In the past, children would get up in the morning, do their chores, eat breakfast, walk to school, come home, eat dinner, do their homework, and go to bed.

What you learned in school was connected to everyday life to make understanding easier and more relevant and your classmates were neighborhood friends.

Reading involved discussion, Math provided consistency, Science explained life and Social Studies made the world more interesting. Homework was a reinforcement of the days learning and was reviewed the next day in school.

At the end of the school day children would come home, open their books, do their homework and chores, eat dinner, and go to bed.

If you were able to complete your homework and chores before dinner, you could go outside and play until you were called in for the night, before it got dark.

Saturday and Sunday were the days children had to relax and play.

Today, children are in school for breakfast, lunch, and sometimes dinner in after-school programs. There are even Saturday school programs.

Subjects are disconnected from each other having little to no relevance to the child’s life experiences making comprehension difficult and in some cases, impossible.

Homework is no longer a reinforcement of the days lessons but an extension of learning that cannot take place in class due to test prep and reviewed only in rare instances.

Children cannot bring their books home to help them study because they may be lost or damaged and their friends who attend different schools with different school work, cannot help either.

Education has become a “place holder” instead of a tool for advancement, learning time has been replaced with “time on task” and school has become a “babysitting” service with free transportation.

The concentration is no longer on the child but on graduation rates and children are not being prepared for life but for the workforce.

Education no longer leads to success but overwhelming failure.

Children and their learning styles have not changed, our system of education and the learning environment has.

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