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Pretty well sums up the frustrations of many teachers.
The Finland example is a perfect case. All the virtues of the Finnish educational system are touted while ignoring the demographic and social welfare programs that make the educational goals and objectives possible. Finland also has a strong vocational component which is intergral to the success of their students. The current administration is unwilling to recognize vocational needs and instead focuses on a singular path to college for all. This is evident in terms of the testing and standards used to measure progress.
That's because in Europe, they don't care about hurting your feelings and explaining to you that you will be one of the 90% for whom college is a total waste of time.
Ok, please show us the legislation reducing the pay of doctors, lawyers, etc.
Or some evidence that civil service doctors licenses are now 50% dependent on whether their patients are cured, and ignore completely whether the patients are AMA? Or that prosecutors are now required to win every single case they go to trial with or they lose their jobs?
Please show us that.
What do you think the Medicare cuts are?
You don't have to cut my pay. 40% of my patients never bother to pay me anyway.
I think some of this(and other posts) speak to a generational difference in how we look at all figures of authority.
The old way where we were absolutely unquestioning of those is authority didn't serve everyone well either.
If you think the answer is to blister a kids butt for failing..well feel free to raise your kids that way. I personally think there is room for asking questions.
When my oldest kid was in her first few years of elementary..she did poorly. When I tried to ask questions, or ask how they assessed her performance..I was shut down(this is a very condensed version). I practically homeschooled her for a few years. I guess I should have used your "butt blistering" technique..would have saved a lot of time
You never know. Actually paying attention can do wonders for learning. I knew better than to not pay attention. So I paid attention and did my work. My parents were pretty hands off when it came to our educations except for the butt kicking that happened if the report card wasn't up to snuff. It worked.
I'll take the old way. Having 24 kids who all want to question authority and their parents who want to tell me how to do my job, doesn't work for classroom teaching. It might in smaller classes but no one is going to make our classes smaller any time soon. If I'm going to get through the material, I have to count on student's paying attention.
You never know. Actually paying attention can do wonders for learning. I knew better than to not pay attention. So I paid attention and did my work. My parents were pretty hands off when it came to our educations except for the butt kicking that happened if the report card wasn't up to snuff. It worked.
I'll take the old way. Having 24 kids who all want to question authority and their parents who want to tell me how to do my job, doesn't work for classroom teaching. It might in smaller classes but no one is going to make our classes smaller any time soon. If I'm going to get through the material, I have to count on student's paying attention.
Speaking from the period where my daughter was struggling..it didn't seem like there was a whole lot going in the classroom for her to pay attention to. She'd be sent home with a worksheet so that she could "discover" or "invent" a strategy to solve math problems. The teacher thought teaching standard algorithms(or really any method at all)was bad. If I remarked to the teacher that my daughter didn't get how to do the worksheets, she'd shrug her shoulders. The teachers straight out said that "drill and kill" was bad, and that math shouldn't be focused so much on getting the right answer. So do you think a parent should just take that sort of teacher's advice in an unquestioning way.
Same teacher gushed over "invented spelling"...and would never correct any errors on kids' papers.
My parents for the most part didn't question authority....and I can say there were times maybe they should have. They did send me to school though with the assumption that the teacher was actually teaching, instead of engaging in some sort of constructivist experiment.
Speaking from the period where my daughter was struggling..it didn't seem like there was a whole lot going in the classroom for her to pay attention to. She'd be sent home with a worksheet so that she could "discover" or "invent" a strategy to solve math problems. The teacher thought teaching standard algorithms(or really any method at all)was bad. If I remarked to the teacher that my daughter didn't get how to do the worksheets, she'd shrug her shoulders. The teachers straight out said that "drill and kill" was bad, and that math shouldn't be focused so much on getting the right answer. So do you think a parent should just take that sort of teacher's advice in an unquestioning way.
Same teacher gushed over "invented spelling"...and would never correct any errors on kids' papers.
My parents for the most part didn't question authority....and I can say there were times maybe they should have. They did send me to school though with the assumption that the teacher was actually teaching, instead of engaging in some sort of constructivist experiment.
Seriously? You never heard of new math? There's always some experiment going on in education. The current one is centers around kids inventing math. My dd could not handle Everyday Mathematics. She needed "drill and kill" but that is a totally different debate.
Fleurr we are teaching the way we are told to teach. Those new common core math standards are trying to get us away from drills and memorization. Memorization is a bad word in the education world.
