Death of Education?

Subject: Death of Education?
From: GUEST,murrbob
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 11:52 PM

From every political platform, be it local, state or federal, we hear politicians assuring their constitutients that education is fundamental to the safety and health of our naion. It sounds wonderful -- until we see what is actually happening.
    I was a university educator for 42 years; I saw students coming into their first year with a wide range of academic skills. Many of my students left my school after four years on their way to medical school, dental school, Ph.D. programs in cancer research, etc. But I didn't have to train these wonderful kids in writing and oral communication and creative thinking skills -- they came into my classes with the results of twelve years of schooling given to them by, for the most part, dedicated teachers.
    Now, and speaking only for the situation in Ohio (but true in many other states being run by fiscal demagouges)this system of education is being destroyed by the removal of the rights of teachers to use collective bargining.
    I just had a desparte phone call from my son -- an outstanding (OK, I'm a bit prejudice) social science teacher in a large city high school. They were just told by their district that the promised pay increase over the next two years of their contracts are null and void -- but -- they have a choice! They can agree to this and have 30 teachers laid off or they can fight it and have 70 removed. In all likelihood, they will have to increase their health benefits by 20% from their own pockets (which will be impossible for my son with two special needs sons being home schooled).
    There are a hell of a lot of misconceptions flying around these days. For example, "government employees have it much easier with their 'cushy' pensions, etc." No -- in order to become a teacher you have to have a four-year degree to begin with -- most new teachers from my school went out into the work force with heavy student loans. Then, most states require a Masters Degree within five years -- more expenses. The vast majority of teachers must work summer jobs (if they can find them)in non-educational areas (say fast food restaurants, community parks and summer camps).
    Teachers are professionals, but they are not treated in such a way. Their salaries are far below those of other professionals. They are expected to do what parents, administrators, school boards and the government won't or can't do -- turn classrooms with far too many kids in them into well-behaved, well-mannnered automatons who have the ability to get a job.
    I agree totally that there is deadwood in many systems -- teachers who were given tenure either when they were not derserving of it or, in many cases, when they have simply been beaten down over the years by the lack of support from the non-teaching adults around them.
    The answer to the fiscal problems is not to cut funding to schools, but to increase it (although the Governor's budget does not come out until tomorrow, it is rumored that cuts to school discricts will range from 10-40%).
    Our country needs a populace well-schooled and competent in communication, the sciences and the arts. If Ohio does away with the rights of fair bargining and the destruction of teacher unions and replaces it with a system where education is run by politicians (see the disaster of 'no child left behind,), I fear for what will happen. Ohio has lost 500,000 jobs; if I were a young teacher, I certainly would not stay in in a state that has not heeded the call of our nation by putting more funding into sciece, math and technology.
    Thanks for letting me vent! -- bob --

---

We generally don't allow Guests to start non-music threads. Bob is a registered member, so I'll let it go. Bob, it you have trouble logging in, let me know.
-Joe Offer, forum moderator-
[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 12:44 AM

You are about to receive [INCOMING!] a whole lot of abuse from people who do not know where you're coming from. Most of them never taught.

One of the problems is that high schools follow a state or provincial policy; universities follow a 'world' curriculum.

I taught for half the time you did, and I have agreed with you-- unbenounced to you--for over a decade.

The problem ain't the problem; the problem is what to do about it.

imo

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 01:43 AM

Well said, Bob. I certainly agree with you. I disagree with 999 - I think most Mudcatters will agree with you wholeheartedly. On second thought, I have to admit that 999 may be right - a very vocal few will jump all over you. Don't lose heart.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 02:53 AM

This one may be vocal but I won't jump all over you- I agree wholeheartedly. The problem lies in how to turn it around. Usually a pendulum, having swung too far, swings back too far in the other direction and then finally comes to rest midway. Do you foresee that happening in education?

