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I think most teachers are well qualified to teach. The vast majority of the teachers my kids had were excellent. But when it comes to education policy, maybe not so much. I remember in my area a group of teachers started a charter middle school to do "middle school like middle school should be done". It failed. They didn't know how to run a school. Of course, many charters set up by parents fail too.
As I said, I know quite a few college students who've had some brushes with the law. It has nothing to do with intelligence or whether someone is "college material".
Call me an a** If you want. The statistics show higher salaries and lower unemployment with more education. You are trying to deflect here, into a discussion about the "right" education.
Sure, but if the only reason for the higher salaries and lower unemployment is the relative difference between candidates and not their actual qualification, then trying to reduce unemployment and raise salaries by educating more people is self-defeating. Yesterday you needed a HS diploma, today you need a Bachelors, tomorrow you need a Masters, all for basically the same work. It amounts to wasting up to 6 years of a person's productive life in a expensive weed-out process. And then what, professional and/or research doctorates for everyone?
Sure, but if the only reason for the higher salaries and lower unemployment is the relative difference between candidates and not their actual qualification, then trying to reduce unemployment and raise salaries by educating more people is self-defeating. Yesterday you needed a HS diploma, today you need a Bachelors, tomorrow you need a Masters, all for basically the same work. It amounts to wasting up to 6 years of a person's productive life in a expensive weed-out process. And then what, professional and/or research doctorates for everyone?
That's a big "if". You're feeding into these people who say you shouldn't "make" everyone graduate from high school with this slippery slope stuff. It's been a long time since you could be a nurse w/o further education beyond high school, ditto a teacher, to name just two basic professions.
I agree that there should be alternatives. Not everyone is cut out for the rigors of academia. Not everyone is meant to be a doctor, lawyer or scientist. Some of us are meant to be work at gas stations, dig ditches and do carpentry. There's nothing wrong with that.
Very often, the kids who act up the classroom are the ones who love to work with their hands. If they were allowed to take more shop classes, work with tools and build things, their behavior would turn around. So what if they never read a Shakespeare play? If they're working with their hands, learning a skill and are happy, isn't that what matters?
Why do we make kids go to school. Alot of these kids are just wasting taxpayers money. Letting kids choose would lead to better test scores, less distractions, less violence, and just a better environment. It would especially make a change in low income schools. I say if kids want to throw away their life, let them. I say make kids go from k to 7th grade then let them make their own choice.
OP, if this is a repeat answer, I apologize. I didn't read everything in this very long thread, but you do have some valid points.
School attendance should actually be a valid measure of a child's academic progress. Although I don't think the answer is to allow every child to "choose" whether or not he or she will go to school, because I, like most of the people on this thread, believe children lack the ability to reason far enough into the future to make sound decisions about this, I do believe that the children who are "choosing" to fail should be allowed to. I also think that the children who are receiving "help" should be put into a different category than able children who can complete the work without assistance. I think the government has put unrealistic demands upon teachers and schools by counting motivated and unmotivated students and disabled and able students as parts of the same group. The education model that exists in most public schools today is an unrealistic goal given the obstacles and disadvantages most classrooms face: large class sizes, children with undiagnosed learning disabilities, unmotivated children who are having problems at home, children who do not know how to deal with peer pressure, illegal arrangements such as allowing aids to replace teachers to cut costs, etc. Teachers are not being given the tools to handle all of these problems and are still being blamed for the outcome. We wouldn't allow anything like this to happen with any other system.
We wouldn't allow our government to provide doctors with sub-par rusty dirty equipment and then blame the doctors and demonize the hospitals when people started dying like mad, would we? I hope we would place blame where it should rest, on our government, and demand better healthcare facilities. It is the same with our teachers and our schools, yet we ignore the infrastructure and place blame on the teachers, who, like the doctors with sub-par equipment, are just trying to do the best they can with what they have. We should demand change where it counts and stop blaming teachers for working with only what they are given and succeeding in spite of the challenges.
Back to your question, though. I think there should be more opportunities for motivated students with proven academic abilities to succeed in public school. Today, public schools usually cater to the average learners and move too slowly for advanced students and sometimes move too quickly for students whose progress is a little below the norm value. I think there should be ample opportunity to test out of whole grades, options to learn the curriculum at home on your local government's dollar, options to learn outside of a traditional classroom setting, and many more alternatives to the current public school system we have today. I also think turning Education into a partially government subsidized free market would benefit everyone by making schools compete with one another and challenge the status quo. The poor performing schools would close, leaving only high performing schools for students to choose from. I think standardized testing should be limited and schools should focus mainly on authentic assessment projects to see what students really know. I also think teacher training programs should focus heavily on making new teachers viable resources to school systems instead of using outdated suggestions and making us fend for ourselves. Current teachers and teachers-in-training should be able to collaborate, discuss, and plan on the overall vision for the schools they serve. Budget cuts on education should be made illegal, and policies should be passed to help remove all of the red tape. What do you think?
Call me an a** If you want. The statistics show higher salaries and lower unemployment with more education. You are trying to deflect here, into a discussion about the "right" education.
