Public Education
POSTED BY: TheHappyTrader
UPDATED: Tuesday, December 10, 2024 23:18
VIEWED: 7483
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I was having a chat with a teacher friend, much older and more experienced than me, who made a very interesting comment concerning what's wrong with our public schools. The Answer...
Nothing.
There is nothing wrong with our public schools, they are doing exactly what they have been designed for, training children to behave themselves, follow directions and become productive members of the work force. The schools are just fine, but they are obsolete. The workforce is in other countries. People expect the schools to prepare students for college but that's just not how they work. Also, it's silly expect every student to prepare for college when most of them will not be attending it.
As a new teacher, I found this perspective very interesting. As a music guy, I'm not as regulated or interfered with as the others, but I'm also not as hired. Still, at least I get to remain an idealist within my subject area, a part-time idealists, but an idealist none the less.
Anyhow, what are some of your thoughts on education, what's wrong, what's right, how can it be improved, etc...
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Quote:Wow, where to start. I'm a homeschooler, an unschooler even, so I come from a vastly different philosophy than that used in public schools. I homeschool largely because I see more wrong than right with schools.
Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
Anyhow, what are some of your thoughts on education, what's wrong, what's right, how can it be improved, etc...
From a very primal and basic level, I would say the joy of learning is crushed out of most students in the current systems we have.
From a systemic standpoint, I would say there are serious problems with the entire education profession. 1) There are not enough teachers per classroom, 2) there are not enough GOOD teachers, 3) good teachers are not paid enough money, 4) training of teachers needs to emphasize content rather than method.
From a cultural perspective, I believe we don't give education sufficient priority. Teachers in other cultures are highly respected and admired, even venerated. Teachers in our country are glorified babysitters, get paid accordingly, and get the same amount of respect.
Maybe instead of pointing out problems, because there are so many, maybe we should talk about our ideal version of education and how we might be able to achieve it.
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Arrogant and proud of it.
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Hello,
My ideal view of school would be a place where children can learn the basics of surviving in society while exploring their personal aptitudes and aspirations.
I can't speak very well on how schools are now, since I no longer attend one, and the experience of an observer is very different from the experience of a participant.
However, when I was a child, schools used to have two limitations that irked me. (I won't dwell on the integration policies of the time, which were misguided.)
One: Information was presented in layers of resolution and sometimes even layers of misinformation. Have you ever seen those pictures on the internet that start off by giving you a blurry image, then add a layer of detail, and then another layer of detail? I don't think those sorts of images are used much now that we have high-speed internet, but they were popular in simpler times when bandwidth was a problem. This was also the technique of educators.
A) The Pilgrims landed on Plymouth rock, made fast friends with the local natives, and enjoyed a merry Thanksgiving where all shared the table as respected equals.
B) The Pilgrims landed on Plymouth rock, and after some tension with the local natives, enjoyed a merry Thanksgiving where all shared the table as respected equals. Turkey may not have been served. How about that?
C) The Pilgrims landed on Plymouth rock, raided a vacant indian encampment, stole their food stores, and desecrated their dead. Eventually, they overcame the obvious social hurdles this created. They entered into a tense relationship with the natives, whom they believed were barbarians destined for hell. They shared a harvest feast with the natives in the hopes of securing good relations and averting a disastrous war. This was among the most positive relationships between European colonists and Native Americans for the next hundred years.
I had to learn this simple story three times, with three different contexts. Never mind Christopher Columbus and the roundness of the world, subjects where I was blatantly lied to. We need to tell our children the accurate truth from Day 1, and not reveal truth in blurry detail with misleading shadows, crisping the image at intervals until it is virtually the opposite of what they imagined.
Two: Information was presented in a largely standardized fashion, usually geared towards passing standardized tests. Very little leeway was provided to pursue individual areas of interest or aptitude. As an example: After Elementary School, and certainly by Middle School, most students have acquired the full extent of mathematics that they will use in their lifetime. Why, then, should they be forced to continue advancing mathematically in order to score well on a test, when their time would much better be spent learning about their aptitudes and interests of Classical English Literature and Artistic Expression?
If it were up to me, classes would be almost all-elective in Middle school, and absolutely all-elective in High School, with guidance counselors to help you learn what you wanted and needed to learn for the job you wanted to do. Teachers would be facilitators and not programmers. I can only imagine the earth-shattering joy to be had in a learning environment where you were allowed to pursue your interests wherever they took you.
--Anthony
Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.
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I'm with ya on a lot of this but I have to say
Quote:
4) training of teachers needs to emphasize content rather than method.
is way off. Content changes every time they update standards and when new materials and knowledge are discovered or introduced. A teacher should first be trained to teach themselves, and then to teach others, allowing for them to adapt to changes in the curriculum.
As for
Quote:
From a cultural perspective, I believe we don't give education sufficient priority. Teachers in other cultures are highly respected and admired, even venerated. Teachers in our country are glorified babysitters, get paid accordingly, and get the same amount of respect.
I'd like to ammend that to Teachers are seen in our country as glorified bavysitters...
In truth, we have to be parents, social workers (required by law to report suspected child abuse/neglect), organize events/concerts, lead booster organizations, plan out your lessons for the entire year to submit them for approval (as if you could predict exactly how fast your students will learn these things...) and oh yeah, teach your students, sometimes with only 22 days to address the state approved standards relevant to your education when your school is on block scheduling and your classes change every quarter.
Then again, I'm a newbie and I'm trying my best to do everything right. Maybe I could get by on simple 'babysitting' but I'd rather not risk what income I am managing on that assumption.
