Without teachers mucking things up, the kids can get an education now. I mean, heck, they learn sex ed. in the streets before they can read nowadays, anyway.
^ Other than the King James Bible, that is. I know home-schooled kids who have done well, but their parents dedicated significant time and effort. I also know that teaching is a real profession, with skills, competencies, and knowledge required to do it right.
And for anyone who thinks homeschooling is easy, you obviously don’t have small children. I think kindergarten teachers should get hazard pay!
The early grades are very important, and I would support better pay to recruit the best teachers at that level.
For the higher grades, how many parents can teach their children trigonometry and calculus and physics and chemistry and biology and history and English grammar and literature and a foreign language? That’s what I was taught in high school. If you don’t give your children all this, you are depriving them of the chances they need to find a place in the modern world.
The situation is more of a dreidel than a straight good or bad scenario. One fourth of the teachers are good and deserve all the good things in the contract. Most don’t. In fact, they should be terminated from employment for not evolving to the change in technology or social dynamics. The losers get the same financial rewards as the educators. Unless they are morally bankrupt AND YOU CAN PROOVE IT, they won’t fire a tenured teacher.
Except for the New York state legislature, where else can you be totally inept and inefficient and keep your job?!
In a few years we will begin to see how much damage has been done. Unfortunately it will take several years to reverse what this foolish lack of understanding is causing.
One hell of a price to pay to pacify the current herd mentality.
“For the higher grades, how many parents can teach their children trigonometry and calculus and physics and chemistry and biology and history and English grammar and literature and a foreign language? ”
Meeeee!! Except the foreign language part. We’d learn it together!
And I’d need a textbook for the History and English. :’(
I think being a teacher would be really cool. I was really good at teaching students how to count in other number bases. I think parents might think I’d try to gay up their children or something though. Goat sodomy or something.
human beings teach human beings. teachers have always been denigrated and overlooked and underpaid. television is no substitute for human interaction and encouragement and personal attention. television and electronic gadgets and mass infotainment and advertising fragments, brainwashes and promotes apathy and intolerance.
is why they call it programming.
gotta pay for all the wars doncha know. all that education for nothing when the kids are simply cannon fodder.
Can’t believe some of the inane anti-teacher comments here.
As in any profession, there are slugs but I’m married to a teacher and it’s the norm that she is up working hard until 11:00 every night—plus most weekends—preparing lesson plans, editing student writing, and grading papers. Her students love her for it but parents don’t get it. My guess is that those unsympathetic to the plight of teaching and the struggle of teaching are the same losers that were throwing erasers and shooting spit balls when they should have been learning something, but didn’t.
The school also has a social role. Around age four and five, kids cling to their mothers. When they get to school at age six, they realize that there are other girls other than mommy, especially in the case of an only child.
Sooky Rottweiler says;
Flynn; To many righties, teachers are just propagandists working for whatever’s out to get them.
Shucks! At least when Buzz is on catnip and afraid to be followed, I can tell him that furry snake behind him is his tail, but what can I tell humans?
There are lots of ways to be good at something. I’m good at languages, but I can’t hammer a nail straight to save my life. I have tremendous respect for people who can make things and fix things. We should value everyone for what they are good at, and encourage them to get better at the things they aren’t good at.
The school system could include more subjects. Gardening, for instance. You could teach biology in practice. Shop classes could begin in the early grades, with building projects that wouldn’t involve sharp tools. You could include math – measurement, arithmetic, and so on, in practical applications. Perhaps simple electrical projects as well, using batteries and low currents, along with some theory of electricity.
There are also great ways to teach children about language in a more scientific way – but I won’t go on about that.
I just think that curriculum planning has been very unimaginative.
^ Yes, gardening. Hooo boy yourself. Gardening is a noble occupation, it’s not easy, and you can use it to teach all kinds of good things. For instance, you could replicate Mendel’s experiments. You can teach children about, dare I say it, the birds and the bees. You can teach the srtudents where their food comes from, and for older students you can do a unit on various agricultural practices and agricultural economics. You can study soil chemistry. You can study plant pests and ecology. You could study the colors on Indian corn and win the Nobel Prize, like Barbara McClintock. The possibilities are almost endless. Yes, gardening.
Hi RV – I’ve been away, and thus no reply to your interesting message. I’m not sure I understand everything you’ve said, so please (if you take a look at this) correct any misunderstandings.