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: GUEST,murrbob
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 04:28 AM

Thanks for the support from the three of you. Yes, I agree with you Ebbie, that the pendulum went way to the right with the Bush educational edicts. Teachers became so discouraged with having to teach to the test -- all creativity has been destroyed. For example, to bring a little music into the equation, after my son has taught WWI, his class is kept outside in the hall. He has arranged all the tables/chairs into "trenches" -- he puts on a recording of mortar fire, bombs, etc, opens the door yelling "down, down -- into the trenches."
    As the students are huddled in the trenches, the tape with the firing goes off, and he plays "The Green Fields of France;" the student assignment? -- write an additional verse to the song incorporating what they have learned from the books -- and from their "tench" experience. The results were amazing.
    He continued doing things like this, earing the love of his students and respect from his colleagues. Unfortunatley, most of the latter felt constrained by "the rules" from doing the same.
    At the state and federal levels, it is critical that people be brought into the Depts. of Education who have real experience in the classroom. On the local levels, educators must be put on local Boards of Education to prevent the farces that have occurred in Kansas and more recently in Texas.
    As money is cut from education, the arts are the first to go. To all Mudcatters who care about music in the curriculum -- FIGHT THE CHANGES!
   
    Bob

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 04:53 AM

Can't speak for the US, but I have no doubt that the same situation prevails on your side of the pond as it does here.
The corporate greed of a handful of people already obscenely wealthy, have driven Britain and Ireland (and the rest of Europe) to the brink of bancrupcy.
As usual in crises like these, it is education, health and employment, the essentials of living, that are effected the most and become the first targets for cuts which might - just might put right a little of the damage done.
Ireland's recent general election has indicated that 'ordinary' people are no longer prepared to bend over and be shafted by 'the great and the good' who are quite happy to facilitate the shafting. Probably won't do the trick, as Tweedledum has been replaced by Tweedledee, but at least the new lot are going to have to be a lttle careful where the put their feet - for a time, at lest.
Good luck Bob.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 08:33 AM

(UK) I was still teaching when the Government of the day tried to standardise everything with the National Curriculum. I was paid rather a small salary for being Head of Department and in charge of FOUR areas of the Curriculum, also Religious Studies AND Fundraising throughout the school. My father told me at the time he paid his Directory Enquiry staff much more than that, just to find telephone numbers for callers. The new Curriculum was (and still is, IMO) stultifying and unsuccessful. I was asked to teach 'The Abdication' and 'The Depression' to eight year olds. Only last Friday, I visited the Village School near my home. The handwriting was truly appalling, spelling atrocious, the standard of maths and English woeful for the age of the pupils. My neighbour's boy, in High School, comes to me for extra help with his homework. His handwriting and punctuation would make one weep. I get so depressed. Whatever are we doing in schools? One would think that the children spent all day messing about. (Maybe that is the case!) The shame of it is, I know I could, given a term, get these children up to scratch in the basics if allowed to use my own (yes, old-fashioned) methods. But I'd probably be thrown out as a cruel taskmaster. I sincerely pity employers if this is the raw material they have to work with. The sixteen year-olds are barely literate, hardly numerate amd allergic to applying themselves to hard work. God help us is all I can say! (Sorry about this long rant, but as a teacher for all my long life, it enrages me.)

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 10:03 AM

Education in the U.S. has had funding cut since the "sainted" Great Prestigitator, Ronnie Ray-Gun. Also thanks to him, if government was the primary enemy, teachers and unions weren't far behind. This has become an entrenched U.S. credo.

Over the last 30+ years, the U.S. has raised up generation upon generation of undereducated, ignorant, self-absorbed toddlers who, if they don't get immediate gratification, throw tantrums - as with the last election cycle & the bogus Republican "mandate".

This was BY DESIGN - & the situation will not change; if it did, among other things, there would be no delusional TeaBagger contingent and the Republican Party would get far fewer votes following a reduction in the percentage of the population who are morons.

Get used to it.