I don't agree with the new approach, but they don't seem to bother to get the opinions of teachers when they come up with these new ideas. I KNOW my kids need to memorize and be shown the steps to a problem. They can't EXPLORE large fractions, they have to be taught what to do. But we are being told if we guide their exploration in just the right way they will gain a deeper understanding of concepts.
Teaching is a job like any other, we have a boss who tells us how we should be doing our job. We have to struggle to please that boss and still meet the needs of our kids.
Fleurr we are teaching the way we are told to teach. Those new common core math standards are trying to get us away from drills and memorization. Memorization is a bad word in the education world.
I don't agree with the new approach, but they don't seem to bother to get the opinions of teachers when they come up with these new ideas. I KNOW my kids need to memorize and be shown the steps to a problem. They can't EXPLORE large fractions, they have to be taught what to do. But we are being told if we guide their exploration in just the right way they will gain a deeper understanding of concepts.
Teaching is a job like any other, we have a boss who tells us how we should be doing our job. We have to struggle to please that boss and still meet the needs of our kids.
IMO, this is one of the biggest problems in teaching. It seems, when it comes to how we teach, the one person who isn't in on the decision is the expert in the classroom. I can't think of another profession that makes major decisions without seeking the advice of those who actually do the job. Teachers are the experts on learning but we're treated like we're idiots who have to be told what to do.
Fleurr we are teaching the way we are told to teach. Those new common core math standards are trying to get us away from drills and memorization. Memorization is a bad word in the education world.
I don't agree with the new approach, but they don't seem to bother to get the opinions of teachers when they come up with these new ideas. I KNOW my kids need to memorize and be shown the steps to a problem. They can't EXPLORE large fractions, they have to be taught what to do. But we are being told if we guide their exploration in just the right way they will gain a deeper understanding of concepts.
Teaching is a job like any other, we have a boss who tells us how we should be doing our job. We have to struggle to please that boss and still meet the needs of our kids.
An example of a Common Core problem was presented at an in-service. The expectation was that all 7th graders will be able to "work through their frustrations" to derive an answer to the problem as well as articulate their problem solving process they used that justifies their solution. It was reiterated that we should not provide any assistance, formulas or sample problems prior to giving the students this problem to solve.
The example was something like this:
How many 1/4 inch cubes would fit inside a box with dimensions of 5 inches by 3 1/2 inches by 10 1/4 inches?
I tried it with my honors class. 1 student was able to figure it out.
An example of a Common Core problem was presented at an in-service. The expectation was that all 7th graders will be able to "work through their frustrations" to derive an answer to the problem as well as articulate their problem solving process they used that justifies their solution. It was reiterated that we should not provide any assistance, formulas or sample problems prior to giving the students this problem to solve.
The example was something like this:
How many 1/4 inch cubes would fit inside a box with dimensions of 5 inches by 3 1/2 inches by 10 1/4 inches?
I tried it with my honors class. 1 student was able to figure it out.
My chem class isn't doing any better. I gave a mind teaser bellwork the a while back and had two students figure it out all day out of 96. They were given a set of equalities and asked to find the mass of one in terms of another. I'm always amazed at how few figure it out (I use this same problem every year when I introduce stoichiometry). Most of my students don't even try.
......... they don't seem to bother to get the opinions of teachers when they come up with these new ideas.......
Which is, unfortunately, what the vast majority of people either don't understand or choose not to.
Between the the USDED, the various State Boards of Education and even local Boards, classroom teachers are cut out of the decision and development process nearly every step of the way.
From curriculum consultants hired on contract to develop the Voluntary (they aren't, by the way) State Curricula to the strings attached to private foundation grants (Gates is notorious for this) to system functionaries, teachers are told what they are going to do in the classroom, even down to what page they should be on on a particular day.
My school system, by way of example, decides what the school calendar will be and then asks for teacher input.
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I knew better than to not pay attention. So I paid attention and did my work. My parents were pretty hands off when it came to our educations except for the butt kicking that happened if the report card wasn't up to snuff. It worked. 
IMO, this is one of the biggest problems in teaching. It seems, when it comes to how we teach, the one person who isn't in on the decision is the expert in the classroom. I can't think of another profession that makes major decisions without seeking the advice of those who actually do the job. Teachers are the experts on learning but we're treated like we're idiots who have to be told what to do.