I agree that students should be encouraged to develop the skills they are best at, but I also believe that they should be encouraged to improve in other areas. Otherwise people turn out to be unbalanced. We need our humanists to have some idea of what the sciences are about, and we need our scientists to have some idea of what the humanities are about. And we need all our citizens to know what a great and fascinating world this can be. I’m a humanist by training and profession, and I will never be a scientist, but I love science, and I think I’m a much better person for my interest in it.
I have some questions about the idea that the “cream will rise to the top”. I think this approach can lead to a kind of elitism. I agree that people with great talents should be given the opportunity to develop their talents. But we need a society in which everyone is given a chance to develop as much as they can. I also think that there are all kinds of talents, and some of these are not recognized by our educational system. That’s one reason I would like to see a broader curriculum.
You’re right that schools have huge populations to contend with, and perhaps teaching gardening/farming would be difficult with so many students. But the gardening program should begin in elementary schools, where there are typically fewer students. In the park near where I live, there is a community children’s garden, and there are many of these around the city. They are run by volunteers, and students from the community volunteer to work in the gardens. By midsummer they are selling produce one night a week, and we often buy heritage tomatoes from them. It would be easy to attach such a program to the nearby elementary school. There have been proposals to extend the school year through the summer, and gardening would be perfect summer course. The schools do run summer programs already, so it wouldn’t be hard to fit this in.
You wouldn’t have to have students garden every year. If they do one gardening course in the early grades, then when they start to study botany in high school they will have a sense of the organisms they are studying in the classroom.
I’ve gone on too long, and in any case gardening was only one possible area of study that I mentioned.
My main points are:
Education should be more active than it is. We should try to get students out of their chairs for part of the day, we should try to teach them that learning works best when it is active rather than passive, and we should teach them that education is concerned with work in the world.
There are lots and lots of things we could teach that would draw on the various talents that people have, not just on the rather narrow view of academic success that we too often fall into.
rekam Premium Member about 14 years ago
Glad I don’t have kids in school nowadays. And that I got my education in the ’40s and ’50s.
Lt_Lanier about 14 years ago
Without teachers mucking things up, the kids can get an education now. I mean, heck, they learn sex ed. in the streets before they can read nowadays, anyway.
Motivemagus about 14 years ago
^ Other than the King James Bible, that is. I know home-schooled kids who have done well, but their parents dedicated significant time and effort. I also know that teaching is a real profession, with skills, competencies, and knowledge required to do it right. And for anyone who thinks homeschooling is easy, you obviously don’t have small children. I think kindergarten teachers should get hazard pay!
lonecat about 14 years ago
The early grades are very important, and I would support better pay to recruit the best teachers at that level.
For the higher grades, how many parents can teach their children trigonometry and calculus and physics and chemistry and biology and history and English grammar and literature and a foreign language? That’s what I was taught in high school. If you don’t give your children all this, you are depriving them of the chances they need to find a place in the modern world.
Imajs Premium Member about 14 years ago
The situation is more of a dreidel than a straight good or bad scenario. One fourth of the teachers are good and deserve all the good things in the contract. Most don’t. In fact, they should be terminated from employment for not evolving to the change in technology or social dynamics. The losers get the same financial rewards as the educators. Unless they are morally bankrupt AND YOU CAN PROOVE IT, they won’t fire a tenured teacher.
Except for the New York state legislature, where else can you be totally inept and inefficient and keep your job?!
donbeco about 14 years ago
In a few years we will begin to see how much damage has been done. Unfortunately it will take several years to reverse what this foolish lack of understanding is causing.
One hell of a price to pay to pacify the current herd mentality.
Jaedabee Premium Member about 14 years ago
“For the higher grades, how many parents can teach their children trigonometry and calculus and physics and chemistry and biology and history and English grammar and literature and a foreign language? ”
Meeeee!! Except the foreign language part. We’d learn it together! And I’d need a textbook for the History and English. :’( I think being a teacher would be really cool. I was really good at teaching students how to count in other number bases. I think parents might think I’d try to gay up their children or something though. Goat sodomy or something.babka Premium Member about 14 years ago
human beings teach human beings. teachers have always been denigrated and overlooked and underpaid. television is no substitute for human interaction and encouragement and personal attention. television and electronic gadgets and mass infotainment and advertising fragments, brainwashes and promotes apathy and intolerance.
is why they call it programming.
gotta pay for all the wars doncha know. all that education for nothing when the kids are simply cannon fodder.