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 12:02 PM

Eliza I agree, I thought that the standard had dropped in the 70s speaking as a pupil but in comparison to my sons standard of education it wasn't bad at all. My older son's situation was different, he had a spectrum of Autism that hadn't been picked up on the cause was put down as a hearing 'problem' it wasn't until he found that he had a talent for art that he discovered something that he could be enthusiastic about. My other son went to a village school and the standard of reading and writing was atrocious. To top the lot on Sports Day the headmaster gave awards to all participants equally. This was mamby pambying at it's worst I thought. I wasn't the worlds best athelete by any means but in my time at school you either came 1st, 2nd, 3rd or last and we accepted it but probably excelling in something else that they might not. To this day it takes quite a lot to motivate my son.

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: pdq
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 12:46 PM

"...this system of education is being destroyed by the removal of the rights of teachers to use collective bargining." ~ GUEST,murrbob

Total bunk.

Wisconsin has been the center of media coverage on this issue, and at no point has their governor or legislature said anything about ending collective bargaining about salary, working conditions or other grievances. They are asking the union teachers to pay 5.8% of their pension cost in the future. They now pay nothing toward their own pensions and get over 75% of salary at retirement, all from taxpayer money. Medical plan contribution should be going up from about 6% to about 12%.

One of the out-of-state union activists was screaming that the governor had "set civil right back 150 years!" Hyperbolic crap like that make Joe Sixpack turn off the news and side with the governor.

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 01:03 PM

Here's the bottom line. Well-heeled Republicans want to gut public education.

1. They want private schools they can control.
    A. Rick Perry in Texas
    B. Phylis Schafly pops up in their history books.
    C. No attention given to organized labor in the recent school history texts.
    D. Distortion of the Civil Rights Movement
    E.   De-emphasizing the humanities and promoting technology and business.

2. If the public is dumbed-down, they will accept low paid jobs for rich bosses.

3. if the Rethugs can bring in charter schools, they can make money from them
    just like they do with privatized prisons.

4. Scott Walker is a stooge for the Koch Brothers, Wrong-wing billionaires and the
    lot of them are dictators and opposed to democracy. This is why Walker is punishing
    public school teachers.

5. "First they came for the school teachers and intellectuals."

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 01:37 PM

Well, PeeDee, you'd be right except for the fact that the Wisc. teachers
AGREED to the pension cost and medical cost increases.

And that the bill rammed up their asses by the Republicans SPECIFICALLY removes their right to collective bargaining.

Do look it up before making a fool of yourself.

About the level of bullshit we've come to expect from you from past experience, tho..

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: pdq
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 01:43 PM

Mudcat is not a place for a serious intelligent discussion. The previous two posts are prime examples why.

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 01:51 PM

Bob, couldn't agree with you more. I have three sisters, all of whom were teachers. I am heartily glad they were able to retire/leave the profession before it became so bad. (One grandma was a teacher and the other was on the Board of Education, too.)

I used to grade papers for an English dept. at a high school in WY. The head of the dept. loved my positive criticisms, corrections, etc. She understood the kids learned from them and became better writers/communicators. A new teacher came in the next year. I graded her first of the year essays and heard nothing...no more work. Finally called the dept. head who said the new teacher refused to pass the corrected essays back to her students as they would be "devastated." That really upset me as there were some students with real potential whom I went out of my way to give extra encouragement with my comments, etc. I called the head of the local college English dept. and asked his opinion. He agreed with and told me the first year students they were getting had a hard time stringing one sentence together in a correct manner. That was back in the mid-90s.

On the other hand, I have to say, so far, my grandson at age 7 seems to be getting as good of an education as can be in class of too many kids and ridiculous constraints on the teachers. They DO single out individual students for outstanding performance and they do have music (not often enough.) He gets a lot of extra at home and from me, so I know he will be okay, but with the budget cuts planned for Colorado, who knows?

It is so stupid that people bouncing, chasing, hitting, and carrying balls; shooting, killing, maiming, etc.; etc., etc. do so with a gazillion of our monies whilst teachers and schools have to scrabble for small potatoes. I'd really like to see a day when the old bumper sticker, about when the armed forces have to have a bake sale it will be a good day for education, becomes untrue.

