Author Topic: The Imaginary Teacher Shortage  (Read 4240 times)

brimic

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Re: The Imaginary Teacher Shortage
« Reply #25 on: October 10, 2012, 09:10:39 PM »
Public vs private.

In the small town where I grew up, about 1/3 (including myself) went to the Catholic grade school, 1/3 went to the Lutheran grade school, and 1/3 went to the public high school.

Want to take any guesses as to which of the 3 schools was at least 2 years behind the other two in all of the important stuff for the kids entering high school?

Could be a sampling error, as its a small sample.
Could be that the parents who paid something directly for their kids educations took it more seriously.

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At any rate, the suburban public schools that stretch in a 30 mile horizontal line roughly 20-30 miles North of Milwaukee are all top notch, while the inner city schools struggle to graduate 45% of the students who ever enter high school. I wouldn't fret sending my kids to the local public school, but I want to give them every edge I can by sending them to a private school.
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RoadKingLarry

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Re: The Imaginary Teacher Shortage
« Reply #26 on: October 10, 2012, 09:27:36 PM »
The public school system is broken. While there are a few shining examples of where they succeed in spite of the .gov they are not the norm.
I know quite a few public school teachers and while most of them are decent folks only a very few would I consider to be particularly bright.
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.

Samuel Adams

Scout26

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Re: The Imaginary Teacher Shortage
« Reply #27 on: October 10, 2012, 09:35:34 PM »
I was going post about how the local private Christian High School doesn't do nearly as well as the Public Schools on the standardized tests, but I saw this on Facebook and it gave me pause.



Quote
This is Malala Yousufzai. She's fourteen years old, and lives in Pakistan. Today, she was shot in the head for speaking out against the fact that under the Pakistani Taliban, women are not educated.

She was shot in the head for saying she should be able to go to school.

According to various news sources, the bullet did not enter her brain and she is stable.

It's very nice for us to sit here, and talk about how much we *expletive deleted* love science. Almost every one of us had the opportunity to go to school, and to learn (even if some of us didn't appreciate that opportunity at the time). Yet on the other side of the world, children are dying for the right to go to school.

I don't mean to preach, and I'm sorry if I'm bumming you all out. I just thought this should noted by us: value your education. Value that you've had the opportunity to *expletive deleted* love science. Some never get that chance, and some would die for that chance.

Malala Yousufzai, speaking in 2009 aged eleven: "I don't mind if I have to sit on the floor at school. All I want is education. And I'm afraid of no one."

For more information on how she is: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19893309
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Put our backs to the north wind.
Hold fast by the river.
Sweet memories to drive us on,
for the motherland.

ArfinGreebly

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Re: The Imaginary Teacher Shortage
« Reply #28 on: October 11, 2012, 01:34:46 AM »

Several years ago, in my capacity as a consultant, I spent the summer tutoring a HIGH SCHOOL teacher in English.

She was taking a third-year correspondence course from BYU.  This is in . . . uhm . . . 1988 or 1989.  When she came to me, her dialect was Ebonics.

I sat with her every weekend that summer and held her hand through the parts of speech, grammar, noun forms, adjectives and adverbs, assorted clauses, sentence diagramming, and so forth.  I worked diligently with her to bring her command of English up to the level of what I had mastered in the 7th grade.

She had to pass the course with at least a B- to get certified . . . to teach English that fall semester.

She passed the tests, and got a solid B+.  I consider that one of my little triumphs in life.  Years later I ran into her in a grocery store and she came over and gave me a hug.  

Sadly, although she was now "certified" to teach English, her dialect was still a watered-down version of Ebonics.  I pity those kids that depended on her to learn HIGH SCHOOL, SOPHOMORE ENGLISH based only on the fact that some guy who could pass muster on 3rd year college English using only what he'd learned in 7th grade had spent a summer holding her hand through a correspondence course.

And, years later, nearly every single teacher my kids had (once we put them back in the publik sistum) had somehow managed to pass college English without being able to speak it nor, in many cases, to write it.

Today, by people who read my publicly published work, I am considered "eloquent" and occasionally "erudite."  I haven't the heart to tell any of them that my language and writing skills of today would barely pass muster at the 10th grade level where I went to school.

Now, if you really want writing talent, you should talk to my dad, the guy with the degree in General Semantics and a lifetime of technical writing.  Oh, wait, you can't.  He died last year at 91.  What I do is a pale shadow of his art.

And now, here I am, Mrs. Vanderbundt's slacker student, all these years later lamenting the fact that my meager language skills eclipse those of the overwhelming majority of the modern teachers I've met.

We have indeed declined when that 1962 kid, two seats back in the third row, who stared out the window, who never did his homework, who somehow passed the tests and thus the class, can level criticism at the pathetic state of publik eddycashun, lo these fifty years hence.

Yeah.  We're doomed.  Doomed, I tells ya.
« Last Edit: October 11, 2012, 01:37:47 AM by ArfinGreebly »
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cassandra and sara's daddy

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Re: The Imaginary Teacher Shortage
« Reply #29 on: October 11, 2012, 11:18:45 AM »
shoot its not new  my dad endeared himself to my teachers by correcting the notes they sent home with me.  lots of notes
It is much more powerful to seek Truth for one's self.  Seeing and hearing that others seem to have found it can be a motivation.  With me, I was drawn because of much error and bad judgment on my part. Confronting one's own errors and bad judgment is a very life altering situation.  Confronting the errors and bad judgment of others is usually hypocrisy.


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longeyes

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Re: The Imaginary Teacher Shortage
« Reply #30 on: October 11, 2012, 11:24:34 AM »
We're doomed if we persist in the fantasy that academic "literacy" should be our universal goal and that everyone is capable of it.  There is plenty of work that requires other abilities and other forms of learning.  We need to disabuse ourselves of our bias toward white-collar learning as the only valid form of learning.
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roo_ster

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Re: The Imaginary Teacher Shortage
« Reply #31 on: October 11, 2012, 12:24:01 PM »
We're doomed if we persist in the fantasy that academic "literacy" should be our universal goal and that everyone is capable of it.  There is plenty of work that requires other abilities and other forms of learning.  We need to disabuse ourselves of our bias toward white-collar learning as the only valid form of learning.

And disabuse ourselves of our bias toward white-collar work as the only respectable sort of work.

Some folks who may be smart as a whip may not be cut out for (willing to settle for?) academics and the subsequent cube farm.  That is where we get the mechanics that fix my auto the first time(1), plumbers who can actually sweat pipe and not chip my new bathtub (2), carpenters who build stuff that lasts, & such.



(1) I found a shop full of these sorts.  Not a dummy among them.


(2) Not so lucky, here.
Regards,

roo_ster

“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”
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roo_ster

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Re: The Imaginary Teacher Shortage
« Reply #32 on: October 11, 2012, 12:30:38 PM »
shoot its not new  my dad endeared himself to my teachers by correcting the notes they sent home with me.  lots of notes

Heh. 

When my kids' teachers send notes home, I am mightily impressed with the grammar, content, and handwriting.  Hard for the kiddo to bob & weave when they step out of line after their teacher pens a note that clearly explains the issue and expresses their affection for them...all in easy to read & correct English.

Even the email I get from them uses proper English.
Regards,

roo_ster

“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”
----G.K. Chesterton