How hard is teaching.

The 'school system' does not work for anyone? A true education system requires everyone I mentioned and others to create and sustain. Teachers are only a small part of the total system. If we wish to truly improve public education we must improve all aspects of the education system...

 

What does foreign students coming into the country have to do with anything? Not disagreeing. Just asking.I agree with almsot everything else you said.

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Such as?

 

Agree. There are a great number of really good teachers at the elementary school level, probably slightly fewwer at the secondary school level.

It is at the college level where with the exception of the hard sciences and engineering that a significant element of indoctrination occurs.

 

“Don’t smile till Christmas,” the man said. I had just entered the teachers’ room at an inner-city Boston high school. My first teaching job. I was teaching history. It was 1965.
As I entered the teachers’ room that mid-September day, I spotted an old-timer sitting alone at the other end of the room. “May I join you?” I asked. “Be my guest,” he said. After we introduced ourselves and engaged in some small-talk, I asked this man - I later learned that his name was Dick Higgins and that he had been teaching high school English for forty years - his thoughts on education.

That’s when he said, “Don’t smile till Christmas.” Higgins then said, “Don’t fall into the trap of wanting to be loved; you want to be respected,” he said.
He then said, “It’s not how much you know; it’s the way you present it (the material).” Mr. Higgins then went on to say, “…that he had seen some brilliant minds come into the building. Dean’s list students when they were in college. They didn’t last a year,” he said in a chagrined voice. “In fact,” he added, “I’ve seen some young teachers go to the principal’s office in tears. A few,” he continued, “quit right on the spot.”

“What happened?” I asked. Higgins replied, “They got too cozy with the kids.” “You see,” Higgins added, “some kids will try to break you down. There’s an imaginary line that must be maintained between you and the students. I’m not saying you can’t be caring,” Higgins added, “It’s just that you must maintain you’re your demeanor, your professionalism. A sense of self-discipline.”

It was then that I asked, “How will the kids try to break you down?” “Oh, they’ll ask you,” Higgins continued, “how you met your wife. Did you do drugs when you were in high school or college? Were you an underage drinker? The kids want to get you off on a tangent,” he continued. “Once they get wind of your high school and college-age experiences, they’ve got you where they want you.”
Higgins would continue by saying, “Stick to the subject matter. Don’t get into any non-curriculum related topics. Stay on topic. No digressions. “No,” as he called it, “moments of weakness.” He concluded, “It’s sometimes difficult, especially for young teacher; yet, it’s essential that you heed this advice if you want to have a successful teaching career.”

Just then, the bell for the next period sounded. As I was leaving, I thanked Mr. Higgins for his advice. As I was making my way to my classroom, I was thinking I just learned as much about teaching than I did in all the ed. courses I took in college.
In conclusion, I taught for between 35 and 40 years. I would consider myself a successful educator. As I look back, some of the credit for my success would go to Mr. Higgins. That chance meeting was very helpful in getting me off on the right foot in my teaching career.

As a postscript, I would recommend lengthier student-teaching experiences. Mine was only six weeks (I do believe they’re longer, now). I would also recommend what I call “simulation” experiences. Something similar to what pilots do for training or re-certification. Those simulations would take place before a young teacher gets his/her own classroom. In the process, he/she would be put through various contrived classroom situations (possibly with one-way mirrors) to see how the aspiring teacher handles what
will likely be real-life classroom incidents. These can then be critiqued with possible recommendations.

Finally, there’s no doubt that we need excellent teachers. We also need to adequately prepare them for the road that lies ahead. No everyone gets to meet a Mr. Higgins.

 

The general public has at least 13 years of experience with public education, so it's not like we're coming from left field when we say that things need to be fixed. We don't know what's going on over in the administration wing, but we don't really need to. We know what's happening in the classroom which is where all the "magic" is supposed to happen.

Maybe the problem is that everybody is doing the best they can with what they've got, and sadly, that's not as good as other countries can accomplish. It's like buying an economy car and lamenting the fact that we get blown away on the race track by guys driving porsches. It is what it is, and the teachers we have are the ones we hired. The students we have are the ones we put in schools. The methodologies employed by teachers are the ones that they have decided are the best, and the amount of hours spent in the classroom and the subjects taught are the ones we have deemed acceptable.

In this situation, nobody has given up. It's just that reality is what it is.

Now, can we do better? Probably not in many cases. Can Detroit math teachers teach calculus to their students? Of course not! Half of them are illiterate, a quarter of them might be able to, but you can't flunk 75% of your students, so they have to keep the classes simple enough so that only maybe 5% fail. This naturally means that some are going to be bored stiff, while the majority are able to figure out how much change they get from ten bucks if they buy a big mac for 4 bucks, and some won't be able to do that.

