Flipping the School Day

When I first saw the title of this article "More Teachers 'Flipping' The School Day Upside Down", I let out a sophomoric giggle.  Long ago I learned that public school was a waste of time designed to destroy students minds and house their bodies for the benefit of others.  I first learned this in third grade when my family moved from a rural school district where they still actually cared about the kids in their charge, to a dysfunctional gulag designed to enrich the members of the teachers union, kids be damned.  At the time I did not have the ability to reason all of that out.  I did know one thing  school was a bad place to be.  Only later in life did I realize to what extent American public schools were broken.

The fact that American Public education is broken is obvious to everyone that is not dependant on public funds, or a graduate of the system.  It's gotten so bad that even public school graduates are refusing to send their own children into the meat grinder.  What other option exists?  In the past you had a choice between private schools, if you could afford them or public.  As time went on homeschooling gained in popularity.  Of course they developed a sort of public private hybrid, the charter school.  The public schools, where most kids are, still are lagging behind. 

Which is one of the reasons that I applaud the "flipping" concept that they are trying in the article.  Recording lectures as data files that can be watched on an I Phone, and letting the kid watch it at home.  Is a great idea.  Then when the kids come to class they use the class time as sort of a lab, where they are able to work through the material with the teacher.

As the program stands now, it seems like it would be a little awkward and not as efficient as it could be.  It's a step in the right direction.  I can see a time when this method of learning is decentralized completely.  When that happens the kids will have a tremendous learning opportunity.  Hopefully this kind of non traditional thinking will help turn the public schools around.  After all, most of America's kids are still in a public school.  As a nation we can't expect good things will come from a broken system.