Aspiring school teachers

[BMT (RIP)]

http://www.wpri.com/dpp/news/local_n...n_math20090519

This shouldn't surprise anyone!!





BMT

[glebo]

Damn....I thought the north had better school systems than the south too. I would hate to take a look at the souths results.

And we wonder why. Over worked and underpaid, like most of our public services...I guess ya get what ya pay for as they say.

[BMT (RIP)]

I sent the story to a professor I know.

He said the WORST student's were education's major's and even worst were the special education student's.

BMT

[Dozer523]

I'm a teacher.

The failure is our fault. We don't uphold standards because in many cases we can't meet them ourselves. (Well NOT ME but us) (In Illinois to pass the math portion of the Basic Skills Test you have to score 35%!) (NOT ME, I kicked that test's ass!) We don't expect much so we don't get much. We think school should be fun and not work. Teachers fail to realize that school is preparation for work outside of school. That failure stems from the sad fact that most teachers went directly from the sitting in the front row to the standing in front of the blackboard.

We don't want the kids to do anything they might not be ready for so we let them decide when they are ready. Children are efficient -- they only work when they have to, since we won't make them, they don't. Cursive writing is an example -- Not taught in grade school, so it can't be required in Middle School. Spell-check and Grammatik so who needs conventions? That sort of explains cursive writing too. Foreign languages (English) are for Foreigners!

Principals don't lead. Deptartment Chairs don’t enforce standards. Mentors don't know what is standard. Teachers don't teach. Parents are too busy and teachers make a concerted effort to exclude them (parents) from everything but blame and punishment. Competition and friendly rivalry are anathema in the classroom. Grades are routinely inflated to avoid problem parents.

But Sh*t the benefits are great once you make it past the 2 year probation!
And the Union will whoop anyone a** who looks at you cross eyed,
And you get paychecks during summer vacation.
You only work 180 days per year teaching five 50 minute periods, with a ton of sick days.
You get vacation days and don't have to use them during Winter Holiday, Spring Break or Summer Vacation.
And everyone blames everyone else (when parent whine you can blame the teacher before you and before them until ultimately you blame the parent)
It has been proven statistically that the vast majority of the taxpayers recognize that the problems with school exist but that their children's teachers are the "exceptions to the rule."
And there is a pension that makes Army retirement look flaky!
The citizenry think we are “heroes” (please!)

Who wouldn't want this gig?

[ZonieDiver]

Who wouldn't want this gig?

Someone can have my job, in two more years! I'll be grabbing that "retirement" that makes the military's look "flaky"! (I just wish I'd hung around for that military one, too.)

Our Evening School administrator's retirement party was last night. She will probably be replaced with our new "assistant principal" - who is currently THE principal at one of our failing schools. He has totally screwed up - alienated all "stakeholders" (one of the current educational buzzwords). So.. he is being made an "assistant principal" and we shall inherit him. Our HS has one principal, three assistant principals and a "dean of students". Two of our three assistants will be 'failed' former principals.

But, three more days! Graduation at 8 a.m. Thursday. Luncheon at 11:30 a.m. Outa here by noon! Flight to the Bahamas for three weeks on Sunday.

No more students, no more books, no more parents' dirty looks!
Schooool's out for summer...... (With apologies to Alice Cooper)

[Pete]

Originally Posted by Dozer523

...(In Illinois to pass the math portion of the Basic Skills Test you have to score 35%!) ...

That makes me feel better.

I zipped through the math part of the pratice test pretty fast and only got a 70%. The way some of the questions were worded did throw me a bit.

[nmap]

Originally Posted by Dozer523

Who wouldn't want this gig?

And higher education is even better.

Once upon a time, one of the smarter folks I ever met was giving a lecture on parallel computing, and the time required to complete a task. This developed into a discussion of an infinite series. So the problem was - how do you determine the value of such a beast? After all, adding up infinite numbers of terms gets rather tedious.

He offered a simple and intuitive (but mathematically rigorous) solution. Later, I complimented him and he pointed out that such things were not easy for him. He just spent a lot of time working on the problems. He was a rarity.

Ahh, well. With all those people who don't understand math, maybe I should follow the Bernie Madoff path.

[greenberetTFS]

ZD,Dozer and Richard and any others I may have missed........

I respect all of you,I know it's gotta be tough to survive in the "blackboard jungle". But your all QP's and to me that's what makes the difference.....

GB TFS

[GratefulCitizen]

The math specialists should be teaching math in k-5, not in high school.

Most of my time teaching (high school) was spent undoing misconceptions.
The students would have been better off if they had been taught nothing (about math...).

I brought this issue to my old man (30+ years teaching), he concurs.

/rant on/
I never understood the benefit of having students do massive repetitions on an excercise they don't yet understand, and then just moving them along to another concept which itself requires comprehension of the previous (misunderstood) concept.

Practice makes permanent (especially the errors ).

