"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?" -George W. Bush.

Gotta wonder sometimes, right?

Frankly, a real problem is that the teaching profession just isn't respected: this tends to mean that a lot of our educators are there just cause they can't be anywhere else. Doesn't help that half the country is only concerned as regards education with a) Religious correctness, even at the expense of real science, and b) Getting the taxpayers to fund religious schools anyway.

Something also strikes me wrong about this letter in the first place. Evidence, certainly, of the kind of misapplication of ideas about science that lead people to think Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle applies to educational studies: clearly someone has had a habit encouraged of oversimplifying certain ideas to cast doubt on any proper science they don't agree with, but I'm not sure we're actually looking at a high school kid, here.

If they're trying to sound smart and failing, there should be more inconsistency.

RML part of the problem is most parents fail to teach their kids the basics. Like respect. Discipline. Courtesy. And then they fail to work with them at all on homework.
Another part is that teachers are pretty much stymied when it concerns discipline in the classroom. When I was in school kids were afraid of Coach's paddle. #IV better be afraid of mine.

[er1kksen]

Having just come through the public high school system, I can say that Mike's post is right on the mark.

Another thing that needs to be stressed is public attitude towards education. Teachers get very little respect (often least of all from the parents of their students). Everyone thinks our education is in the pits but nobody wants to pay for it. Citizens think their personal moral/religious/political beliefs ought to be pushed in the classrooms. STUDENTS don't get respect; even if they spend all their time working and trying to be responsible, most of society still treats them like subhuman nuisances when it's their turn to relax and have some fun, just like they treat the stoner kids who don't do squat (I've seen this demoralize a lot of hardworking kids). Then there's the general sense that no one cares what you actually learn there, as long as you do it with decent grades (which hardly require any work or learning to achieve, really). After that, there's this giant overbearing pressure to go to college, but again, no one seems to care what you actually do there and whether or not it'll actually be useful for your future direction in life, let alone caring what you want that future direction to be.

It's not a healthy picture. When you combine that with our cultural tendency to blame the problems of life and the world on any convenient person or thing (which tends to affect young people pretty easily) you get a culture where students are being offered the opportunity to get a quality education, but the attitudes of the society they live in psychologically "enable" them to slack and slip through.

Not unlike what I was saying in the "Socialist" thread, if we want to actually FIX this problem, it's going to require a serious cultural shift. Simply adding hours (fine) and days (fine) and getting rid of summer (BAD idea, I promise you) will result in only superficial improvements. I don't think this kind of change is going to be achieved unless something truly drastic happens, which may not be pleasant. Barring that, I do believe the United States are going to be left behind in many respects as the world moves into the future. Ah well, a single nation can't be at the top forever.

[er1kksen]

graphic, with all due respect (wait what?)... there is such a thing as TOO MUCH parental involvement. And it might be a lot less than you think. In my own case, I know that when my mother tried to involve herself in my academic life (dad was a little more hands-off), it killed my work ethic. Why? I was, and am, someone who needs to do things myself, for my own reasons, in order to feel like they're worth doing. I had my own share of failings, slack periods, and the like, and I certainly put her through a lot of worry. Through it all, though, I learned to interact with life and required work on my own terms, and came through it as an independent and self-motivated person, who takes responsibility for (and pride in) my own level of education and life-competency.

Some other kid might have gotten to the same place best with strictly disciplinarian parents, or heavily-involved but easy-going parents, or parents who took no interest in their education. Still others might be smothered by the same circumstances.

All I'm saying is don't expect child-rearing to be a one-approach-fits-all experience.

[MRRiley]

Mike I have to agree with your ppost but you left one thing out. Parental guidance and discipline. You can't just leave it all to the teachers. When IV is in school you can bet your last dollar his mother and I will be right there working with him. After all I can't be raisin no dummy. If his IQ ain't at least 140 he's going back.

That is very very true.... but nothing in Obama's plan to lengthen the school day or year bears any positive impact on that. In fact, now that I think about it, a longer school day and longer school year may harm parental interaction with kids. More time in school is just more time being raised by surrogates. A balance is what is required.

OH, and IQ is for the most part, inate. Nothing school can do will raise or lower it one whit. Of course, some schools have been known to almost ruin certain geniuses (Albert Einstein almost flunked out as I recall), so you still have to watch em.

Mike

[Ratmagiclady]

Mike I have to agree with your ppost but you left one thing out. Parental guidance and discipline. You can't just leave it all to the teachers. When IV is in school you can bet your last dollar his mother and I will be right there working with him. After all I can't be raisin no dummy. If his IQ ain't at least 140 he's going back.

Cost-cutting measures in public schools are ...sucky. Beware if they are trying to teach 'whole language' English, (basically means 'guessing what a word is based on what it looks like at first,) ...get 'Phonics' in play before they're even trying to teach reading, if so. My stepdaughter, they were teaching that nonsense to, and forget about it.


'IQ,' by the way, isn't something they can really teach in schools, and not supposed to be dependent on educators.

