How hard is teaching.

I understand what you are saying, and I know there are great things happening in some areas, for example some of us adults mentor 6th-8th grade kids, but we're lucky to have more than 10-20 kids seeking this help. Meanwhile the remaining students struggle due to their learning limitations, conditions at home, stress, lack of parental involvement, etc. and many will be ill-prepared for high school courses and college.

I think the reason we can't make wholesale improvements in public education is two-fold; First, we are incapable of finding consensus on solutions, and second, the answers will shock many and funding won't be available...

 

It's clear that teaching cursive does not get in the way of your math or science or history instruction and this is what I responded to yet your response is to insult me.

You think your situation is all that matters when in fact a public education system is much more that what you personally believe it should be.

None of my dialogue here is about 'my' feelings on cursive? Cursive has only been an example of how teaching has changed and I questioned whether or not cursive has benefits in society today.

I can imagine when your kids challenge your position instead of open dialogue you just resort to insults...do you tell them they're not smart enough?

 

FYI;

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cursive-makes-a-comeback/?ftag=CNM-00-10aac3a

 

I don't consider "it doesn't interfere" to be enough to support teaching cursive. Maybe as an elective, but there's no need for it to be required.

Oh... judging from some of your posts, I was under the impression that insults were now on the table. My bad. I guess they're only optional for you. I'm sorry.

You can get down from your high horse now.

This is one of those statements whose meaning is so vague that it's ultimately meaningless. I could say the same to you; so what?

Thanks for the summary, Captain Obvious.

Do you really expect me to believe you don't understand the concept of formal and casual behavior, of being a professional and engaging in a casual activity? Please... you're wasting your time; your attempts to put me down only make yourself look even more foolish.

No, if you were a student (which you're not, by the way, since you don't seem to be aware of that), I'd only be making sure you got a lot of extra attention.

 

Thank you for the window into teaching...letting me know there are no benefits to knowing cursive or any other subject you deem a waste of time today. From my perspective if I didn't know how to read and write cursive today I would consider this a failure! And I must thank teachers and administrators who knew learning cursive far outweighed ignoring it. And despite how keyboards play a role in society today, and how computers do ALL of the thinking for us, there are far more times in life when we must be involved with our own hands and brains.

BTW; if you truly understood education you would know that people remain students their entire lives...

 

Be honest... you go that off a Cracker Jack box, didn't you?

 

How hard is learning? Probably most, if not all, Teachers are adequately qualified to teach their subject matter, while the students they are provided can vary greatly in their ability/desire to learn.

 

Yes, holding back students is the Polish system; every subject needs a pass grade in order to progress to the next year. If you fail in one, you repeat that year. This incentive is one of the reasons that the Polish education system is one of the best in Europe, and 10th best in the world, beating both Britain and the US.

 

After adjusting for inflation that would be about $0.49 and probably one, if not the most rational post in this thread. Over 60 years ago in my senior year I had one classmate who turned 21 before the end of the school year. He had difficulty learning, but was determined to get a HS diploma with a passing grade, which he did. Not only that, but he also worked after school to help support his family.

 

What if all kids are subjected to the identical teaching and testing in a given school, and every couple of weeks all kids are tested on the appropriate lessons, and each test is scored from 0 to 10. So if there are 15 tests per school year, the maximum score is 150. In order to pass to the next grade a score of 100 is required...not a final exam but a cumulative score of 100. In order to graduate from 4 years of high school they need 400 test points. If a kid is getting 6-7 points per test or less, then that kid can perform extra credit or obtain mentoring or something else and have points added to their cumulative total. If a kid obtains 400 points before the end of their 4th year then they graduate from high school if they wish. In this scenario, the responsibility of the teacher is to adequately provide classroom studies that allow kids to achieve 6 or higher on average on their testing. And why can't the teacher's work day be structured to provide 6 hours of normal classroom studies and 2 hours per day to work with those not testing at the 6-7 levels? A teacher should not teach to the lowest common denominator! And because as you say every kid has different interests and learning skills, it's not possible to split everyone into their own performance groups. I say make teacher mentoring a mandatory 2 hours per day...

 

With regards to the time off in the summer, it's for the students, not the teachers. I'd say most teachers are spending about half of that time doing work-related activities, lesson-planning, curriculum adjustments, meetings with parents and/or administrators, room decorating, etc., mostly without any pay at this time of year.

I'm one to say that a child needs time to be a child, and a teenager needs time to be an adult. I wouldn't want my child in school year round because it leaves so much less time for him to explore and discover knowledge on his own, which is just as important as learning it through a formal education. Besides, the quality of work will drop significantly during the summer months anyway. It already happens in Spring. Students lose motivation as the weather gets nicer. They get antsy, their behavior often starts to slip. The biggest reason, however, is probably the financial one. A great deal of public schools don't have air-conditioning and districts don't want to pay for it.

 

I agree totally with the first. We need to change the discipline balance back to where the teachers are in charge, not the kids.

Agree with the holding kids back, but its silly to do so after a while. We need an alternative class for the failures. If they can't succeed under conventional instruction the first time, the chance it will work the second time is low.

I actually disagree with PE for elementary kids. I think they should have unstructured recess--but it should occur daily.

If we want teachers to work longer school years, we have to pay them for it.Currently, most teachers work 190 day work years. If you want them to work longer, you need to pay them more. Many teachers supplement their income with summer jobs.