Pjbflyn about 14 years ago
Can’t believe some of the inane anti-teacher comments here. As in any profession, there are slugs but I’m married to a teacher and it’s the norm that she is up working hard until 11:00 every night—plus most weekends—preparing lesson plans, editing student writing, and grading papers. Her students love her for it but parents don’t get it. My guess is that those unsympathetic to the plight of teaching and the struggle of teaching are the same losers that were throwing erasers and shooting spit balls when they should have been learning something, but didn’t.
CorosiveFrog Premium Member about 14 years ago
I’ll be a bit of a psychologist here.
The school also has a social role. Around age four and five, kids cling to their mothers. When they get to school at age six, they realize that there are other girls other than mommy, especially in the case of an only child.
Sooky Rottweiler says; Flynn; To many righties, teachers are just propagandists working for whatever’s out to get them. Shucks! At least when Buzz is on catnip and afraid to be followed, I can tell him that furry snake behind him is his tail, but what can I tell humans?
thekingster about 14 years ago
Yes, Reasons…I read “Real Education” by Murray, too.
For those that are interested, buy a copy at Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/Real-Education-Bringing-Americas-Schools/dp/0307405397/ref=sr11?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274724665&sr=8-1
‘Nuff said.
lonecat about 14 years ago
There are lots of ways to be good at something. I’m good at languages, but I can’t hammer a nail straight to save my life. I have tremendous respect for people who can make things and fix things. We should value everyone for what they are good at, and encourage them to get better at the things they aren’t good at.
The school system could include more subjects. Gardening, for instance. You could teach biology in practice. Shop classes could begin in the early grades, with building projects that wouldn’t involve sharp tools. You could include math – measurement, arithmetic, and so on, in practical applications. Perhaps simple electrical projects as well, using batteries and low currents, along with some theory of electricity.
There are also great ways to teach children about language in a more scientific way – but I won’t go on about that.
I just think that curriculum planning has been very unimaginative.
lonecat about 14 years ago
^ Yes, gardening. Hooo boy yourself. Gardening is a noble occupation, it’s not easy, and you can use it to teach all kinds of good things. For instance, you could replicate Mendel’s experiments. You can teach children about, dare I say it, the birds and the bees. You can teach the srtudents where their food comes from, and for older students you can do a unit on various agricultural practices and agricultural economics. You can study soil chemistry. You can study plant pests and ecology. You could study the colors on Indian corn and win the Nobel Prize, like Barbara McClintock. The possibilities are almost endless. Yes, gardening.
babka Premium Member about 14 years ago
as in food.
lonecat about 14 years ago
Hi RV – I’ve been away, and thus no reply to your interesting message. I’m not sure I understand everything you’ve said, so please (if you take a look at this) correct any misunderstandings.
I agree that students should be encouraged to develop the skills they are best at, but I also believe that they should be encouraged to improve in other areas. Otherwise people turn out to be unbalanced. We need our humanists to have some idea of what the sciences are about, and we need our scientists to have some idea of what the humanities are about. And we need all our citizens to know what a great and fascinating world this can be. I’m a humanist by training and profession, and I will never be a scientist, but I love science, and I think I’m a much better person for my interest in it.
I have some questions about the idea that the “cream will rise to the top”. I think this approach can lead to a kind of elitism. I agree that people with great talents should be given the opportunity to develop their talents. But we need a society in which everyone is given a chance to develop as much as they can. I also think that there are all kinds of talents, and some of these are not recognized by our educational system. That’s one reason I would like to see a broader curriculum.
You’re right that schools have huge populations to contend with, and perhaps teaching gardening/farming would be difficult with so many students. But the gardening program should begin in elementary schools, where there are typically fewer students. In the park near where I live, there is a community children’s garden, and there are many of these around the city. They are run by volunteers, and students from the community volunteer to work in the gardens. By midsummer they are selling produce one night a week, and we often buy heritage tomatoes from them. It would be easy to attach such a program to the nearby elementary school. There have been proposals to extend the school year through the summer, and gardening would be perfect summer course. The schools do run summer programs already, so it wouldn’t be hard to fit this in.
You wouldn’t have to have students garden every year. If they do one gardening course in the early grades, then when they start to study botany in high school they will have a sense of the organisms they are studying in the classroom.
I’ve gone on too long, and in any case gardening was only one possible area of study that I mentioned.
My main points are:
Education should be more active than it is. We should try to get students out of their chairs for part of the day, we should try to teach them that learning works best when it is active rather than passive, and we should teach them that education is concerned with work in the world.
There are lots and lots of things we could teach that would draw on the various talents that people have, not just on the rather narrow view of academic success that we too often fall into.