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I have to say this: I think you need to expand the pool of young people you are exposed to. My DH works with people who are probably 30 years younger than he is and he reports that they keep him on his toes. He likes working with them and he's got stories about their smarts and ingenuity, their willingness to learn from him. He's learned a few things from them. They work together. But they aren't engineers or scientists. Maybe that's it?
While I'm at it I can tell you I have adult children who don't think they deserve high praise just for existing. And they've got friends who are the same way. Sorry, but I hate all the "the young generation is lazy" thinking. Not when I see young people busting their humps to get ahead.
You are both right and wrong. We still do have children/students who are smart and full of ingenuity and not lazy, and I deal with them on a daily basis. But unfortunately, they are slowly becoming the minority. And depending upon the field your DH is in, he may be dealing with those who are still in the majority. And may I ask what ages they are?? Just wondering, for I have really seen a decline from the 90's to now in the classroom.
This might be why 3 out of 5 new teachers leave the profession within five years. Try teaching in a block schedule to special education kids with a variety of learning disabilities. I tried cooperative grouping, but the discussions from the groups revolved around drugs, booze, sex, gangs and music. One hour and 55 minutes for any class (except PE, lab, and hands on electives) is boring.
This might be why 3 out of 5 new teachers leave the profession within five years. Try teaching in a block schedule to special education kids with a variety of learning disabilities. I tried cooperative grouping, but the discussions from the groups revolved around drugs, booze, sex, gangs and music. One hour and 55 minutes for any class (except PE, lab, and hands on electives) is boring.
I loved the block time, for I did 2-3 different lessons with them, so got almost 3 days in one. We would have 2 minutes of House Party Music when I had to make a BIG transition where kids were encouraged to get up and moveraround or even dance! And when I needed to show a movie, I could do in in one day. My students did more in that time than my students do year round for 52 minutes now. They did more homework as they had only three or four classes to contend with, and they were not as absent as much, for it would be like missing almost 3 days. But with that said, I didn't have a whole class of special ed kids, just a few mixed in and they did fine. What so many teachers failed to do was to change their teaching style with many just giving the last hour for homework...like THAT was effective!
I have found the teacher perspectives to be utmost fascinating, especially since I am one of those kids you are referring to. The bored one, or was one. I am have been out of school for a while now. I admit I never did see things from your standpoint. However I would like to throw in the modern day students' point of view.
A large part of why we are not learning is because we already know a large chunk of what you are trying to teach. Or at least we already know that we DO NOT NEED YOU TEACHERS IN PARTICULAR FOR THAT LESSON. We know we have the means and mode to just look up and teach ourselves what you are trying to teach. Heck, we could have just read it from the text book. With that in mind, why did I have to come to your class and listen to a boring lecture? I did this for six hours, five days a week for a good chunk of my like, and I never learned anything more than what I found reading the text book, or perusing the internet, or going to the library.
Frankly the traditionally way of classroom learning is antiquated. This style dates back to medievel times when the village elders gathered all the children, and told them stories. It really is only necessary for young children as they are a blank slate. Past elementary school, kids are no longer a blank slate. They have enough foundation to build upon without some adult having to play the piper.
What I would have wished for: We come to class, Teach gives us reading assignment, and homework assignment based on reading assignment. No lectures cause they just suck the life out of you. After sitting through one, you just dont want to do any more. If we have any questions, we come to next class, and ask, or maybe even over the web. If Teach feels reading material is not sufficient, than type up one yourself or contract out with a different publisher. Typing up your lectures should not be difficult since it is the same one you have been saying of 20+ years.
I have to say this: I think you need to expand the pool of young people you are exposed to. My DH works with people who are probably 30 years younger than he is and he reports that they keep him on his toes. He likes working with them and he's got stories about their smarts and ingenuity, their willingness to learn from him. He's learned a few things from them. They work together. But they aren't engineers or scientists. Maybe that's it?
