sure I remember it was a rap.
Did she have to consult the WWW to learn of RRR?
People have been saying for years that the new 3R’s of education are: Revelance, rigor and relationships.
Hey, the three Rs that your daughter came up with are the more important trio these days, especially considering that two of the three “original” Rs didn’t even begin with the letter “R”! At least with this new threesome we’re not perpetuating illiteracy!
Mnemonics are the key to academic success.
For the rainbow, ROYGBIV (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet).
For the Great Lakes, HOMES (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior).
And for the months, use the knuckle trick. Start counting the months on the knuckles of either hand. Months that land on a knuckle have 31 days, those that land between knuckles have less than 31.
The post just made me think. Feynman talked a lot about knowledge and how we aren’t taught to understand what we are taught. My kids are in 7th and 4th grade and I’m horrified at times what they come home with in terms of the depth they’ve been asked to think about. Beneath every factoid of knowledge is a complicated underpinning of questions that all but the best teaches seem to treat as inconveniences.
Lately, my kids have been getting bombed with goofy messages from teachers that Obama is our great savior. I’m fine with this – even though I don’t support socialists – since everyone is entitled to an opinion. It also offers me the opportunity to help them understand some of the traps of not using your critical thinking skills. It would be the same if the teachers were being as silly about McCain. Same lesson for the kids to learn. They are being taught to be sheople.
The same also happens in all of the classes they take; they aren’t taught to solve for “why”. Kids are capable of much more than we give them credit for. Remember, the quality of teachers is probably normally distributed, and in that sense nothing has changed. It’s important as parents to patch the gap that exists in standard education.
Edward, I don’t think that’s sad at all. Reducing waste isn’t just good for the environment; it also helps develop a frugal and non-wasteful mindset that can serve us all well in times of financial crunch, like the present.