 

What EXACTLY do you want us to say? This is a pretty open-ended question the OP asks, and I don't feel like writing the great American novel in this forum.

 

Maybe we need to over hall the system.

 

Assuming you mean 'overhaul', what do you feel needs to be changed?

 

A big part of the problem is the curriculum and the race to the bottom mentality which holds higher achieving students back.

 

It's much easier to achieve greater equality by basing success on the least common denominator, essentially grading on a curve.
Our education system had changed dramatically between the time I finished High School and was able to afford college. Grading on a curve, and I was able to maintain 120+ on my tests as the Professor always provided an extra problem or two to help those who couldn't achieve a passing score on the normal exams, making a 5 question exam worth a total of 140 if all answers were correct. No one failed trig, but only a very few would ever be able to put it to use. Our English Professor was not so generous, which resulted in a number immediately dropping the class.

 

As a Scientist (who also took a bunch of humanities), one of the major problems I have with school is the focus primarily on Science and Math.

Not everyone is cut out to be a nuclear physicist and nor will smashing particles together solve all the worlds problems. We have advanced technologically but we have forgotten many of the social lessons of the past.

That through 12 year of school and we can not manage to teach the "basics" of Philosophy (logic, logical fallacy, what constitutes a valid argument and critical thinking) is really messed up.

How are folks supposed to wade through the daily cacophony of fallacy and bad argument raining down on them from Politicians and the mass media if they do not even have the most basic of tools ? How are these folks supposed to case an informed vote ?

They also do not teach the basic principles on which this nation was founded (classical liberalism, legitimacy of authority - limited Gov't, individual rights and freedoms are "ABOVE" the legitimate authority of Gov't and so on).

This is an absurdity. I talked to one teacher who said "we do not teach kids that stuff because we do not want them arguing with us" ?! and then went on to whine "you do not know what it's like"

Right, like I did not spend 12 years there ...Scary

 

Seems if you stay in school long enough you learn how to repeat what liberals told you to think without any free thought.

"I never let my schooling interfere with my education."
-Mark Twain

 

I would not mind if elementary school was condensed to 6-7 years, then move into a college prep/job prep/life prep sort of curriculum for perhaps 3 years and then kids can move into college or vocational or whatever interests. Today I value my basic education in language, grammar, spelling, writing, composition, literature, history, math, science, economics, and yes music studies, wood shop, and auto shop...all of which can be touched on in 6-7 years of school. Once we know our aptitudes and/or interests, we can focus on these for our final 3 years of public school. I guess I also question if we need 120 semester hours of college and if this can also be condensed down to ~90 hours? I'm not talking about dumbing down education requirements but instead just being more efficient with our time.

So two things that would have made my life easier during school years; one was less boredom from redundancy and the other was letting me get on to my interests earlier...in other words less public school time. I'm also thinking if we have 6 major classes in a public school semester, why can't our school week be 3 days instead of 5 days?

Lastly, my comments are pie-in-the-sky, too open-minded, but IMO we require a major paradigm shift in how we present public education...

 

For sure - the current paradigm is bore children to death. I was talking to a teenager (grade 10) a week ago who was telling me that her math class consists of reading the textbook. The there a few power point presentations they can view online.

I asked "does your teacher not teach - write stuff on the blackboard" Nope. I was shocked. Then at the same function I talked to a gal who had graduated a couple of years prior - told her the story. She say yup - that's how it was for me as well.

This is crazy. The textbook is for review at home when doing homework.

 

Unfortunately most people dislike and/or refuse change...their asses must be on fire to ever consider a true paradigm shift...

 

I think we may be getting to that point. Digressing from education here but, IMO- the uncomfortable meter is getting hot and is starting to have an impact.

I call it the popcorn theory. As wealth inequality increases the piece of the pie the rich habitat increases and the piece the rest of us folks live in decreases.

As the pie available to the masses decreases the uncomfortability meter get's hotter.

Like making popcorn (the old fashioned way - oil and seeds in a pot) - I can not tell you which of the seeds will pop first. What I can tell you however is that if you keep the heat on - eventually one will pope - then another - and if the heat is kept up the lid will come off the pot.

Lack of education is a key part of keeping "we the people" from understanding why and how the system is skewed against them and driving them into a state of indentured slavery. Is hard to target an enemy (make corrective change) when you can not pinpoint that enemy - do not know what that enemy is.

This is dangerous because not changing the wealth inequality balance towards restoration of some kind equality gets the pot too hot - and this is not good.

Revolution out of such periods in history has generally not been pretty.

 

A child with good parents, who even through pregnancy and infancy, talked to the child, and even a very young (before kindergarten) age, started teaching them alphabet, numbers, shapes, etc. Giving them excellent eating conditions, keeping them active and outside, these kids will learn much faster than those who don't do as such.

So what I am getting at is, teaching is not necessarily always the teachers fault, or ability. Most of it comes down to the children and the type of parents thereof.

 

The kernel of corn that does not pop in your scenario above will be burned...charred to uselessness. We have lots of failing kernels of corn in society today and without being proactive, or certainly without educated information and the ability to problem solve, we will have lots of useless kernels. Maybe public education should consider focused teaching of things like reading comprehension, understanding root causes, identifying fact from fiction, problem solving, the importance of communication and consensus, the difference between an open and closed mind, and...respect for the process. However, most Americans, and I'm guessing teachers, are not capable of teaching these things. We have evolved with so many biases, so much division, polarized in every direction on every topic, we no longer are capable of managing this large and complex nation!