Power to the teachers who do so much to help shape the generations to come. May they be venerated and recognised for their extraordinary contributions to society.

BTW, all of my sisters did exactly as noted above in the summers: worked at fast food joints etc. to keep things afloat..

kat

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 02:03 PM

Mudcat is not a place for a serious intelligent discussion. The previous two posts are prime examples why.

Well, I dunno, PeeDee.

Did you look up the actual bill which unequivocally removes collective bargaining rights for almost all Wisc. public employees?

Or are you just spewing your usual fact-free bullshit??

(rhetorical question)

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 02:56 PM

I'd really like to see a day when the old bumper sticker, about when the armed forces have to have a bake sale it will be a good day for education, becomes untrue.

Clarification: I do mean that it become untrue as to education not having to resort to bake sales.

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 04:48 PM

Dorothy Parshall has a bumper sticker that read "Won't it be great when education gets all the money it needs and the Air Force has to have bake sales to buy bombers?"

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 04:56 PM

The government in the USA and in the UK don't really want educated individuals who can think for themselves. They want pliant sheep. People who will be taken in by marketing, the press and politicians. How does one achieve this end?

Cut funding, reduce staffing, oversubscribe schools so class rooms are crowded and teachers are forced to teach to the least abled learner. Strip teachers of creativity and autonomy in composing curriculum that challenges all types and levels of learners by enforcing standards of learning.

Force parents (by inflation, reduced public services, etc.) to seek more hours of work, thereby pushing parents to place children in day care and nurseries at younger and younger ages and removing the influence of parent to prepare the child for social and educational settings so that child become a problem in the classroom and later to society.

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 05:07 PM

I know this probably won't be a popular comment, but during all my teaching years, it wasn't money which made for a good education. I was lucky enough as a child to attend excellent State schools. They were excellent because of the teaching standards and the superb skills of the staff, not because they were equipped with all the latest stuff. On the other side of the fence as a teacher, I needed only a bit of chalk, a blackboard (gasps of horror) and enough GOOD textbooks for 'one between two'. The school I recently visited had innumerable computers, interactive whiteboards, photocopied bits of paper everywhere etc etc, and looking at the exercise books one would imagine the class comprised a selection of intellectually challenged apes. It's good teachers that produce well-educated students, not hardware, software or digital doodahs.

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 05:11 PM

By the way, as a teacher I had 48 eight year-old pupils in my Glasgow class. We got along just fine.

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: pdq
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 05:27 PM

"In the United States, the typical public primary school classroom has 23.6 students, more than four more students than the average private primary school classroom (19.4 students)." ~ O.E.C.D.

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 05:31 PM

Guest Eliza-
Bright, well-off, socially secure kids will learn---they always do. It's the poor, the immigrants and those from disheveled social environments that will fall by the wayside. And tenure, while often abused, is the only think that keeps the system from firing higher-paid teaches whenever there's a budget crunch. Good teachers are obviously a wonderful thing---making jobs insecure isn't the way to attract good minds to the profession.

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 05:32 PM

All of my kids were readers when they entered kindergarten. I saw to it. When my youngest left 2nd grade she could barely read and in fact disliked reading aloud.

Why?

Teacher used hand outs for every subject, described exactly what pupils were to do on handouts and let the children who finished go play in activity centers until everyone was done.

My Hilary learned very quickly to fly through those handouts and she would spend most of the day in her favourite activity center which ironically was the reading center.

I kept getting the great reports back from the teacher and yet at home, could not get her to read. Several trips to the local library and one visit to the reading center in her classroom, revealed all. Hilary only selected the listening books. You know the ones that had audio tape and the little tone that told you when to turn the page.

She was not reading. She was only memorising what was read too her. I confronted her teacher about the fact that at home Hilary's reading skill had not improved since pre kindergarten. Teacher only said that Hil was a model student, no trouble and always did all her seat work.

Hilary spent the next 3 years in a private school and her reading skill improved and exceeded other like aged students within the 1st year.