Though it's possible to teach the *test.* Without teaching the material, as it is with other tests, like with the 'No Child Left Behind' program, solely designed to improve test scores, but not actually improving learning: in fact, diverting more of education to learning tests.

It purports to be 'objective,' but it's not. Recently, they've tried to make 'corrections,' which even out the scores but make it a less accurate test of what it *can* test* than it was before.

My IQ is pretty ridiculous. I'm certainly smart enough I can see inside multiple choice questions. Doesn't mean I'm going to be the fastest or most accurate at basic arithmetic, the most likely person in a room to retain a bit of information, or any number of other things. I class myself pretty good with the abstract reasoning, though. Don't go setting standards for your kid that are really based on tests *designed* to measure abstract reasoning of a certain type, (then scaled a certain way to try and compensate for a structural bias in the test) ... then calling it poor education (or them) if that's not where their talents lie.

It's about what they can know, and what they can do. Some 'book-smart' people can't think their way out of paper bags, and some certifiable geniuses are quite stereotypically-absent-minded. And a *lot* of people out there these days have plenty of raw intelligence, but can't *think* cause that intelligence is enlisted to occupy itself trying to work out how to justify premises that themselves don't hold water. "Scienceyness," if you will. Some Creationists are plenty smart, they are just afraid to actually see the world and time as really as big as they are. So it's garbage-in garbage-out, no matter how big a mainframe you run it through.

Smart's learning how to use what you got. Not bluster around like fallacies are strengths and as though managing to test well means you have 'superior brains' like this was an arm-wrestling match or something.

[stewart_photo]

(snip) b. Many teachers don't know any more about the subject they are teaching than what is in the textbook. This is bad enough with History and Social Studies, but when it happens in Science, Math or English the students are placed at ever increasing disadvantages. And the teachers allow them to pass because they do not realize how bad things are. IMHO teachers should have to pass subject matter tests which are 4 grade levels above the grade they are teaching.

c. Student overload... Beginning when my kids were in middle school, they began bringing home 4-5 hours of homework every night. Even assuming that they started working as soon as they got home, they often didn't finish until after dinner. So then they get a few hours to themselves but then it’s off to bed only to repeat the same routine the next day. If, on the other hand, they wanted to relax with their friends for a bit or had a little league game or whatever (snip)

The "4 grade levels above the grade they are teaching" is already the case, Mike. To get a license in most states to teach secondary education (high school) classes, for example, requires a Bachelor (BA) degree in the subject matter (history, math, etc). That's your four grade levels right there, but there's more. A Masters (MA) degree in Teaching Secondary Education (3.0 GPA or above) is also typically required, followed by the PRAXIS I (basic skills - reading, writing, math, etc) and PRAXUS II (general, teaching skills, subject matter, etc) exams. Finally, all licenses require successful background, criminal, and fingerprint checks. Some states offer exceptions accepting job experience in place of certain college requirements, but few teachers enter the profession through those alternatives.

In other words, a lot of education, hurdles, and student loan debt for someone who earns $30-35k per year (starting) and little respect from students or the community (evidently including you). My wife passed up that wonderful opportunity and decided to work in business (in this case, government) instead. Using that same educational background, she was easily able to obtain a job with the federal government as a budget analyst earning $88k her second year (yes, as a history major (3.85 GPA), she did learn a little math in the process of getting that teachers license).

Teacher education is not the problem. Instead, the problem is cultural - a society with dumb television actors, dumb movie actors, dumb music performers, dumb blonds in commericials, and a growing number of dumb adults (including parents) around the children transmitting a very strong message that education is just not needed or expected. Following that is more time spent on liberal agenda in the classroom (political correctness, social engineering, etc) than real education (math, science, etc). Following that is a lack of discipline (expectations for students and punishment when expectations are not met) in the classroom, reenforcing the notion there are no consequences (not even grade failure) for bad behavior or scholastic incompetence. Finally, there are the parents who obviously forget their primary responsibility is to ensure their children will be able to function well as an adult - which requires education & knowledge first and foremost, not a little league game or the child's friends.

stewart


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[Peter Zack]

I'm not going to add to the debate other than to say I an jaw slacked at who the OP is and the title. I must be dreaming....

[er1kksen]

Stewart, I think you're taking that snippet a little too personally. While the requirements can be quite stringent, that doesn't mean everyone who gets through them is truly qualified (which is as much of a problem with the universities as anything else) and, sadly, a lot of the individuals who come through that and ARE truly qualified (like your wife, it sounds like) end up in other fields that offer better opportunities, leaving the teaching positions to the less-qualified individuals who unfortunately further society's negative impressions. It's a truly unfortunate cycle.

These underqualified teachers are real and they're here, make no mistake. I had a history teacher who thought Scandanavia was a nation in the middle east. I had math teachers who had to duck into the next classroom over in the middle of a lesson to get help with something mathematical from one of the older teachers. I had english teachers who "corrected" papers based on imaginary rules so that they were no longer correct. Mind you, I went through a college-small-town-with-a-decent-program high school that had the third highest-rated math program in the state and one of the higher ratings overall, in NYS, which has one of the highest educational standards. I also had some absolutely fantastic teachers who I'll always respect and admire, even including some teachers I didn't necessarily enjoy working with. The bad teachers don't have to be a majority to have an impact.