I hope I don't sound too rude or dismissive, I'm very interested in what you and others think. I'm just sharing my experience.
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Quote:
If it were up to me, classes would be almost all-elective in Middle school, and absolutely all-elective in High School, with guidance counselors to help you learn what you wanted and needed to learn for the job you wanted to do. Teachers would be facilitators and not programmers. I can only imagine the earth-shattering joy to be had in a learning environment where you were allowed to pursue your interests wherever they took you.
That would be awesome! I would love to have learned, and would love to teach in an environment like that.
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Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
If it were up to me, classes would be almost all-elective in Middle school, and absolutely all-elective in High School, with guidance counselors to help you learn what you wanted and needed to learn for the job you wanted to do. Teachers would be facilitators and not programmers. I can only imagine the earth-shattering joy to be had in a learning environment where you were allowed to pursue your interests wherever they took you.
If everyone would choose a course of study that ended up with a career that filled a niche in the total economic and social fabric without too much disruption, this would be great. But say everyone wanted to study English Literature. Not a lot of refrigerators or solar panels get build by happy English Lit majors. Not a lot of food gets grown.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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Hello,
That is the argument for a planned economy: Job niches must be anticipated, people must be shunted into them, balance must be created.
However, I think you will find that most students of English literature can learn the vast majority of jobs in short order. In fact, I think you will find that most students of anything can learn most jobs in short order. Most jobs are narrow, repetitive, and dull. Most jobs require very few basic skills, and any special skills involved are able to be taught with on the job training.
As a point of interest, I am an English Major who could not pass rudimentary mathematics courses and dropped out of college.
I have worked in a bank since 2004, and have an excellent Quality Assurance record.
Basic skills are Basic. The joy of learning is forever. Teaching people to love knowledge is the best possible lesson, and you can't teach that lesson by hammering square pegs into round holes.
--Anthony
Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.
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Quote:I agree teachers should be trained to teach themselves. But that's not what I hear is happening.
Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
I'm with ya on a lot of this but I have to sayQuote:
4) training of teachers needs to emphasize content rather than method.
is way off. Content changes every time they update standards and when new materials and knowledge are discovered or introduced. A teacher should first be trained to teach themselves, and then to teach others, allowing for them to adapt to changes in the curriculum.
I say "I hear," because my husband used to be a university professor who came home and griped a lot about education majors. The gist is, they spend a lot of time learning methods, curricula, assessment, etc; and not a lot of time learning math, English, history, science, or whatever they are supposed to be teaching. When I say, emphasize content rather than method, I mean they should major in whatever they are teaching, and supplement that major with a few classes on method. A math teacher should major in math and minor in education, as it were. An elementary school teacher should major in Liberal Arts and minor in primary education. And so forth.
Yes, content gets updated. But if you were a math major, you would know how to keep up with the math updates better and teach themselves math better than if you were an education major.
That's what I mean by content over method. Just one opinion. Doesn't mean I KNOW.
Quote:Fair enough. You guys have a hard, hard job. I would love to see teachers get more support and more money. It really isn't fair what people expect from teachers with what they give them to work with.
I'd like to ammend that to Teachers are seen in our country as glorified bavysitters...
Quote:You, rude? I've never seen you even approaching rude. You're like Anthony.
I hope I don't sound too rude or dismissive, I'm very interested in what you and others think. I'm just sharing my experience.
Rather, I hope *I* am not rude. I tend to be kind of abrasive, hence my signature. :)I agree completely with Anthony, but I would add one more thing. Why start electives in Middle School? Why not from Day 1? Let the kids learn what they want to learn. Writing, reading, and arithmetic are such fundamental skills that they have to learn those along the way anyway in order to learn what they are really interested in. There are certain things kids simply absorb and pick up on their way to something very exciting.
I actually attended an elementary school that was structured very much like high school. We had a homeroom for the first period, where we warmed up and learned English or some such. Then for math, we'd go to the math teacher's class; for science, the science guy; and so forth. For social studies, we had a choice of several electives, including archaeology. We had a foreign language elective period. Our art class was a huge room with several stations: a leather working station, a weaving station with a loom, a pottery station with a wheel and a real kiln, a painting station, etc. (That was so awesome.) Our music dept was pathetic, but that would be the only thing that could be improved.
It was like this all through Middle School and High School. And all the teachers majored in the subjects they taught.
My ideal school system would probably be the Sudbury Model. Unschooling is very similar, just on a much smaller scale.
----
Arrogant and proud of it.
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Quote:Exactly. Thank you for articulating that so well.
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
In fact, I think you will find that most students of anything can learn most jobs in short order. Most jobs are narrow, repetitive, and dull.
....
Basic skills are Basic. The joy of learning is forever. Teaching people to love knowledge is the best possible lesson, and you can't teach that lesson by hammering square pegs into round holes.
Education is not the same thing as vocational training. Education should be about learning how to love learning, learning how to find information you need, learning how to think critically. It is about lighting a flame and not filling a bucket, so the quotation goes.
Once you have learned how to learn, THEN you get vocational training to fill the niche job market. Math majors become engineers, English Lit majors become journalists.
----
Arrogant and proud of it.
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I have an extended family member who has a very smart child who has "failed" kindergarten once already. Her mother believes it is the school systems' job to completely educate her child and so she does not help in any way... And she has two children... And she and her husband think that anyone who gets good grades is a stuck up snob.
She will not let anyone help... Any suggestions???
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