Why can't teachers be like they were in the 50's & early 60's

For one thing, every student had a place to sit back then.

'50s, not 50's wrote:

So this education system that worked taught you to put an apostrophe between the zero and the s when writing '50s and '60s? Looks like your wonderful system failed you.

Wow oh f'n wow wrote:

Nominated for the most ironic post in the history of the internet.

You're not an English teacher, are you?...OR ARE YOU? Haha

Mind explaining what the hell you're yammering about? There is nothing ironic about that post.

Because the good teachers from the 50s+60s would be Doctors and Lawyers today. Instead of top tier female candiates we get the ones that can't do anything else.Through in that we really weren't that good bad then. Our competition just sucked worse. Something about having your country leveled by bombs and growing up nutriationally deprieved didn't results in the best test scores.

No Nosense Oldster wrote:

Our education system was damn good. This was the system educated the population that lead the world in innovation, space exploration, and culture. The teachers didn't put up with crap from kids or parents or politicians. Schools weren't so worried about mainstreaming special ed kids, kids dropping, or kids "left behind" If a kid doesn't want to be in school let him drop out rather than be a drain on the system and a distraction to others. There was no voucher bull crap back then.

I don't know if teachers had unions back then but the system WORKED.

You use the c-word in this this discussion. Man you have serious problems. We were talking about over generalization which of course you did do but you can't understand. You claimed my educationaal system failed me because of use of an apostrophe. That is a generalization.Also you start talking to me in the third person. That was odd.I can't say you are dumb, but what you have written is dumb.

'50s, not 50's wrote:

No Nosense Oldster wrote:

Well it certainly taught me to make a generalization about a whole educational system based on the use of an apostrophe in a messgae board post would be a fairly dumb thing to do.

What did your system teach you about over generalizations?

What the hell are you talking about? I didn't make any generalizations about the whole educational system. I said that the system failed him. How is pointing out that one single person apparently didn't lean basic grammar a generalization, cunt?

Precious Roy wrote:

My mother taught in the 60s and was a student in the 50s. The biggest difference was that schools were very small compared to today. A high school was typically a few hundred. Now, many high schools are 2-3000. Same but smaller for elementary and middle. Principals in schools new all the students names.

This.

I graduated from a public HS in 2008 , but from 1995-2007 I went to private Catholic schools. I'm no longer a staunch Catholic, but the smaller class sizes certainly benefited me. Why? Because each of my professors could monitor my performance and had a higher standard for grading. When class sizes are so large its difficult to maintain a consistent grading pattern. That private HS had less than 400 students and it was difficult to find a student with a GPA above 3.4 out of 5. The changed in my final year of HS. There were far too many students in classrooms, teachers therefore acted more as managers as opposed to instructors.

This problem exists in higher learning as well.

I just graduated from a large public university with 25000+ students. My cumulative GPA was a 3.55. The undergraduate curriculum was too easy, and felt watered down.

The problem is the breakdown of our society. The problem with blacks and latinos who are kids having kids is destroying America. Fifteen year olds are incapable of being decent parents. No matter what color you cannot be a parent as a teenager. In most white communities it is shameful but in black and hispanic communities it is accepted. The black church has totally failed its people. Whites according to studies will very soon be minorities in the US. The problem will only worsen and whites are following this trend.

People with morals are totally mocked in todays American media and in most homes. Not so long ago being a 300 pounder with tattoos everywhere would have been a freak show. Today its the norm in many communities. Not only the norm but the obese woman actually tries to show it off. No shame in her game is what we hear. Religion is mocked and today being a non drinker who studies hard is a freak.

You need to fix the system, not the teachers. My dad was a teacher in the 50s and he was not allowed to teach the same way for the last twenty plus years.

Change needs to come from

1) Administration

2) Parents

When that happens, all the people being driven away from the profession might come back. It's like complaining there are too many brutes in hockey. Those are the only guys who can survive in the current conditions.

U.S. schools perform well when you take into consideration the poverty of students in them:

http://nasspblogs.org/principaldifference/2010/12/pisa_its_poverty_not_stupid_1.html

While there is plenty of room for improvement, the general sense that U.S. schools are failing and teaches are performing much worse that the good old days is a canard. Addressing the problems of child poverty with standardized testing is a waste of time and talent.

Why can't parents be more like they were in the 50's or 60's?

evidence, please wrote:

I'd like to see some shred of evidence for your assertion that schools in those days taught people to innovate to a greater extent than they did in other decades. The explosion of computer technology was led by people who were educated after the time period you mention (Wozniak, Jobs, Gates, et al). Can you provide any proof that those educated in the '50s and early '60s brought about more innovation than people educated after? Anyone with a halfway decent education would know to provide evidence for such a claim before being asked.

Why no response to this? You're obviously reading and responding to posts, so why not respond to this one? You must have some evidence or you wouldn't have started this thread. So please go ahead and post it. Prove to me that your premise isn't just a load of BS.

'50s and '60s is correct. No debate about that. Also, it's "Internet," not "internet," as per the most recent AP Stylebook.

Good Topic wrote:

The problem is the breakdown of our society. The problem with blacks and latinos who are kids having kids is destroying America. Fifteen year olds are incapable of being decent parents. No matter what color you cannot be a parent as a teenager. In most white communities it is shameful but in black and hispanic communities it is accepted. The black church has totally failed its people. Whites according to studies will very soon be minorities in the US. The problem will only worsen and whites are following this trend.

