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You know I was always thinking that the teachers are not to be blamed...I thought - school administration is at fault...
until I personally met
1) Literature teacher. Who spends time in the class reading a book out loud.. Some kid's book.
2) Math teacher who did not know which variabe is dependent and which is independent in y=ax+c.
Now go figure who is to blame...
So because you met two incompetent teachers, you feel teachers should be blamed for poor test scores? How many teachers in total have you personally met?
even the fed et al. cannot improve reading ability for students whose parents...do not emphasize the importance of reading at home and/or are not involved in their children's education and learning. It is pretty much fact that...our society does not value reading...and there is more emphasis on technology for this generation of students, which precludes reading by not only taking time away from a reading activity but also by diminishing the ability to focus on a single activity that does not provide a lot of visual stimuli for an extended period of time.
Yes. Why would these kids read when they have your cell phone interrupting them, a computer in their room to play games on, a million channels on televsion and parents constantly on their Blackberries or iPads? I wonder how the SAT scores of our generation would have been if we'd had all these distractions.
And that is the way it is today..everyone can and everyone is a winner.
So they all take the same classes and same tests.
I guess those in charge were expecting everyone to get the same "high" scores as well ?
Yep. You haven't lived until you have to sit through TESA and GESA training (Teacher Expectation/Student Achievement and Gender Expectation/Student Achievement).
The CollegeBoard just issued a "report card" for my school system that concluded that we put up "too many" barriers to students taking AP classes. These barriers included the student needing his current subject area teacher sign his schedule for the AP class and requiring students to have passed the state tests in a subject prior to taking the AP class (the English 10 exam, which is the only one for English, prior to taking AP English n 11th or 12th grade, for example).
Of course CollegeBoard takes $800K out of our district every year for tests and training (the school system pays for all the AP tests).
Moreover, our society does not value reading; just look at the amount of Humanities PhD's who are out-of-work and/or underpaid. Furthermore, there is more emphasis on technology for this generation of students, which precludes reading by not only taking time away from a reading activity but also by diminishing the ability to focus on a single activity that does not provide a lot of visual stimuli for an extended period of time, which is a necessary skill for someone to become a strong reader.
Great, valid points. The reason why I rarely encourage my son to associate reading with poppy computer games. What bothers me is that the school itself encourages K students to do all sorts of reading activities on the computer.
The only way anyone can become a good reader is to get in the habit of immersing oneself in printed text and nothing else for long periods of time.
No other distractions around.
Great, valid points. The reason why I rarely encourage my son to associate reading with poppy computer games. What bothers me is that the school itself encourages K students to do all sorts of reading activities on the computer.
The only way anyone can become a good reader is to get in the habit of immersing oneself in printed text and nothing else for long periods of time.
No other distractions around.
Exactly. And, yet, more often than not, the very students who need to practice reading are the ones who can't put their cell phones down--not even in the class that is trying to teach them to read
Moreover, the parents who want their children to learn to read and to read well--and who blame teachers when they don't--are the same parents who are not avid readers themselves or keep a library in their homes.
At some point, parents (as well as people in general) need to realize that, much as schools try to invoke in loco parentis, teachers can never be a substitute for or as influential as parents, even when it comes to education. However, a busy parent loves to blame educators b/c it means that he/she can point the finger rather than take the necessary time out of their busy schedule to actually parent and get the academic results that they desire from their kids.
Of course, if parents are too busy blaming the teachers for their child's academic shortcomings, then the energy that they should be channeling towards a productive solution (i.e. getting involved/parenting) gets channeled to a totally inadequate solution (i.e. expecting someone else to parent and then blaming them when that doesn't work), and the child's education continues to suffer as the parents continue to take the easy way out by blaming someone else for their own inadequacies.
The poster who mentioned a strong system of consequences pretty much hit the nail on the head, and is an example of how effective parents can be when motivating and directing their children's education. It isn't easy but, then, doing the right thing never is
So because you met two incompetent teachers, you feel teachers should be blamed for poor test scores? How many teachers in total have you personally met?
You think those teachers that I met are not to blame? My point was , before I met those teachers, it would not even occur to me to blame any teacher at all. I did not realize that such poor teachers actually exist.
In general, I think that there are both good and bad teachers in public schools but the system overall attracts and creates more favorable conditions for incompetent and indifferent teachers, than for teachers who care, have good education and who want to develop students' minds, not just train them to do a monkey job.
You know I was always thinking that the teachers are not to be blamed...I thought - school administration is at fault...
until I personally met
1) Literature teacher. Who spends time in the class reading a book out loud.. Some kid's book.
2) Math teacher who did not know which variabe is dependent and which is independent in y=ax+c.
Now go figure who is to blame...
Um...dependent and independent variables are science terms not math terms (my majors are chemistry and math). If you had said a chemistry or biology teacher didn't know these terms, I'd be worried. They don't really apply to math as set variables (as in x is always dependent on y. If you happen to know x, then it's y that's dependent on x) In math, you have known variables and unknown variables and any variable can be either depending on which one you know. You can't fault a math teacher for not knowing how to apply a science concept to a math problem that doesn't fit. While you could use the terms dependent and independent in math to describe the relationships in an equation, which variable is which would change depending on what you know so this teacher is not incompetent for not knowing this. It changes based on what is given. In science, it's set. So, unless this was a science problem presented in math class, you have nothing to fault this teacher for.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 09-16-2011 at 03:58 AM..
Guaranteed raises? Free healthcare? I guess I'm teaching in the wrong district!
You and me both. People really have some strange ideas about what teachers get.
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