I'm a bit more optimistic. I look at the general public as being a set value, and education as a variable. We can't change drug addicted parents into the Cleaver family, but we can change how Wally and the Beaver are taught. Teachers merely disagree with me, and they say they are doing the best that can be expected considering what they have to work with.

So either it is what it is, or we can do a bit better. Nobody has given up. It's just that maybe my aunt Edna really can't win the Indianapolis 500 in her dodge omni. Or maybe we can slap a turbocharger in that four banger and see if that helps.

All that blather said, when teachers start saying this needs to be changed, and that needs to be changed, we can divide these things into two groups. Things teachers can't change and things teachers can change. When they blame bad parenting, they are blaming it on things they can't change. When they blame NCLB, they are blaming it on something that can't be changed. If they blame it on bad methodology, that's something they can change.

So really listen to what it is that teachers are saying when they explain why Johnny can't read. Are they complaining about things that they can't change, or on things that they can? From my experience, it's almost always about things they can't change.

That's giving up in a way, but it's also accepting reality for what it is.

I would add, however, that maybe a lot of the things taught to students can be done far better without teachers. For example, history is a vastly entertaining and engaging subject, yet there are only a few history teachers capable of communicating how incredible it is. Dan Carlin is one of those guys who has managed to engage people on a level that 99% of history teachers can't. He's done that without ever being a history teacher, or even a historian. He's done it by being a history buff and communicating his love of history via his podcasts. Each of them are roughly 3 hours long, and he asks a buck each. A class of 40 students in a class 50 minutes long can be taught history for about 12 dollars a class. He would become a multi-millionaire, which would help spawn others of similar talent who can do the same with other subjects. Contrast that with paying some grizzled and entirely discouraged veteran of the classroom who is counting down the hours to a retirement still ten years away who couldn't inspire the interest of a crackhead with some crack, and you end up with what we've ended up with.

 

Foreign students tend to be far more difficult, as well as culturally different. The issue with foreign students is the bad ones are sent in a lump sum to generally (*)(*)(*)(*) schools while the good ones are spread out.

Look up some of the impact that esl students have had on their districts. Specifically those with parents who jus don't give a (*)(*)(*)(*) and yet we are forced as tax payers to pay for their education.

 

Ok. Well there's another way then. If the education system is such a mess then it's time to pull funding and let other alternatives happen. Maybe more home schooling. I know all parents can't do it well. It's just brainstorming. Maybe brnaching off sectors of education. Maybe doing anything except what they have been doing. If it doesn't work why keep doing it?

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It just amazes me how the system does things that are way ineffective! Lol. I guess just for the purpose of looks. Even though the final results alway catch up to them.

 

That's what teachers are fighting against. They say that it IS working, but that they're just dealing with what they are being given. If taxpayers want more, then they have to provide it. In other words, this is as good as it gets with the situation as it exists, as far as teachers are concerned.

Meanwhile, people who pay their salaries don't believe the teachers. And why should we? They're profiting from the status quo, and by getting us to believe that this is as good as it gets, they keep profiting. When we start looking at them and thinking that they're just jerking us off, they will lie and say it's us that needs to change, because they know that change from their end means they're going to be fired.

That's why I say you need to look at the excuses they give, and whether it's a change that they can do, or if it's just something we're supposed to do. If it's us that need to change, then I say fire them, and keep firing them until the swamp is drained.

The swamp monsters like the swamp just as it is.

 

Sweden is showing notoriously poor results on the PISA chart and it just seems to get worse and worse for each year that passes. The profession of teaching has completely lost its status and today, literally, anyone can get into uni to become a teacher.

It is a highly respectable and beautiful profession, but unfortunately state runned schools and bad teachers has ruined it. Many students are morons, but also many teachers are useless. During my schooling I can honestly say that I only had one good teacher; an older lady who was highly old school; pupils respected her and although she was strict and boring, she was a friggen amazing teacher.

 

Isn't that sad that you only had one good teacher. A lot of folks say that. And was there a time when it was harder to be a teacher? It does seem like anybody could just get into teaching.

 

Obviously, there was a time when it was harder to become a teacher, back in the days when the job still had status. There was a time when Sweden had the best school in the world.

Only thing that decides the status of a job is the salary. Since teachers' salaries are set by the state rather than the free market, it is doomed to - sooner or later - end in catastrophy. As the salaries has dropped, the demand for becoming a teacher has too. Now the supply of spots in "teaching school" exceeds the demand. The solution to this problem then is, of course, to lower the entrence criterias so that the supply can meet the demand. Pretty much.