I have no reason to believe that your wife wouldn't be a fantastic teacher, but we can't let our personal prejudices blind us to the facts: A screwed up culture is a HUGE factor in the problem here, but poor teachers are also a smaller- but still contributing- factor (arguably a result, really, of that cultural issue).

[Blue]

I'm not going to add to the debate other than to say I an jaw slacked at who the OP is and the title. I must be dreaming....

I slapped myself a couple of times.

[Blue]

One key aspect is that students have to be motivated to learn. Things that work to motivate students changes which also creates problems. This is true at all levels from K - Ph.D. M.D., LLD or whatever the end is. Some of this starts at the home in the formative years and that is the ideal. However, many pull it off at different stages.

Part of the problem is that we live in an ever increasingly over stimulated world. Educators and parents find themselves competing for student's/children's attention. Factor in less than optimum home life or environment and it exacerbates the situation.

Therefore, I don't think merely increasing the day or year is going to necessarily address these issues.

[flyer]

After all I can't be raisin no dummy.

I hope you are not going to teach him spelling...

[flyer]

I'm not going to add to the debate other than to say I an jaw slacked at who the OP is and the title. I must be dreaming....

I'm there with you. Almost took an appointment with a shrink for him.

[Ratmagiclady]

I'm not going to add to the debate other than to say I an jaw slacked at who the OP is and the title. I must be dreaming....

Well, he *did* say 'The Obama.' Either our President's been promoted to clan chieftain or he's still not a person.

[Blue]

I thought the editor of NewsWeak cleared that up on national T.V.

[MRRiley]

The "4 grade levels above the grade they are teaching" is already the case, Mike. To get a license in most states to teach secondary education (high school) classes, for example, requires a Bachelor (BA) degree in the subject matter (history, math, etc). That's your four grade levels right there, but there's more. A Masters (MA) degree in Teaching Secondary Education (3.0 GPA or above) is also typically required, followed by the PRAXIS I (basic skills - reading, writing, math, etc) and PRAXUS II (general, teaching skills, subject matter, etc) exams. Finally, all licenses require successful background, criminal, and fingerprint checks. Some states offer exceptions accepting job experience in place of certain college requirements, but few teachers enter the profession through those alternatives.

In other words, a lot of education, hurdles, and student loan debt for someone who earns $30-35k per year (starting) and little respect from students or the community (evidently including you). My wife passed up that wonderful opportunity and decided to work in business (in this case, government) instead. Using that same educational background, she was easily able to obtain a job with the federal government as a budget analyst earning $88k her second year (yes, as a history major (3.85 GPA), she did learn a little math in the process of getting that teachers license).

Teacher education is not the problem. Instead, the problem is cultural - a society with dumb television actors, dumb movie actors, dumb music performers, dumb blonds in commericials, and a growing number of dumb adults (including parents) around the children transmitting a very strong message that education is just not needed or expected. Following that is more time spent on liberal agenda in the classroom (political correctness, social engineering, etc) than real education (math, science, etc). Following that is a lack of discipline (expectations for students and punishment when expectations are not met) in the classroom, reenforcing the notion there are no consequences (not even grade failure) for bad behavior or scholastic incompetence. Finally, there are the parents who obviously forget their primary responsibility is to ensure their children will be able to function well as an adult - which requires education & knowledge first and foremost, not a little league game or the child's friends.

stewart
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Stewart,

I understand the college requirements and teaching certifications and all of that. What I am bemoaning is the guy with the physical education degree who ends up teaching Allgebra or the Art major who ends up teaching World History or the Music major who ends up teaching English Composition, etc, etc, etc. All of these people have BA or higher degrees. They also have to have teaching certs in most states. What they do not always have to have, is a mastery of the subject they are asked to teach. This is because many, if not most, schools are short of teachers, particularly in the core subject areas. You know this happens!

I also know that teachers in general are woefully underpaid for what we expect them to do. Won't get any argument from me about that. Teaching however, has never been a profession where a person can get rich. The best teachers I have known have been in it for the kids, not for the money and my hat is off to them. As for student debt. Their debts in general are no higher than anyone elses so they'll get no sympathy from me on that point. It took me over 10 years to pay off college while in the military (where I made no more than the average teacher and for the first few years considerably less).

Now, to address your final paragraph. I suppose you make no room for DUMB teachers in your world view. I'll submit that the list you provided as negative influences is accurate, yet it is not complete. Our kids spend more time in school than they do in any other single activity yet none of this is the fault of the teachers or the school system huh? Aren't they the ones who are teaching liberal agendas, failing to discipline troublemakers and passing students who deserve to fail? Finally, school is not the only place where people learn. We are capable of learning from almost everything and friends and athletic activities or hobbies are important parts of our lives and our development. This is just as true, if not more so, for kids as it is for adults. I don't assume you work and sleep 24 hours a day, and live as an isolated social system with your wife and have no hobbies (like photography maybe) or recreational interests do you?

Mike