Dems on Education

Usher wrote:

johnny rotten wrote:

That's the strangest myth. Where does that come from? I've always been surrounded by bright people. I've worked with a few dummies, but not THAT many.

From your post above, it seems clear that you work in one of the better paying districts in the south. Maybe that's why you don't work with many "dummies".

Exactly.

I'm not sure that motivation has a hell of a lot to do with anything. Currently 35 of my 40 freshmen are failing. Why? they will not turn anything in--can't remember it, don't want to do it, parents don't care--you name it. It's very easy, however, to fill them up with knowledge in the classroom, since they are basically empty vessels. They will respond very well in the classroom and will learn anything I want to teach them--and they remember and apply it. But don't try to get them to do anything outside the classroom.

As for the AP/honors kids: I teach a sophomore honors English course. This group is highly motivated and willing to learn on a variety of fronts. They are also willing to learn without the carrot of a grade dangling in front of them. I love it. However, because the standard of excellence is set relatively much higher than that of my regular kids, moving them up takes much more time, effort, diligence than it does with the regular kids. There is a ton of difference between adding something to nothing, and adding educational value to someone who already has a lot of value. Myth? No, that's experience talking.

I never said that education attracts the best and brightest to the field. In fact, I never implied it nor suggested it. I don't know for sure who gets the best and brightest, but I genuinely hope it's medicine. However, I do not see education peopled by a bunch of dummies, either, except in colleges of education, whose staff seems to be populated by nothing BUT dummies.

I think we should start holding doctors and nurses accountable the way we do teachers.

If a patient dies, it is nearly always the doctor's fault.

If a patient eats cheeseburgers and bacon every day, never exercises, smokes and drinks to excess, then gets cancer or diabetes or has a stroke--this is clearly the doctor's fault.

It's time we start holding medical professionals accountable for their work. And merit increases in pay should go to those doctors whose patients live the longest. That totally makes sense.

Why doctors can't solve all these problems of society, especially in the way people eat, live, and socialize is beyond me. It's also time we give doctors more to do because they are clearly not doing the things they should.

Doctors are such idiots. I've been to the hospital several times--I've seen what they do. You know, how hard can it be? "Hello, I'm doctor so-and-so and I'm here 15 hours a day." Well, Whoop-dee-doo. Giving someone an aspirin . . . Give me a break. Don't get me started.

problem with that wrote:

But even if your lunch time is correct, I still contend that most teachers have the 3:30-5:30 time to do many of those things. Thats 2 hours every day. Even assuming 1 day you have meetings after class. Here they also have professional days-where our coach(also a teacher) said you spend about 4-5 hours in break-out meetings with other teachers- and the rest of the day for whatever(grading, lesson planning, etc.)

So...? Teachers generally are at work by 7:30. If they work 7:30-5:30 it is still a 10 hour day, 2 hours longer than the "average" work day. Some teachers prefer to leave at 3:30 and spend 2 hours grading at home, after dinner. It's 10 hours either way.

I did work in a high school at which many teachers arrived for work at 8:15. Classes started at 8:30 and were over for the day at 3:30, at which time many left. That school had a block schedule, meaning that you had a 90 minute planning period. I had an intern my last year there, meaning I only taught for 3 hours per day. It was beautiful, from a personal point of view. However, they paid me poorly--about $34,000 without any coaching.

At the school I'm in now, our Calculus teacher arrives at 5:30 to begin tutoring, which she continues after school until 6:00 every day. Our AP US History teachers do a "history bank" every Wednesday at 6:30 AM to help students prepare for tests.

We teach 5 classes and have two off periods--a plan and a lunch. I have three preparations, because my department chair believes that she'll only have excellent teachers if she demands that we have three preps. That goes for the only coach in her department, too. (That's me!) We are also required to work 4 school events during the year, to tutor after school, before school, or by email at night--whatever will help the kids learn.

In short, this district requires teachers basically to be on call all the time. You have a lot of leeway in how you manage this, but you are required to go above and beyond the call of duty in order to satisfy the demands of the community and the system. Is this a bad thing. Uh, no. they pay me well to do this. In fact, I am sitting in my classroom right now, taking a break from grading essays, which I do every Sunday. I'm not crying about it--it's a good job that has a lot of meaning for people.

Obviously you're in a fantastic school. If this happened elsewhere - teachers really caring and putting in the time - then there wouldn't be as many problems in motivating/helping kids to learn. Also, this dedication and hard work should be rewarded accordingly - which seems to be happening in your area. For those who leave behind teaching and work 8:15-3:30, maybe not.

Set of essays graded. Break time.

