Teacher Criticisms...(rant)

Those of you teachers who have had problems with students who weren't interested in learning might take heed. If the courses are interesting the students will come. If you want to know how it is done in an urban setting read John Taylor Gotto. (Of course, there is also Jaime Escalantes who I keep referring to.)

you keep saying this like all students want to learn. this just isn't true. it's called a bell curve. you have yet to suggest what the system do with the thousands of minors that would choose not to show up at all and hang out on the streets all day.

The bell curve relates to intelligence, not desire to learn. I think public school should only be for those with a desire to learn. Period.

the implication that all students don't like class because it's not interesting enough is just silly. what about all of the 13 year olds that already have their own children? what about my high school cellist that had two children by her own father? you are completely cutting them out from your formula, and whether you know them or like them, they are still there - hundreds of thousands of these children in every community, whether you see them or not. you are discounting any solution to this aspect of education, because in public education, you deal with who walks through the door - there is no choice involved.

If a 13 year old with a kid has a desire to learn, she should be in school if she can manage it. Her first responsibilitiy is to her babies. Frankly, I have met some kids like that. Inner city kids who learned that the more kids you had, the more welfare you got. I think the people who designed our welfare system should be in jail. Certainly the father you are mentioning should be in jail.

and as for your two super-teacher-heros, they both retired in 1991 - more than 20 years ago. pre-internet/pocket-computer/won't-it-be-a-great-idea-if-i-send-naked-pics-to-my-boyfriend-he'll-never-show-anyone. i don't think their experiences would be relevant anymore.

No way! These two were bucking the system then, and their lessons are still true. If what the system allows is not working, the buck the freaken system. Do what works and screw the administrators. Of course it will probably cost you your job, but you will be a hero, and if enough people do it, the system will change.

i can see a lot of your arguments, but you are cutting out huge factors that still have to be dealt with on some level. you are just sweeping them under the carpet

What factors?

There were thirty or forty kids in our community college who were homeschoolers or who, for some other reason had just dropped out of high school. They were all , pretty much from the same area of Connecticut, and were not from poverty areas. Nonetheless, they, like me found that the upscale high schools in our area were just a waste of time. Virtually all of these homeschool/drop out kids were success stories. One is currently in graduate school at Brown, some went to other colleges such as Trinity, Wesleyan, UConn, my 19 year old son is in law school, etc. Not experiencing high school, and in most cases grade school, didn't hurt them a bit, and this is a large enough population so that one should be able to make some statistical correlations and draw some general principles from this group.

this is typical of public schools too. my husband's high school class last year racked up several million dollars in scholarships, many full rides to ivy league, so i don't think your stats have quite as much bearing on the matter as you think. going through 12 years of public school didn't seem to hurt these students that thrived so well. sounds like a stalemate to me.

I don't doubt that there are great Ivy League candidates from public schools. I was one myself ( full scholarship University of Pennsylvania.) However, read that post by the Community College Adjunct. I believe that was the most important post put on this board. She said, "95% of the kids she teaches, almost all high school grads, cannot read or write or do simple math." That says something about the public schools in this day and age. Her experience is confirmed by the kids I met at our community college. And these kids really want to learn. Many are going to school even though they do not have enough to eat.
Tell me that is not the fault of the public school system.


if you jump to the inplication that going to high school or not going to high school can give students the same results, it's probably not anything the type of education is doing, but the intrinsic motivation of those particular students.

Actually, if high school is a non factor, then why bother with it?

By the way, the average class size in this community college is about 40, and none of the younger kids, the homeschoolers, had any difficulty with that number. Small class size, in my opinion, is meaningless beyond the elementary grades, and they are being pushed for one reason only: the union wants to create more teacher jobs. They are a waste of taxpayer money and other resources.

put them in a class of 40 when they are not paying for the education and see if there is a difference. that would be the way to effectively compare this.

Note : The final decision is yours, the teacher. The administrator doesn't sign the papers, you do. There is a reason for that. It is YOUR DECISION, and administrators don't want the responsibility to end with them. If, on the other hand you accept the responsibility, it is highly unlikely that the administrators will undo your decision. You just need the guts to take them on.

*snort* sillliness. it is *not* highly unlikely for administration to change your decisions. especially when money or athletics are involved. maybe a union would help with this, but we don't have those. but you've never played in that field, so i understand why you might think this.

The difference between John Taylor Gotto and Jaime Escalantes was that unlike tens of thousands of other teachers they would not pushed into doing what they knew was wrong. I know that eventually that cost Gotto his job but he made more than a great living after that writing books and giving lectures to people like me who knew something was wrong with the system but needed an insider to focus on what the problem actually was.

If they do not want that, then do nothing with them. It is not the government's role to manage peoples' lives. If people are too stupid to act in their own interests, then let them discover where they are on their own.

you will have to revamp waaaay more than the education system for this to happen. keep dreaming.

No I don't. What do you think kids who don't want to go to school are doing with their time now? If they are not hanging around street corners, they are acting like wise a@@es in somebody's classroom. Please, if you do nothing else after this debate, see the movie STAND AND DELIVER.

edited to say: my husband would like to add that if you went this route, they would all be breaking into your house. maybe not yours, in this utopia that you seem to live, but in a lot of other places with a large poor population.