Obviously, you don't remember reading about the island of alphas in high school. (Brave New World)
And what happens in a world where everyone has a bachelors degree? Will we have low unemployment and high salaries or will employers simply demand a masters degree? Then a PhD...Then who knows what.
Yes, more education does result in higher employment rates and higher salaries BECAUSE most people don't have a bachelors degree so it sets you apart. When everyone has a bachelors degree, a bachelors degree will be like a high school diploma is now. It'll get you a job at McDonalds. WHY you ask?? Because not everyone is college material. The only way everyone is going to get a college degree is if we dummy down college. We're already doing it because we're sending kids to college who do not belong.
The more people who have a certain skill, the less that skill is worth. The more bachelors degrees out there, the less a bachelors degree will be worth. Your problem is you are assuming that there will be more jobs for more graduates when there won't be. What you'll have is more graduates competing for the same jobs which will drive the wages for those jobs down.
We can't make people smarter so we'd have do dummy down education in order to have more graduates at any level. Dummying down college so more people can get a bachelors degree isn't the answer here. Not by a long shot. In fact, it's a waste of money and time. The only people who like this idea are parents who think their child is smarter than he is, colleges who collect more tuition and banks who write sizeable student loans.
I can tell you from experience in the classroom that most students don't belong on the college track. Many more are there than belong. Because they are there, we have to dummy down the college prep track so they can pass. Then we hear stories of kids who had good grades in high school who flunked out of college in their first year. It would have been far better for them if we'd accepted early on that they belonged on a tech track not a college track. I would much rather teach a rigorous class that prepares my students for college than teach to the bottom of the class that doesn't even belong there.
And I wasn't calling you in particular an a**. In engineering we have a saying: To assume makes and a** out of you (u) and me. Assumptions are bad and we all could use reminders not to use them.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 08-19-2014 at 06:31 AM..
You know nothing about me, so try to say something productive, or just leave this thread alone.
I know nothing about you (and made no comments about you) but I have to agree with the comment that if we let kids choose, they will choose goofing off every time. Many choose goofing off even when they aren't given a choice. It's just their nature.
The problem I see is that we're teaching kids skills that are really needed to learn more skills and kids don't see an immediate reward for learning (other than grades but that's not a natural reward. It's an imposed one.). In the past, you learned skills you could immediately use. You learned to tan leather, shape a horseshoe, bake break, sheer sheep, build a fence, start a fire, shoot a gun,.... you learned a skill that you could use immediately. What we are doing is shaping minds in the hope that those who will go on to higher education will be ready when they get there when most aren't higher education material to begin with. Yeah, most kids will choose to goof off if you give them a choice.
Obviously, you don't remember reading about the island of alphas in high school.
And what happens in a world where everyone has a bachelors degree? Will we have low unemployment and high salaries or will employers simply demand a masters degree? Then a PhD...Then who knows what.
Yes, more education does result in higher employment rates and higher salaries BECAUSE most people don't have a bachelors degree so it sets you apart. When everyone has a bachelors degree, a bachelors degree will be like a high school diploma is now. It'll get you a job at McDonalds. WHY you ask?? Because not everyone is college material. The only way everyone is going to get a college degree is if we dummy down college. We're already doing it because we're sending kids to college who do not belong.
The more people who have a certain skill, the less that skill is worth. The more bachelors degrees out there, the less a bachelors degree will be worth. Your problem is you are assuming that there will be more jobs for more graduates when there won't be. What you'll have is more graduates competing for the same jobs which will drive the wages for those jobs down.
We can't make people smarter so we'd have do dummy down education in order to have more graduates at any level. Dummying down college so more people can get a bachelors degree isn't the answer here. Not by a long shot. In fact, it's a waste of money and time. The only people who like this idea are parents who think their child is smarter than he is, colleges who collect more tuition and banks who write sizeable student loans.
I wish more people would understand this. I could not agree more. This should be required reading for all governors and the POTUS. The belief that all students should go to college is damaging this country in so many different ways, which you have clearly and concisely stated.
When I go to a doctor I'm paying for a service. It's pretty silly of me not to listen to the medical advice. Same with teaching. Believe it or not some people have taught long enough that they can walk into a classroom and spot a child who will struggle - perhaps even the reason why he will struggle.
My mom taught for forty years and had more knowledge as a teacher about what makes a kid tick than most parents do. Parents have maybe three or four children as pre-teens for a few years. Mom had experience with hundreds of them for many years.
Parents today are notoriously resistant to giving anyone credit for knowing aspects of their child that they are unaware of. And most parents throughout time are at least secretly defensive of their children and how others see them.
Quite frankly, while it seems whacko for a teacher to tell a parent their child is headed for jail, and I'm not sure I'd recommend it, it may be worthwhile to keep just the teensiest open mind about the possibility. If more than one teacher mentions it, sit up and start paying attention.
These people spend more time with our children than we do and see them under different circumstances than we. Getting this message could be an insult. Then again, it could be a word of advice.
It's not a matter of whose job is tougher; it's a matter of who is most qualified to provide information about a given subject.
OT but this is the one thing about the switch into education that amazes me. No one listens to the experts in teaching. Everyone thinks they know more about education than teachers do.
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