Why?

Teacher made the kids read all the instructions for the work they set, instead of spoon feeding instructions. The students sat in reading circles everyday and read aloud to the teacher, just the way I did when I was in school.

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 05:44 PM

dick greenhouse
Those Glasgow children were the poorest of the poor, from dreadfully deprived and violent backgrounds. They certainly did not 'fall by the wayside', they progressed well. But the regime was tough and structured, and they were expected to work to their full potential. We had fun too, and all on a shoestring budget. Teaching, like Nursing, was viewed then as a vocation, and its rewards did not lie in the salary but in job satisfaction. However, you're right about job security, we never doubted that we had a career for life and would be duly promoted to more senior positions.

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 05:45 PM

Srtingsinger has it right....sadly...

The conservative agenda NEEDS less educated citizens who can't read... and think... too well. They want the curriculum to favor spoon-fed conservative values and THEIR notion of history...especially the religious aspects.

Right now they are engaged in political maneuvering to get control of ALL the systems that promote their strange world-view...and if they can't get all of us to THINK like they wish, they hope to at least control the major parts of what we DO.

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: GUEST,murrbob
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 06:08 PM

Good comments. Eliza: I see so many college teachers and newly-graduated education majors doing exactly what you are talking about. They think that if they use Power Point (which usually prints out everything the "teacher" says), they are doing a truly amazing job. Being an old timer, like you, Eliza, I used chalk in lecture and imagination in lab -- and it works.
    Yes, I fear the right wing of education; their agendas are pretty transparent -- replace fact with fiction, ideas with dogma.
-- bob --

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: GUEST,Songbob
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 01:55 PM

I am reminded of a short Sci-Fi story, in which a kid goes to a special test, one given to all children of a certain age (maybe eight or nine, I can't recall). He's given a drug that relaxes his inhibitions (in case he's been prepped on how to do) and he reacts to the problems and questions with enthusiasm and obvious intelligence.

The end of the story has his father getting the phone call: "Under the requirements of Public Law 2015-101, the Equality-of-Intelligence Act, your son has scored in the highest intelligence class, and has been destroyed. Do you want the government to bury him or will you? If the government does it, there will be a fee."

It was one of the scariest endings to a story I ever read. Damned if I ever expected it to even approach reality.

Bob Clayton

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 02:11 PM

These days, teachers teach despite the system, imo.

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 02:24 PM

songbob, What a sinister story, how chilling! It does sometimes seem that 'They' want to turn out very poorly educated youngsters. But it's not just academic standards which (IMO) have fallen markedly in schools, it's standards of behaviour and self-control. I can't think of any advantage in that for the country as a whole, hordes of ill-disciplined teenagers rampaging about, drunk, drugged and violent. Why would any Government have that as their aim? Schools could address these issues if given the go-ahead, but it's a major crime to discipline or punish bad behaviour in any but the mildest of ways. If one looks at film footage of the fifties, schoolchildren were noticably calmer and better-behaved, it strikes one quite forcibly.

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 03:23 PM

The Death of 'Education' is to be welcomed.

The Death of 'Learning' is to be grieved for.


Today I was talking to an intelligent woman who was interviewing me...we got around to schools (gee whizz, don't know how THAT happened..big grin)....She has a 15 year old daughter, who's been studying for her GCSE's since 3rd Year (yes, I'm so old that's what it used to be called)...She told me she's worn out, her daughter that is, simply wants to sleep and sleep, because she has so much work to do, so many tests to pass...Her daughter is fed up, depressed and miserable. She has no energy and doesn't want to go out.

The other lady then began to tell me about her little boy, who's just 3. She told me she had lived in Denmark for most of her younger life...and there she hadn't taken ANY tests until the age of 14. She literally could not believe what's happening over here, how young children, REALLY young children are being tested, tested, tested.....

I have a friend who's worked in a playgroup, as we used to call them, before they became early learning centres, or pre-school learning whatsits...She's been there for over 10years now..and in that time she's watched it become more and more controlled...parents now want end of term reports on their 3 year olds, to see 'how they're getting on'.....