While I'm at it I can tell you I have adult children who don't think they deserve high praise just for existing. And they've got friends who are the same way. Sorry, but I hate all the "the young generation is lazy" thinking. Not when I see young people busting their humps to get ahead.
There are always exceptions but they do not disprove the trend. I work with young people all day. I see a new group every year. I can compare and contrast having gone to college both in the 80's and the 00's. I can tell you first hand that kids today have a sense of entitlement that did not exist in the general poplulation when I was growing up. They're disillusioned when everythng doesn't come easy to them. They want a rubric to tell them EXACTLY what to do to get that A.
I'm sure there are some who do bust their humps to get ahead but that doesn't change what's normal for this generation. There will, always, be exceptions. Always have been.
I have found the teacher perspectives to be utmost fascinating, especially since I am one of those kids you are referring to. The bored one, or was one. I am have been out of school for a while now. I admit I never did see things from your standpoint. However I would like to throw in the modern day students' point of view.
A large part of why we are not learning is because we already know a large chunk of what you are trying to teach. Or at least we already know that we DO NOT NEED YOU TEACHERS IN PARTICULAR FOR THAT LESSON. We know we have the means and mode to just look up and teach ourselves what you are trying to teach. Heck, we could have just read it from the text book. With that in mind, why did I have to come to your class and listen to a boring lecture? I did this for six hours, five days a week for a good chunk of my like, and I never learned anything more than what I found reading the text book, or perusing the internet, or going to the library.
Frankly the traditionally way of classroom learning is antiquated. This style dates back to medievel times when the village elders gathered all the children, and told them stories. It really is only necessary for young children as they are a blank slate. Past elementary school, kids are no longer a blank slate. They have enough foundation to build upon without some adult having to play the piper.
What I would have wished for: We come to class, Teach gives us reading assignment, and homework assignment based on reading assignment. No lectures cause they just suck the life out of you. After sitting through one, you just dont want to do any more. If we have any questions, we come to next class, and ask, or maybe even over the web. If Teach feels reading material is not sufficient, than type up one yourself or contract out with a different publisher. Typing up your lectures should not be difficult since it is the same one you have been saying of 20+ years.
This is funny. I have a coworker who is teaching AP this year, which means she has the most capable students who come to her with the most prior knowledge. She is requiring her students to read to learn and use online course material and that is being met with and onslaught of requests for her to just lecture....I find that most students are not motivated enough to self teach and if you self teach, you have one serious problem. You are limited to what the teacher knows to teach and that's not much. I'm going to guess you're pretty young. You still have the "I KNOW IT ALL" attitude. Give it a few years. Life will correct that.
The error in your thinking, here, is that you are confusing what someone COULD do with what they WOULD do. IF students really would teach themselves from the book and use those online sources to learn, we'd save ourselves billions of dollars by closing all schools!!! Yes, my students COULD learn from the book, yet they don't (most of them don't). I assign readings from the book but just let me put a question on the exam that I did not lecture on. THAT is met with cries of UNFAIR!!! (I do it all the time BTW because I do think my students should retain something from the reading) I can assure you that if your teachers had taught you the way you are suggesting that you and others would have been crying tha the teacher wasn't doing her job...that she was just teaching from the book...That's what they say when we try to use the book as the basis for a class.
And we don't deliver the same lecture for 20 years. We can't. Each group of students is different. They come to us with different background knowledge and they ask different questions. I don't give the same lecture 7th hour that I gave 1st hour let alone year after year. I incorporate the questions students ask during the day into my lecture. My 7th hour class gets a better lecture than my 1st hour class. While I could type of my lecture, it would be just like the book. It's the human interaction that makes each lecture unique.
You are both right and wrong. We still do have children/students who are smart and full of ingenuity and not lazy, and I deal with them on a daily basis. But unfortunately, they are slowly becoming the minority. And depending upon the field your DH is in, he may be dealing with those who are still in the majority. And may I ask what ages they are?? Just wondering, for I have really seen a decline from the 90's to now in the classroom.