You're right. Maybe there should be more community will to have more school systems that operate this way. (There are several in my state that do have this culture. The funny thing is that their athletic programs are as excellent as their academic programs--they go hand in hand.)

Generally-speaking, people want something great for as little as they can pay for it. When there is community will to pay for excellence, the school systems may follow. When there is the sense that the community merely wants a good deal, morale will follow--down the tank. The morale in my old school was terrible, but the morale here is mostly very good.

luv2run wrote:

These people are a joke.

Dodd laments that we spend 5% of the federal budget on elementary education (and secondary). Guess what---the constitution states nothing about the federal government paying for education.

I do agree that No Child Left Behind is a disaster, but for a different reason: the fed just should not have a role in education.

The Constitution also says nothing about regulating airwaves, air traffic, or the internet. It says nothing about subsidizing agriculture. And it says nothing about funding research at private universities and labs. It says nothing about subsidizing art, music, or literature. It says nothing about building highways or subsidizing airlines.

But the Federal government does these things.

First, while some states run very good public schools, many do not, and federal oversight is the only thing that can keep some of the states in check.

Second, I don't like the federal government doing things our Constitution doesn't prescribe it to, but at the same time, I can't think of a reason to decentralize the FAA (reform it, maybe). I like it when planes don't crash into each other.

I am not a teacher. I do not intend to become a teacher. But I work with them professionally. Many are good, some are mediocre. All of them work very, very hard. And while some suburban schools may seem like cushy jobs to you (although I bet they aren't), I can tell you urban schools are no picnic, and I imagine very rural schools aren't either.

Rant all you like, but the quality of education in this country K-12 compared to our fellow countries in the developed world is truly pathetic. Suggesting that because teachers are bad and lazy as a reason to not pay them honest wages is the wrong causality. Our schools--as a whole--have not adjusted to modern life. Paying teachers competetive wages with other lucrative professions is one very real way to attract and hold onto taltented teachers.

I actually posed a discussion question like this along these lines with my AP statistics class as an example of "lurking variables" not included in a study.

I gave the example of a hypothetical medical clinic where they were going to pay their doctors by "success rate". The oncologist had a large number of patients die, so he must be a bad doctor and wouldn't get paid as much. The eye doctor had nobody die, so they would get a handsome bonus.

The students see this right away and I let them moan loudly for several minutes. The doctors kids moan the most.

My parting words are: "Every year, there are proposals to pay teachers by such a system by legislatures across the USA."

Why isn't such a system as absurd for teachers as it is for doctors?

speaking from the nurse perspective-- you have no idea the training involved in our practice- the fact you want to hold a doctor accountable as merit for the amount of years of life its moronic.

this could only pertain to the family doctor IF they even stayed with the same doctor all their life-- which doesnt happen anymore.

I give high respect for teachers but to say that their level of education should be paid the same amount as a doctor is obsurd. Not only are there by average 7 additional years after med school, but also countless oncall terms with only a few days off a month. and you want to talk about equal pay, get real....

I think you cant complain about a salary to some degree- you know what you are getting yourself into when you apply for a job or take a major.

nurse nancy wrote:

speaking from the nurse perspective-- you have no idea the training involved in our practice- the fact you want to hold a doctor accountable as merit for the amount of years of life its moronic.

this could only pertain to the family doctor IF they even stayed with the same doctor all their life-- which doesnt happen anymore.

I give high respect for teachers but to say that their level of education should be paid the same amount as a doctor is obsurd. Not only are there by average 7 additional years after med school, but also countless oncall terms with only a few days off a month. and you want to talk about equal pay, get real....

I think you cant complain about a salary to some degree- you know what you are getting yourself into when you apply for a job or take a major.

You obviously were skipping school on the day where they talked about satire in English class.

I wrote a really long reply to this post earlier, but my computer decided to freeze thus saving you from falling a sleep. I will try to be brief this time.I wanted to comment on a few of johnny rotten\'s points.

This is so huge. I am glad you made it point #1. It is often vastly ignored by those people picking apart teachers in threads like these. I am a recent graduate with an MAT in Elementary Ed and state certified. However, I think I am going to wait a couple of years to become a classroom teacher. Not because I can\'t handle the academic (I am \"high qualified\") or the disciplinary aspects (I have proven classroom management skills) of the profession, but rather I am not sure I am ready to take on the huge emotional drain that comes from having 25 pairs of eyes look to me everyday for the attention/acceptance/love/whatever they are missing at home (for whatever reason) or just in need of because of their age.

**However, this ability to make an impact on kids at such an important stage in their development is exactly what drew me to teaching the young ones. I know that I can affect these kids positively and play an important role in helping them succeed.

