First day mentoring an inner city minority: America you've failed big time (employment, wage)
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Not just inner city minority youth either. Try rural youth and all kinds of youth.
I went to a rural high school. Literally 3 miles outside of the nearest town. The test scores from my class were on par with the private schools in my state. Almost every student that didn't stay to work on the family farm or take over the family business went to college. Today my friends from that little school are doctors, programmers, bankers, biologists, pharmacists, nurses, etc.
Location doesn't matter. Poorly educated students are a result of poverty and parents who don't care about their kids' education.
Sounds like THAT person has failed to apply themselves......sounds like the PARENTS do not really give a **** about their kids education. If that student wants to be a doctor....wow, I hope she does not succeed!
Enough with the BS guilt-trip.....some kids don't care about a formal education.....they can be janitors or fast-food workers.
That is just an ignorant, nasty attitude to have. Not every kid gets the help they need in these subjects. I didn't catch up in math until I was in college and happened to have a good professor who helped me. Without her, I would still have never caught up. I hope like hell you're not a parent or a teacher.
In my state so much of the IT work that has been outsourced to (often incompetent) H1B visa holders from India could be done by good ol' American kids from the inner city to the 'burbs.
That's a big problem around here. Yes, I hear that they are educated but I also know they will work at half the price of some US kid out of college.
That's a big problem around here. Yes, I hear that they are educated but I also know they will work at half the price of some US kid out of college.
Most of those easy IT jobs don't require college degrees. However, no kid who just paid thousands upon thousands of dollars wants to work in these jobs. Self licking ice cream cone in a way.
I knew all that stuff by the 9th grade but I could not force myself to read "Pride and Prejudice" when a science or technology text or a Robert Heinlein SF book was available.
Obviously this kid was never encouraged to think or question but just bore herself to tears with rote learning. She also never discovered a reason to bother. Her folks were poor, her neighbors were poor and every kid in school was poor so why bother working? The only thing she would get out of learning would be estrangement from family, friends and most of the teachers. Discouragement is a contagious disease that results in a universal "why bother" attitude.
I used to teach graduate students (M.A. & Ph.D.) at one of the nations most prestigious private universities and I was often very disappointed with students. Their general knowledge was appalling and some clearly lacked exposure to adaptive reasoning and studying skills.
Presumably, most of these students are privileged and had life-long access to education. Still, the work put forth by these students was often very, very poor.
On occasion, I would also teach undergraduates at the nation's premier school for criminal justice - and found this to be an even more sobering experience.
That's a big problem around here. Yes, I hear that they are educated but I also know they will work at half the price of some US kid out of college.
Yes, they work for less money and don't rock the boat. Problem is, so many of them are incompetent (with bullcrap "degrees" from schools that don't exist - I've seen their resumes) that the quality of work suffers and projects are greatly impacted as a result.
Sounds like THAT person has failed to apply themselves......sounds like the PARENTS do not really give a **** about their kids education. If that student wants to be a doctor....wow, I hope she does not succeed!
Enough with the BS guilt-trip.....some kids don't care about a formal education.....they can be janitors or fast-food workers.
So all your children were proficient in Physics in highschool and were doctor material?
Not just inner city minority youth either. Try rural youth and all kinds of youth.
We spend more money by far on "education" but much of it's just a big waste.
One teacher here told me that out of 20 kids in 9th grade geography, only 4 kids were at all prepared, most had no clue how many states there are or could locate many of them.
Bingo.
I live in an affluent area in an affluent school district, and we have the same problem. This is far from being an inner city problem. It's a nationwide problem.
Kids will instinctively do only what's necessary to pass, and nothing more. Most kids aren't naturally ambitious when it comes to school...and without guidance, they don't realize that you'll need certain classes if you wanna prep yourself for college.
We can lay the blame at the feet of the parents, but lets be truthful...how many parents out there actually KNOW what their kids should be taking, and it's all the more worse with lower income families. Most parents just figure that as long as their kids are passing, they'll be ok. They don't get the full picture about what's needed.
This is where having good guidance counselors come in handy, and unfortunately, many districts here in Arizona have slashed those positions out of the schools. We used to have a counselor for each grade back in my day.
Many of these kids are on their own and can't figure out what they should be doing.
I think modern technology is going to make public school more and more obsolete. Home schooling didn't used to have the resources to be highly successful. That is no longer the case. Why send your kids into a system that fails so often and so spectacularly? Amateurs -- parents homeschooling their kids -- are more successful at educating their children and their kids end better off in social development.
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