ITA. Over the last decade I was in engineering, I saw a steady decline in the number of good engineers available for hire. More and more had the attitude "I graduated from college now PAY ME". My boss complained that he couldn't deal with their need to be patted on the back just for showing up.
Seriously, what do you expect when you raise kids to think that achievement is checking off every line on a rubric and you get trophies for just showing up? I'm at odds with my administrators right now because my kids and their parents want rubrics to tell them EXACTLY what to do to get the A. IMO, If I have to hand you the steps, you don't deserve that A. Life doesn't give rubrics!!! I find that my students will do EXACTLY what's on the rubric and no more. So many times I read reports and think, "This is good but it could have been great if only you'd kept going..." I find that kids today just want the check mark and the grade. The problem is, life does not work that way. Life differentiates between the person who did EXACTLY what they were told and the one who got creative. The one who did EXACTLY what they were told is left bewildered when THEY don't get the job, raise, promotion,.... trophy. After all, they did EXACTLY what they were told to do.
You should see the looks on my kids faces when they ask me for rubrics for every assignment and I tell them that no college profesor will give them rubrics. Just yesterday, I had a couple of dozen requests for a rubric for a lab report. Kids just looked at me dumbfounded when I told them that what I'm looking for in the report has not changed from the last one. (What they really want is a rubric that details what a right answer is, which means giving them the answer.) They don't like that my rubric says that their hypothesis has to capture the essence of the experiment or that I state that full credit will be given to correct answers to questions without telling them the answer. Unfortunately, they've been raised having their egos protected. They're used to trophies for just showing up and someone telling them EXCATLY what they should do. They're good at doing EXACTLY what they're told to do but don't ask them to think.
Interestingly, while my current crop of students is better at academics and are better students, I had more students at charter school actually knew how to think. Few of my current students will take a risk.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 11-12-2011 at 02:55 AM..
I have found the teacher perspectives to be utmost fascinating, especially since I am one of those kids you are referring to. The bored one, or was one. I am have been out of school for a while now. I admit I never did see things from your standpoint. However I would like to throw in the modern day students' point of view.
A large part of why we are not learning is because we already know a large chunk of what you are trying to teach. Or at least we already know that we DO NOT NEED YOU TEACHERS IN PARTICULAR FOR THAT LESSON. We know we have the means and mode to just look up and teach ourselves what you are trying to teach. Heck, we could have just read it from the text book. With that in mind, why did I have to come to your class and listen to a boring lecture? I did this for six hours, five days a week for a good chunk of my like, and I never learned anything more than what I found reading the text book, or perusing the internet, or going to the library.
Frankly the traditionally way of classroom learning is antiquated. This style dates back to medievel times when the village elders gathered all the children, and told them stories. It really is only necessary for young children as they are a blank slate. Past elementary school, kids are no longer a blank slate. They have enough foundation to build upon without some adult having to play the piper.
What I would have wished for: We come to class, Teach gives us reading assignment, and homework assignment based on reading assignment. No lectures cause they just suck the life out of you. After sitting through one, you just dont want to do any more. If we have any questions, we come to next class, and ask, or maybe even over the web. If Teach feels reading material is not sufficient, than type up one yourself or contract out with a different publisher. Typing up your lectures should not be difficult since it is the same one you have been saying of 20+ years.
This is sad on many levels. First, that you think NO teacher has anything to offer and apparently having a closed mind going into the class, kept it that way.... But wait! You had written that if you HAD questions the next day, he/she HAD the answer! So apparently the teacher had SOME use/value. Second, that if you are telling me the truth, EVERY teacher just lectured (and it never changed), gave homework but then what? You just moved on without discussing anything? Applying what you learned to other areas or today?? Analyzing the material to see what the WHY's and HOW's were of the author and his/her work? Thinking about it on a grander scale? I find it very hard to believe that not one teacher didn't do this. And what about your writing? No teacher gave you input so you could become a better one??