You wanna know why the Death of Education is a good thing? Because it's KILLING the LOVE of LEARNING!

Education has become a BUSINESS!
Our children are the punters, along with their stressed out parents.

By forcing more and more tests on kids you sell more and more books on how to get them to pass and become a success..and the DVDs too, and the extra tuition fees, plus all the examination schedules which come from er...somewhere.....

How many politicians have 'shares' in Education?
How many Corporate Bastards too.....

People are fed this lie that without these examinations they won't get jobs...Well, they won't get jobs WITH them, folks...

Meanwhile, their childhood has disappeared in a Sea of Stress and they've LEARNT one thing..and that is to hate learning, to hate adults who force them to learn, to hate tests they're forced to take, to hate their parents for sending them to school in the first place....so they replace their parents with Gangs, and they go out drinking their souls away, or shutting themselves away, sleeping, exhausted and very, very angry...

Not ALL children are doing this, before someone tells me the bloomin' obvious, but many, MANY of them are...

They LOATHE school and all it stands for..and the teachers need to ask WHY, then set about changing it, standing up to the people who are making the stress, telling them to sod off and let them teach, instead of behaving like uneducated autonomons who do everything they're told, even when they KNOW that what they're being told to do is so, so wrong.....

Just my opinion though, so don't get yer knickers in a twist, for after all, what do I know? I've only had two children severely damaged by a system that doesn't give a toss about their souls, only about their grades, so the institutions can pat themselves on the back and tell themselves how terribly well they're doing, whilst ignoring the bodies of the children who've committed suicide through knowing nothing but stress since they were put into The System.

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 03:30 PM

SIR KEN ROBINSON -IS SCHOOL KILLING CREATIVITY?

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 03:32 PM

Those that the system doesn't grind up & spit out, Bruce- & there's far to many of those.

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: DebC
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 03:53 PM

I taught for 11 years. The kids were THE BEST part of the job. Yeah there were days when we'd say "the kids won" But the rewards from the kids were worth it all. But it was the grownups that drove me out.

Here in the USA I agree with Lizzie's point about how all of these reforms are killing a love of learning. All of the creative things I did in my middle school classrooms (BTW-28 to 34 kids in each class X 5) to turn kids on to the FUN things math does would never be allowed now due to all the teaching to the test.

My latest blog post on this is HERE

Debra Cowan

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 04:07 PM

Its their own fault.
If all those rich teachers and public workers hadn't gamed the system and ripped off the taxpayers, maybe Wall St. would still have enough money to keep some of these socialist states above water.

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 04:23 PM

The good teachers do a grand job. Sadly, so very many have now left, due to the terrible situation which now prevails within the education business.

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: GUEST,Songbob
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 05:19 PM

Donuel, that's some good grade of snark!

And as for the States, and the Federal budget, for that matter -- there's enough money to cover all the expenses. The problem is, it's still in our pockets.

And till we make a determined effort to actually choose what we want to pay for and what we don't, AND THEN SET UP A FAIR WAY TO PAY FOR THEM, we'll still have these problems.

Bob

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: Bobert
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 06:50 PM

We need changes on a lot of levels but...

...we need to un-do 30 years of class warfare that George Bush I started in calling people with education "elitists"... That started the erosion and now we have an entire generation of "epsilons" who are not only uneducated but damned proud of it!!!

That is the largest step that needs to be made...

Then we need to quit BSing about how much we spend on education and how public schools suck... Many suck because we are taking the oney we used to spend on public education and splitting it between charter schools, vouchers and public schools...

Next, we have to get away from all the testing!!! We're testing kids way too much and it's all "rote" memory crap.... Heck, a monkey can learn "rote" memory stuff... No, we've got to get back to a curriculum that fosters critical thinking and creativity or we will "lose the future" big time>

B~ (2 years 5-6 combination teacher)
   (4 years GED jail house teacher)

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 07:48 PM

I made a poster


CUT ONE TEACHER...pic
and 60 students bleed---pic

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 08:49 PM

Well Barbara Bachman favors home schooling........her poor kids.