The root of many problems in the public education system can be traced to this:
It was designed for the industrial age.
The industrial age is over.
/rant off/

The public indoctrination system didn't mesh well with my oldest.
Learning from this experience, I part with a considerable share of my income to put my younger kids through a private, religious school.

[nmap]

Originally Posted by GratefulCitizen

I never understood the benefit of having students do massive repetitions on an excercise they don't yet understand

And yet...from that repetition, sometimes comes a flash of insight and a true understanding of the issue. I would guess most of us have experienced the effect. At some point, the numbers just start making sense - the concept becomes internalized.

But it sounds as if you've seen something you regard as better. Might I ask what it is?

[ZonieDiver]

Originally Posted by GratefulCitizen

<snip>
The root of many problems in the public education system can be traced to this:
It was designed for the industrial age.
The industrial age is over.
/rant off/

The public indoctrination system didn't mesh well with my oldest.
Learning from this experience, I part with a considerable share of my income to put my younger kids through a private, religious school.

Where else but public education - and maybe prisons - do people respond to bells/whistles? Most of our public education system is doing a very poor job of preparing students for life in 1950, let alone 2009 - while we should be preparing them for 2029.

I'll never regret having my daughters attend private, religious schools for their elementary school education.

Here in the Phoenix, AZ area, however, there are a lot of quality Charter Schools where a selective, caring parent can see their child get a fine education, tax-paid.

[Dozer523]

Originally Posted by greenberetTFS

ZD,Dozer and Richard and any others I may have missed........

I respect all of you,I know it's gotta be tough to survive in the "blackboard jungle". But your all QP's and to me that's what makes the difference.....GB TFS

When the little one hugs you going out the door (especially after that little one was the reason the day was not so good) makes it worth it at the elementary level. Higher grades I alway like when they say "I never thought I could do that." and I get to say "Well, I knew you could".
That has a lot in common with SF.
Und, mit SF, vee haf vays to make you learn . . . und you vill like it.

[ZonieDiver]

Originally Posted by Dozer523

When the little one hugs you going out the door (especially after that little one was the reason the day was not so good) makes it worth it at the elementary level. Higher grades I alway like when they say "I never thought I could do that." and I get to say "Well, I knew you could".
That has a lot in common with SF.
Und, mit SF, vee haf vays to make you learn . . . und you vill like it.

And, (after you have been at this quite a while, there is nothing quite as satisfying as having a 35-40 year old man or woman come up to you in the grocery store, bank, or movie theater and ask, "Didn't you used to be Mr. ____?" Then they proceed to tell you how some aspect of your class changed their life - and it is frequently something you didn't think much about at the time, or forgot you even ever taught.

Few occupations give you the opportunity to immediately change and improve someone's life, or to change their longterm potential. Doctors or paramedics come to mind. So do teachers. (And come to think on it... so does SF!)

(It is the last day - room cleaned for the summer school teacher, books inventoried and put away, materials updated for next year, all kinds of "stuff" in the car to work on over the summer - still working on "The Adventure Challenge" - and final paycheck deposited in the bank - they have to "blackmail" many of my "colleagues" to do what they should do by giving a "hard" check which is held until all the sign-offs are obtained - kind of like clearing post before a PCS!)

[Richard]

FWIW - there are many reasons for which I moved from public education into the non-denominational, private, non-profit education sector. The silliness of the concept of standardized testing (vs learning standards) as an attempt by the business sector to so simply quantify the quality of one's educational aptitude and levels of competency is but one of them. MOO - but the more recent growth-spurt of the business of education is a phenomenon which mostly results in a furthering of the growth of monkey business as opposed to any sort of real educational improvements.

Ahh, well. With all those people who don't understand math, maybe I should follow the Bernie Madoff path.

Madoff simply realized that pyramid schemes have been around since the multi-theistic Sumerians.

On the other hand, there remain glimmers of hope that people will fight bureaucratic bumbling when pushed to do so and do what is necessary for issues which matter to them.

California Town Votes to Recall Entire School District Board

More than 70 percent voted to oust the five board members of the Big Oak Flat-Groveland Unified School District.

The dismissal in September of a beloved math teacher at Tioga High School prompted students to gather 1,200 signatures to put the recall before the voters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/ed...&ref=education

Richard's $.02

[mojaveman]

Few occupations give you the opportunity to immediately change and improve someone's life, or to change their longterm potential. Doctors or paramedics come to mind. So do teachers. (And come to think on it... so does SF!) [QUOTE]

So true...

I spent a few years in the former Deutsche Demokratische Republik teaching English to people who worked in both public and business administration. When they were able to converse with me after I spent hours teaching them basic English skills it was a very rewarding feeling. Many of my students were in the East German Army the same time that I was in the U.S Army in West Germany. It was interesting knowing that we were once enemies at a former time. I drank a lot of beer with some of those guys.