There is no crime in my town, but in places like Hartford, there is already tons of it. Again, what do you think they are doing anyway, even with the school system?

This is the mentality they count on. Just like the Army.

we're all entitled to our opinions, i suppose. i just happen to find yours a bit strange.

Is it better to be a sheep or a wolf?

I suggest that by homeschooling we did just that. We told the school system that they stunk and we wanted no part of them. We also went to the newspapers and caused them considerable embarassment.

i would need to know more details about this to agree. you could be a trust fund baby for all i know. not trying to dig for details of your life here, just saying...

Oh, you outted me! Yeah, you are right, my father, the drunken janitor and my mother the cafeteria cook set up this massive multi-million dollar trust fund for me and I haven't had to work a day in my life. How did you figure that out?

Okay, since my children were babies, I have heard the same mantra: When there are education success stories, the teachers take the credit. Where there are failures, the parents get the blame. Sorry you cannot have it both ways. Either the teachers are responsible for both successes and failures, or the parents are. But you cannot use the parents as scapegoats when you fail.

the flip side of that coin is saying that when students succeed it's because of the parents, and when students fail it is because of the teacher, and that happens just as often. teachers are used as scapegoats just as much if not more often. this argument is a name calling contest.

and *most* often, students are responsible for their own success or failure.

Who motivates the students? If you see yourself as the primary resource in the education of your students, then you are indeed the one responsible for success or failure. If not, then you are tangential to the process.

My personal opinion is that all the responsibility for success or failure rests entirely with the parents and that is how it should be. Teachers are nothing more than facilitators, and have very little effect on the final outcome. Once you realize that, their role is clarified, and they are of secondary importance in the educational process. The burden for education should be on the parents, period.

if this is how you feel, then why are you crapping on public school teachers instead of all of the unenlightened parents that send their children there? of course responsibility should rest on the parents! but it doesn't. and it won't. you just said yourself that the government shouldn't be managing people's lives, so if a parent has no involvement whatsoever in their child's life because they are selling drugs most of the night and cracked out most of the day, who is going to stop this?

Not the teacher's union. Unless they are going to give you the training of a Navy Seal, it is really beyond your ability to change anything and for that matter, none of your business. You are not going to change a crack head into a responsible member of society, so don't even try. And if the kid has no father and a crack head for a mother, then he is lost. Your inner liberal may not want to believe that, and you may actually know of three or four exceptions, but unless you are Jaime Escalantes or are willing to do what he did, you are just another tree in the kid's forest.

No, no, and no. The bell shaped curve, in common parlence relates to IQ only. I suppose you can have a bell shaped curve for ambition, but that is not the common meaning of the term.

that's fine - we don't have to call it a bell curve. but whatever you call it, you should recognized that children are not cookie-cutter copies of each other, all put into the same mold of wanting to learn and better themselves. they are not little brainiac armies to move around the board. there is no blanket large enough to cover every student because children are so individualized.

Ah, I believe I was the one who first said that in the context of this discussion. Of course kids have different levels of ambition. Those with the highest levels should be separated from the others and put on the track for academic achievement. Others should be tracked accordingly. Ability grouping. God's give to anyone who wants the best educational system possible.

when i was in high school, i was pretty smart, but i almost didn't graduate because i didn't feel like doing my work. ever. was this my parent's or my teacher's fault? no. it was mine, and my seventeen-year-old stubborn mindset that i didn't have to anything if i didn't want. so i didn't. where would you place my high school self in your plan?


If you were my daughter, I would have royally kicked your a@@. I would have said, you don't want to study? Fine, get a job if you want to eat. Start paying rent. You don't like it? Move out.

send me home and have one of my parents quit their job to babysit me? put me in a trade school to where i never would have gotten my diploma? because i eventually came around enough to get through. of course, then i flunked out of college twice, before i went a third time at the age of twenty and was finally ready to get to business.

It sounds like you were an enormous expense to someone, probably your parents. It sounds like ECS to me. (Entitled Chick Syndrome.)

it was roundabout and it took a long time, and i suppose because of that, it was all a waste of tax money.

Probably. Maybe not.

and of course, none of it was my fault - just my teachers' and parents'.

where would my high school self fit on your nonexistant bell curve?

Franly, I wouldn't waste any time on you until you became an adult and matured.

there are simply too many factors that go into the makeup and personality of a child, the situation they come from and live in, the dynamics of a community or school, for *anyone* to have an actual answer to all of this. but is pretty fun to spar!


Enjoy!

The difference between John Taylor Gotto and Jaime Escalantes was that unlike tens of thousands of other teachers they would not pushed into doing what they knew was wrong. I know that eventually that cost Gotto his job but he made more than a great living after that writing books and giving lectures to people like me who knew something was wrong with the system but needed an insider to focus on what the problem actually was.

this is getting old. and i still don't think anyone at their teaching prime in the 1970's has any relevance on today's education, other than the vague and pragmatic cry of 'down with the system'! i think you see some teacher/administrative show down in the hallway with a meek, pretty secretary looking on, secretly hoping the rugged young teacher doesn't get fired so she can finally tell him she loves him. but then he does get fired and it turns out all for the best, because now the teacher is rich and he can write books about how he doesn't teach kids anymore but he used to, and the lovely and shy secretary can let the embers of truth and justice smolder in her heart as she fondly remembers her hero/crush and exits stage left. gag. i can't believe i just typed all that.