As a teacher, who is living and teaching in a heavily Hispanic community, I can tell you that you are just straight up wrong. No culture in our country accepts having kids before you are 18-20. The problem is that too often, the kids who get pregnant have parents who are junkies or something along those lines or parents who are just extremely poor.

This leads to kids who are not well guided and more likely to do thing like get pregnant at 15. You want to fix teen pregnancy? Provide more support and better jobs for the poor of this country.

Also, I would almost guarantee that this is more of a class issue than a race issue. Yes, whites have lower teen pregnancy rates, but that is probably only because whites also have a much lower rate of child poverty.

Mr. Cat wrote:

'50s and '60s is correct. No debate about that. Also, it's "Internet," not "internet," as per the most recent AP Stylebook.

Also as per the fact that there is only one Internet.

Keep in mind, I was not a student in the 50-60s (I was in 1-12 in the 70s)

Here is my take on one of the reasons:

Women's liberation. Before I go further, I am not suggesting that there be some sort of de jure or de facto return to limiting the jobs women can have, but the expansion into other fields hurting teaching and the education system. My argument:

Back in the 50s, women had few career options (and many were just jobs to have before they got married). They typically were secretaries or did some sort of office work. The more career minded ones who went to college became nurses or teachers. Many of them were very smart. If they had been born year later, they would have been lawyers or engineers or gone into business.

If you look at a lot of the smart women now, they choose other paths. It essentially has been a brain drain.

The slack was not taken up by equally qualified men. I suspect that the perceived low salary had something to do with it. I suspect that fewer men have the desire to teach and nurture (and yes, I think a good teacher has nurturing qualities in the K-12 level). I also think the perception is that teaching is a woman's field.

The culture has change dramatically as well. Teachers (and administrators) seem to be in constant fear of being sued or berated by parents. I have a few teacher acquaintances and they say there is subtle pressure to pass everyone to avoid conflicts. Teachers also seem to be severely restricted in how they can teach which limits creativity. I think the focus on testing has gone overboard as well.

Unions for state employees were forbidden by law in most states until the 50s or so. (Even FDR thought have government workers unionize was a bad idea).

I am not sure having kids drop out is such a good thing either. While they may not be a drain on the teacher or the school, they become a drain elsewhere. The key there, to me, is to find a way to reach them and figure out what they can do and help them reach that. Not every kid is cut out for college, but can certainly get a certificate for training--there was a WSJ article recently about certificates. These differ from associate's degrees).

You are right that there were no vouchers then, but private schools were far less common (in the South desegregation saved the private schools and increased their number IMHO). Also, schools were segregated in many cases by law or how district lines were drawn. Not sure that was the greatest idea either. (How lines are drawn now can lead to the same situation although that would be controversial for sure).

Precious Roy wrote:

The biggest difference was that schools were very small compared to today. A high school was typically a few hundred.

Not true at all. The Baby Boom caused an enormous strain on the public education system. We could not build schools or hire teachers fast enough to keep up with the unprecedented increase in the number of students.

When I started middle school (jr. high) in 1963 students had to be split into two sessions because there were not enough resources. Students in the morning session started about 6:30 and ended at noon. I was in the afternoon session that started at lunch time and ended at 5:30. In the winter we walked home in the dark (I never knew anyone who was ever driven to school by a parent). Each session has several thousand students. The graduating class in my high school (late 60s) had around 800.

Maybe if you lived in the small town or went to a Catholic school the class sizes were small, but not in the public schools in larger cities.

Sample behavior of today's parenthttp://now.msn.com/now/0615-pre-k-graduation-brawl

Accountability wrote:

Why can't parents be more like they were in the 50's or 60's?

We need to bring back vocational programs and revamp them for modern jobs. Kids hate school because they see it as worthless, but imagine if they came out of high school certified to operate a CNC mill, or CAD tools, or work in IT, or as programmers, or welders, or technical writers, or any of the other thousands of well-paying, somewhat interesting jobs that don't require a college degree. Track kids into a higher education or vocational school starting at 15; at 18 they'll have the equivalent of an associates degree. I believe Germany does something like this, and it works very well for them.

Oh, "FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS!", though. Ask all my friends with obscure liberal arts degrees how that's working out. You can talk about it while they show you to your seat at Chili's.

Mr. Cat wrote:

Also, it's "Internet," not "internet," as per the most recent AP Stylebook.

The AP Stylebook is not the last word on whether to capitalize a noun.

Azaleas wrote:

We need to bring back vocational programs and revamp them for modern jobs. Kids hate school because they see it as worthless, but imagine if they came out of high school certified to operate a CNC mill, or CAD tools, or work in IT, or as programmers, or welders, or technical writers, or any of the other thousands of well-paying, somewhat interesting jobs that don't require a college degree. Track kids into a higher education or vocational school starting at 15; at 18 they'll have the equivalent of an associates degree. I believe Germany does something like this, and it works very well for them.

Good high schools already do this. At my school, there was a shop program that produced fully competent auto mechanics, an EMT training program, design courses that taught AutoCAD, and a variety of other electives that provided students with actual skills.

Schools in NYC do a lot of this. They've basically done away with the neighborhood high school. Students can go to a school that fits their interests. Whether you want to go into healthcare, IT, construction, or just about any other field, there is a high school for your interest.