From society's side, there will always be a demand for teachers, but as long as nobody wants to become one criterias will continue to be lowered and so will salaries too, meaning even fewer will wish to enter the field. This will result in even lower salaries and so on and so on. It is an evil soiral.

 

Got it. This is why they need to have people from the real world be recruited to politics and government office. It's sad when normal citizens have better sense than the paid professionals. Then they wonder why the public loses confidence in them.

 

I like your point about we all have at least 13 years of practical customer experience.

 

Good point.

 

Any suggestions?

 

Entitlement and ingratitude are not caused by being in a minority group. It is typical of leftists and other racists to associate minorities with both, but without bothering to look closer than socioeconomics and racial demographics. Values and attitudes are not related to race, but culture. Even within cultures and subcultures, there is variation in values, and those variations matter, especially as they relate to education. As much to the point, values and attitudes are affected by circumstances almost as much as they affect circumstances, especially given a generation or so. (Yes, it takes 20 to 30 years to make the change.)

Entitled and ungrateful are not characteristic of being in minorities, but rather of being perpetually on the dole, of being told, both explicitly and implicitly, that prosperity or survival is a right. Among other things, the quality of our education system is decreased by those who classify as entitlements things like food stamps, Medicaid, SNAP, Section 8 housing, and other social welfare programs. When one's food, shelter, and medical care seem like rights that come without one's own (or one's own family's labor), it becomes increasingly easy to conclude that educational accomplishment is likewise easily attained without one's own effort.

By contrast, those who value hard work and individual achievement are the ones who tend to prosper, both educationally and economically.

I was a public school student in the 70's and 80. I remember when the Voluntary Enrollment Exchange Program (VEEP) began in San Diego as a part of the voluntary ethnic integration program. The point was to bus students from poorer neighborhood (primarily, but not exclusively, Black and Hispanic students) to middle-class and rich neighborhoods, a kind of cultural exposure program. I went to school in the middle-class neighborhoods, and I had friends and classmates from both neighborhoods.

I noticed there was a big difference between my classmates who talked of their parents' jobs or businesses, and the ones who talked about getting food stamps. I remember which students talked of education being as something that was done to us (the students) by the government, whether we wanted it or not, and which students talked of it as an opportunity, as a gift, or as a responsibility..

When I became a teacher, I worked for the students from these same poorer neighborhoods in San Diego, and similar ones in Amarillo and the DFW Metroplex. I saw that the percentage of students on public assistance correlates with the prevalence of lack of respect for teachers, lack of cooperation with teachers, lack of academic achievement in schools, and high dropout rates..

The correlation is explained by the nature of academic achievement. Those who actually appreciate what education is and how valuable it is, do the hard work required to actually get an education. Those people end up making more money, and then live in middle-class and rich neighborhoods, where the schools, though far from perfect, tend to be better because there is an understanding that the students must do the actual work of learning.

Wherever there is a concentration of people who believe teachers can make students learn, the schools suck. Wherever there is a concentration of people who believe students are the ones responsible for whether and how much they learn, the schools are better. It is the difference between belief in entitlement and belief in hard work.

 

I do feel people are responsible for themselves for the most part. So, this is harder when they don't get that from the parents.

 

Share ways to get demand up.

 

The most obvious way is to raise teachers' salaries. This can be done either by cutting funding for one useless government programme and invest that money in school instead. Or you could simply privatise schooling all together to let the competition on the free market handle the salaries.

The only thing that decides the status of a job is its salary. If teachers would have earned more, more people would have wanted to become one. And as more people demand to get into teaching, criterias will raise and only the brightest of people will enter "teacher's-school".

 

But what does that do for real time? That's to recruit future good teachers. They may as well say forget the current ones.

 

I think it's a little bit of everything. There are good teachers and a lot of bad ones, but there are also a lot of lousy parents. If the parents don't value education or get more involved, then their children will do poorly in school. It doesn't matter how much money you throw away on our education system as long as parents and students and parents don't value education.

I would take it a step further and say you don't need school to be educated, just a library card or a kindle. All of this information is out there for pennies on the dollar, you just have to want it. I will go further still and say you get a better education if you educate yourself because schools seem more interested in indoctrination than actual knowledge.

 

Is there a reason they don't value education? Is it seen as useless to them?

 

Yup. And it's too hard for them.

 

So folks are that stupid now? They've evolved to this?

 

Pretty much. It's not hard to believe when you consider that we have removed all selective pressures to remove the stupid. In fact, we pay stupid people to have babies, so why should this be a surprise to anyone?