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That was great! You ought to be writing soaps.


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it usually goes like this.

enter grade: F

think to self: it's too bad he's going to end up in my class again next fall - maybe he'll pull it together.

over summer, read a school update that says: the very student you failed has just accepted a basketball scholarship to a state university. grade was changed and diploma awarded behind your back.

:noway: !!!

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Frankly, the poor kid who was a lousy student but a great basketball player SHOULD have his grade changed from F to C. He has a ticket to ride, and you should not be holding him up. The ones who don't have anything going for them are the ones you need to worry about.

Frankly, I wouldn't waste any time on you until you became an adult and matured.

this seems to be your bottom line. but most people don't become an adult and mature until 17 at best, never at worst. what will you do with this mass of children not ready to learn, for whatever their reasons?

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Kick them out of school. Immature brats do not deserve to have tax money spent on them.

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and whatever crime rate is in hartford, it would increase *dramatically* if all of the behavioral problem kids didn't show up to school and just went about their business every day.


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Right! And just what do you think they are doing now?

i think i just thought of a solution for you! you need a modern day specialized black plague to come and wipe out 75% of the population, preferably the kids that have so much on their plate (poverty, crime, abuse) that education is not a top priority, and their parents. then you can start from scratch! then they wouldn't be in the classrooms or on the streets - i think that might work for you!

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Spoken like a true bleeding heart.


and here's a (partially) funny story i think you might appreciate:

my husband just had one of his students sent to prison for stealing his grandmother's (who is raising him) car and wrecking it. he picked up several friends, and one of the girls that went with him is in critical condition. the grandmother is leaving him there and refusing to pay bail, so he is stuck there until further notice. he's fifteen, but he's not in juvenille, he's in prison. my husband says that over the semester, he only attended class two or three times per week, generally because he was out on suspensions.

here's the funny part:

my husband is required by law (don't know if this is federal or just nc) to still administor the end-of-grade course to this kid, and has to have the materials delivered to the prison school within five days in order for him to do this. and of course, this kid's score will be reported under my husband's record, so people can wonder why he failed teach this kid enough to pass a test.

ps~if any of this goes in your book, i want a cut!

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I love the story. Yea, Grandma! This is a good example of a little punk who has done nothing all his life but waste public and family resources. Now he will be doing hard time. He will be where he needs to be.

I love your example, but have plenty more like it for my book. The only thing that might have helped this little s@@t might have been a few swift kicks in the a@@ administered at the right time. Now he will learn what it is like to be Bubba's girlfriend. Actions have consequences.

I am writing nobody off, but I am also realistic. Very probably, unlike you, I grew up in a housing project, and I lived among, and had to survive among the little pieces of crap you are so anxious to spend pulbic money on to "Save." Admittedly, this was a long time ago, before the welfare culture, and just at the beginning of big time drugs (but not before alcohol.) When I see some of the do-gooder comments on this board I realize that most of you have no clue whatsoever. LIberal bleeding heartism has never worked, and has only created a culture that if anything is much worse than it was when I went to public school.

The hard reality is that there are only so many resources. Unlike certain political leaders, I know that you cannot spend more than you have. Period. The only sane policy is to help those who want to be helped and let the others drift out to sea. Only when people realize that education is good and that it is worth spending time on will you have any success. As long as you keep trying to shove it down their throats they will resist it. I know these people. You don't.

I have no solution to how to educate a starving, beaten down kid who lives in a neighborhood where guns and killing are normal. To be honest with you, I don't think they can be educated. I certainly don't think that if I lived in such a neighborhood, I would be interested in anything but staying alive. The only solution may be to live long enough to join the Service.

This happens with any profession!!! It is not only teachers! I am in medicine. Everyone thinks doctors are "rich" and just out for the big bucks. COULDN"T be further from the truth for most in the medical field! My fees have gone down every year since I have been in practice (20 years). But, I go to my office everyday and give my patients the best care I can & I still love my "job." You need to let the public comments roll off your shoulders. There are bad eggs in EVERY profession.....teachers, police, doctors, CEO's, bankers etc....that is who the general public, unfortunately, focus' on! ALL jobs have their challenges and bumps and cross' to bear! Carry them with grace and just move forward! My Dad was a veterianarian....don't get me started with that one, everyone just thinks they go to work and care for cute animals all day! The overhead is huge, clients have unrealistic expectations, there are dangers, etc! If any one thinks that their profession doesn't deserve public critisism they are sadly mistaken!!!! Your goal should be not to fall into those negative stereotypes. Nothing can make my day more than a patient telling me "thank you for getting me in so quickly, having a reasonable fee, and making me feel that you really care!" Almost everyone in any profession deserves more $ & praise than they receive if they are doing their best. However, you should be doing your best in your field for personal reasons as much as the $ and praise.