As a classroom teacher, I do more than give out worksheets and tests, I am invested in the success of my students\' development into young people and eventually middle aged people who make important decisions. That means I am often times working to outweigh the damage done by the external forces in a student\'s life. Students must have their basic needs met before any academic progress can be met. If that means that I have to spend my lunch break figuring out how to get Billy a coat because he is wearing a sweatshirt to school when it is 5 degrees outside, then so be it.

That is why I laugh when I see the haters on here crunching the numbers, breaking down a teacher\'s day period by period and telling us the \"TRUTH\" about how little teachers actually have to work. I just wonder how often Employee X at Widget Corp has to spend his lunch break consoling an 8th grader who just found out she is pregnant, or spends their afternoons after work on the phone with Mr. and Mrs. Perfect wondering how in the world Johnny Perfect could have gotten an B+.

Please don\'t overlook the emotional investment of teaching when crunching your pay-scale numbers.

I am having quite the experience with this issue this year. I am a One-on-One Special Ed teacher\'s aid working with an out-of-control 5th grader, who is really just a pawn in his parent\'s pursuit of getting money out of the district. This makes this kid a \"high profile\" case for the district administrators. Every single thing I do with this kid is under the microscope, documented, photocopied, then reviewed by the principal, behavior specialist, the parents and the parents\' personal doctor. The amount of red tape is crazy and the extent to which the staff, teachers and administrators employ their CYA (cover your ass) tactics is unfortunate. There are virtually no repercussions when this kid destroys a room, bites me, hits staff, etc (use your imagination) because of his diagnosed disorder. In fact we are stuck in a position where we are reinforcing his negative behaviors. Kid doesn\'t want to be in school, so he goes crazy, then gets sent home. Exactly what he wanted! Unfortunately, most involved in this case believe that the parents are coaching these negative behaviors in order to create chaos at school, sabotage our efforts and strengthen their case against the district.

Guess who really suffers in this case? The child (my arm has healed up just fine, thanks though). Instead of dropping all the BS red-tape and teaching him at his level in an APPROPRIATE setting, we have to follow these asinine education plans approved by spineless administrators far from the front lines.

It is an eye-opening experience to see first hand how much more the politics and BS that happens above my head and outside the classroom affects (negatively) the child\'s ability to learn and my ability to teach him then what I do inside the classroom.

Johnny Rotten, you and a few others have been very insightful in this thread. I have enjoyed the discussion.

Well, I guess I ended up going on and on anyways. Whoops!

Nice post...

Most people really don't understand the regulations, politically and legally, that teachers are put under.

And it's only getting worse, mainly because teachers and administrators are so afraid of being sued. In the same sense a lot of parents are just looking for a way to sue the school district for easy money.

A lot of people like to say, "you knew what you were getting into." Well actually no one realizes what they are getting into when they are in college. No college professor sits around and telld you that you have to fill out this paper and this paper or this parents has a right to sue you for negligence. If college professors were actually honest with the realities of teaching then I could bet you that America would have half as many teachers as they do now.

But once you get past all the red tape it is a great job. :-)

Swofford11 wrote:

A lot of people like to say, "you knew what you were getting into." Well actually no one realizes what they are getting into when they are in college. No college professor sits around and telld you that you have to fill out this paper and this paper or this parents has a right to sue you for negligence. If college professors were actually honest with the realities of teaching then I could bet you that America would have half as many teachers as they do now.

But once you get past all the red tape it is a great job. :-)

Right on, Swofford11! I honestly could have used one less Philosophy of Education class and at least one Paperwork of Education class.

I actually think highly of the Elementary Ed dept at my University (I knew secondary ed kids who thought their classes were worthless), however, most of the "real world" lessons of being a teacher are left for student teaching and the first few years on the job. It would have been nice to have a class dealing with all that is expected of teachers in regards to NCLB, etc.

I know the situation I am dealing with is a once-in-a-career nightmare and it will be a tremendous experience to look back on.

Thanks for the insight, Swofford11!

Hrm wrote:

luv2run wrote:

These people are a joke.

Dodd laments that we spend 5% of the federal budget on elementary education (and secondary). Guess what---the constitution states nothing about the federal government paying for education.

I do agree that No Child Left Behind is a disaster, but for a different reason: the fed just should not have a role in education.

The Constitution also says nothing about regulating airwaves, air traffic, or the internet. It says nothing about subsidizing agriculture. ...

But the Federal government does these things.

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actually, it does discuss these things, it is called the "commerce clause" of the constitution that gives the federal govt the power to act there.