Context and analysis is key part of schooling
While I entirely agree with David Elmore that the structure of many classrooms can work against the normal ways that young students learn, I must protest the picture of learning which he proposes.
ADD is a real disease. Anyone who "mostly got A's and B's" in school was not ADD. Elmore should spend some time in a class with real ADD students --he will soon see the qualitative difference between their distractibility and the usual kind. Lack of structure is hard for them.
Learning to add numbers or read words is not the same as learning mathematics or reading a sophisticated text: Both require understanding underlying ideas and comparing and contrasting them with other ideas.
Talking to a parent about how invasive taxes are also will not prepare someone for adult conversation. While most of the time people don't know theories, they use them. The first time someone proposes a Hamiltonian view of freedom while yours is Jeffersonian, if you don't know theory, you will not be able to respond convincingly, and you will soon feel pretty stupid.
An exciting school, at any level, gives students not only skills like addition and reading, not only facts without context, but the joy of deep understanding and analysis, which requires teachers and a structure leading students to it.
Sally MacEwen, associate professor and chair of classics at Agnes Scott College
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