At my school, hardly any teacher just "lectures". Yes, we teach a principle or in my case, a new literary era so my students understand where the author is "coming from" (as history MAKES literature), but unless a student does his/her job in my class, I cannot REALLY do mine which is to direct discussion and analyzation, to see how these pieces connect with today and are thus still important; to find out just what makes an American and in the process, they discover who they are; to help them become better critical thinkers and writers as they look at techniqes/rhetorical devices used in writing and oratory and even movies (THANKS to American Rhetoric and Youtube!) ...and I could go on and on. And if this is "antiquated", then I am glad this is my last year. And tthis is why too, I am totally against user_id and what he proposes...that computer programs can teach all of this in the guise of computer aides.
I am the second Gen Y Class. I am getting pretty old. I went to public school in NJ, and one of the "best" public schools. I write best in quotes.
I was the complete opposite of what you described in your second paragraph. I loved reading the textbooks. It had pictures, interesting case studies, and told you all these neat tricks, and quirks about the subject. On top of that, I could just keep on reading as much as I wanted. I had freedom. Going to school was basically prison. I had to sit there and listen. Now I could have asked questions like I said, but after having been in prison for so long, I just got fed up
As for your third paragraph:
There is only so many ways to convey a message. If you have been teaching for more than four years, you are basically using the same combination of words over and over again. Just write it up as many ways as you can and pass it around.
Now this is not true for some subjects like math. But even my math teachers just showed us the techniques, and never gave us real world word problems to solve using those techniques. The textbooks actually had those however.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
This is funny. I have a coworker who is teaching AP this year, which means she has the most capable students who come to her with the most prior knowledge. She is requiring her students to read to learn and use online course material and that is being met with and onslaught of requests for her to just lecture....I find that most students are not motivated enough to self teach and if you self teach, you have one serious problem. You are limited to what the teacher knows to teach and that's not much. I'm going to guess you're pretty young. You still have the "I KNOW IT ALL" attitude. Give it a few years. Life will correct that.
The error in your thinking, here, is that you are confusing what someone COULD do with what they WOULD do. IF students really would teach themselves from the book and use those online sources to learn, we'd save ourselves billions of dollars by closing all schools!!! Yes, my students COULD learn from the book, yet they don't (most of them don't). I assign readings from the book but just let me put a question on the exam that I did not lecture on. THAT is met with cries of UNFAIR!!! (I do it all the time BTW because I do think my students should retain something from the reading) I can assure you that if your teachers had taught you the way you are suggesting that you and others would have been crying tha the teacher wasn't doing her job...that she was just teaching from the book...That's what they say when we try to use the book as the basis for a class.
And we don't deliver the same lecture for 20 years. We can't. Each group of students is different. They come to us with different background knowledge and they ask different questions. I don't give the same lecture 7th hour that I gave 1st hour let alone year after year. I incorporate the questions students ask during the day into my lecture. My 7th hour class gets a better lecture than my 1st hour class. While I could type of my lecture, it would be just like the book. It's the human interaction that makes each lecture unique.
I am the second Gen Y Class. I am getting pretty old. I went to public school in NJ, and one of the "best" public schools. I write best in quotes.
I was the complete opposite of what you described in your second paragraph. I loved reading the textbooks. It had pictures, interesting case studies, and told you all these neat tricks, and quirks about the subject. On top of that, I could just keep on reading as much as I wanted. I had freedom. Going to school was basically prison. I had to sit there and listen. Now I could have asked questions like I said, but after having been in prison for so long, I just got fed up
As for your third paragraph:
There is only so many ways to convey a message. If you have been teaching for more than four years, you are basically using the same combination of words over and over again. Just write it up as many ways as you can and pass it around.
Now this is not true for some subjects like math. But even my math teachers just showed us the techniques, and never gave us real world word problems to solve using those techniques. The textbooks actually had those however.
Then why didn't you just test out of your grade level and into the next ?
That option does exist for those that know it already.
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