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I think in order to be a good teacher you have to be worldly enough to talk intelligently about different parts of the US, its pro's and con's and what it takes to prosper there. There are no guarantee's that a child will grow up and remain in the area he or she was educated in so they need a real view of what the rest of the world expects from them.
Some areas of the US that are no longer big farming communities only push basic classes designed for students not planning to attend college yet still incorporate F.F.A. "Future Farmers Of America" into their curriculum. To me this lack of foresight in guidance is unforgivable.
Rural Tennessee is bad for this.
It isn't just rural parts of the USA that do this. Some inner city places are bad for this too. If I had to say, I would be quick to say Mississippi or parts of Louisiana. From what I have heard from a friend, the schools were so bad that many children are in private schools.
I think in order to be a good teacher you have to be worldly enough to talk intelligently about different parts of the US, its pro's and con's and what it takes to prosper there. There are no guarantee's that a child will grow up and remain in the area he or she was educated in so they need a real view of what the rest of the world expects from them.
Some areas of the US that are no longer big farming communities only push basic classes designed for students not planning to attend college yet still incorporate F.F.A. "Future Farmers Of America" into their curriculum. To me this lack of foresight in guidance is unforgivable.
Rural Tennessee is bad for this.
That was the problem at my high school. Teachers were assigned a certain type of curriculum to teach and if they didn't obey but it, they'd be fire. In all my 4 years in high school, I absoulutely learned pretty much nothing. When you compare Texas or southern schools to schools up north, we are behind......it is insane!
I think it really depends on the rural areas in question. Growing up in Iowa, the rural areas actually did a decent job of quality education for everyone. I knew many people at my university who went to schools with class sizes of 10-30 people, and they did very well in their education, be it medicine, business, etc. Almost all of them left the state after school, and they're spread all over from the east coast to the west coast, mostly living in large cities doing either accounting, medicide and engineering. Not sure how I got in with a huge group of friends that was clumped into those three fields...
The fundamentals of a good education system are not just now much you can make a child memorize and know specific facts, but how to properly develop your analytics and problem solving. Being able to understand the see the background/theories of questions and issues regardless of the course being taught. That was Iowa's huge push, teaching how to learn things and grow, not just specifically learning a list of items and then taking a test to see how well you can remember.
This is where Iowa was furious at the "No Child Left Behind", and was the last state to finally give in for fear of losing all their funding. Bush's program forced educators to teach children to pass specific tests that were handed to them. It was basically memorizing certain facts and history so they'd be "smart", but it really doesn't give you the capabilities to learn the other 10,000 things that are put in front of you to understand throughout college and the rest of your life.
I think in order to be a good teacher you have to be worldly enough to talk intelligently about different parts of the US, its pro's and con's and what it takes to prosper there. There are no guarantee's that a child will grow up and remain in the area he or she was educated in so they need a real view of what the rest of the world expects from them.
Some areas of the US that are no longer big farming communities only push basic classes designed for students not planning to attend college yet still incorporate F.F.A. "Future Farmers Of America" into their curriculum. To me this lack of foresight in guidance is unforgivable.
Rural Tennessee is bad for this.
You think FFA is bad? Do you dislike 4-H also? The Scouts?
Sorry dude, but people in "flyover country" still hold these programs in place, as they teach things like discipline, hard work & teamwork.
Looking at this type issue at a State level is crazy as well. ALL states have great schools, as well as bad schools. A kid can do very well and be a huge success even from one of the "bad" schools, and a kid from the best school in the Country can turn out to be a drunken bum in the gutter. Some states have higher standards than others, but that doesn't mean all the schools in that state meet those standards. Some schools in states with lower graduation standards exceed their state standards by a long shot.
You think FFA is bad? Do you dislike 4-H also? The Scouts?
Sorry dude, but people in "flyover country" still hold these programs in place, as they teach things like discipline, hard work & teamwork.
FFA is not just about farming.
Typewriter repair teaches good eye/hand coordination yet its a dead industry and teaching it would only be setting a student up to be a loser. I never said anything about the scouts or 4-H but yes I'm aware that certain areas are not quick to change with the times and thus the reason behind this post. Thank you for your input and verification.
In a rural area, being self sufficient is tantamount to survival. A knowledgable family who can be self sufficient and repair what they have, grow a good deal of their own food, and build their own things will actually be able to amass more wealth than most people living in urban environs and who run to store to buy a new device everytime something breaks or who call the plumber or the handyman everytime something goes wrong around the house. I was never a member of FFA because I had the attitude similar to others on here that it was worthless. However, now I realize it's about a lot more than farming. It teaches lots of life skills to enable people to be reliant on only themselves. It's actually a very "green" organization in the modern sense of the word because it eschews urban consumerism for a more balanced lifestyle.
Typewriter repair teaches good eye/hand coordination yet its a dead industry and teaching it would only be setting a student up to be a loser. I never said anything about the scouts or 4-H but yes I'm aware that certain areas are not quick to change with the times and thus the reason behind this post. Thank you for your input and verification.
In 4H AND FFA I learned valuable public speaking skills, parliamentary procedures/law skills, and ridiculous amounts of leadership skills. Without it, I wouldn't be where I am today.
I used a typewriter yesterday for some Hazmat forms at work... boy am I glad I learned that 'archaic' system... otherwise I wouldn't have been able to do a very important task.
4H and FFA are so much more than you think...I was a leader in a new program called Animal Ambassadors and went to inner city LA and worked with Compton 4H. YES, there is a COMPTON 4H that teaches kids basic skills like cooking, leadership, public speaking and networking (FFA has a job interview competition at the state level... how does that not help?). I was able to spend 2 weeks in Washington DC as a part of the Youth Leadership committee in 4H.
Don't knock something important unless you actually know what it is.
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