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 12:50 AM

IMO, part of the problem happens when teachers blindly follow policy. Policy is a corporate word for "I don't have to think." That posits that someone somewhere has mandated a set of curriculums (or curricula) and everyone has bought into it. And if ya don't, bad things will happen.

If you want to change schools, get elected. Then make good decisions.

Education has been let down not by the ineptitude of teachers, but rather by the quest within society to mass produce or produce to order graduates. People just ain't like that. We are washing our hopes up on the shore.

Another side of that Rubic's Cube renders a different story.

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 04:05 AM

"Well Barbara Bachman favors home schooling........her poor kids."

'School' brought my daughter to a state of utter despair.

Home Education saved her.

End of.

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 04:25 AM

You mean "saved" her from needing to learn or apply herself.

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 04:36 AM

Oh, Richard, please don't start. If you met her you'd understand. She remembers all she reads, she reads incessantly, she lives to learn, loves to learn...She's doing an OU course, with no debt at the end of it, she bought her own car, and runs it all herself, she has a full time job, just been given a pay-rise in these hard times, because the folks she works for realise what a gem they have.

You have a cranky view of Home Education you know..and if you took the trouble to read some of the Education Otherwise magazines, you'd find stories filled with children who've gone on to achieve a vast amount, after school had failed them dismally.

School's fine for some, many children thrive there...but many don't and that's what folks like you refuse to understand.

Insult my intelligence if it makes you feel a big man, but please, don't insult my daughter's, or my son's either, because they could both run rings around you in the Brain Box Department...

Thank you so much...

And just to re-iterate what I said earlier, and to agree with Bruce too who said it too...If the teachers themselves stood up to the folks implementing these changes then our schools would be far better, teachers would be able to teach *their* way again, exams would fade away, back to where they used to be, not dominating everyone's thoughts and souls....

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 04:37 AM

too many toos...apologies.. ;0)

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: PatrickRose
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 04:46 AM

Took a while for Ken Robinson to be brought up. I'm almost disappointed. While we're at it, Lockhart's Lament is worth reading.

I'll give a bit of a view from the class side since I'm a young 'un (first year at Shef Uni). I find things fascinating. Things I've learnt the past semester about number theory and others have been extras added in by the lecturer because he found them interesting.

There's nothing like that at Secondary School. Maths in particular isn't that interesting, but my teacher made it worth learning. I was put in one of the lower groups due to something happening with one of those aptitude tests (and according to their stats, I went from being a 4B to a 6B. I came to the school with a 5) and the next year was in a higher set. I felt like I was doing less work the second year.

Something that needs understanding: Learning is an interesting hobby. People look up things on Wikipedia when they're bored for a reason. I wonder what would happen if we removed exams from the equation.

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 04:47 AM

Oh..and by the way, I don't know if you watched BBC Breakfast News today, but they were discussing how the average University student now leaves Uni £39,000 in debt. This will, in time, become far more, due to the interest they need to pay back...Most will pay, on average, around £50,000....some will pay around £82,000   (!!)

They said that if you wanted to never pay it back then you had to keep to a job under £21,000 (easypeasy down here in The West Country, as that's BIG money!)...and the debt gets written off after 30 years....THIRTY YEARS!

Sooooo, most kids are going to start their lives with debts we could never have imagined back when we were their age. They'll be paying it back (if they can find ANY job) at a time when they're needing to finance a mortgage, a family...a LIFE...

They will have no lives...

They will be slaves to the Corporate Finance Bastards...

Oh, and of course..Mummy and Daddy ain't allowed to pay their loans back early, else they'll be charged a whacking penalty to ensure the interest the crooked government would have made from them still comes their way...


Now tell me, because obviously, being a complete numbskull as I am...what kind of 'educated' population thinks this is a good deal?????

What the fuck is going wrong in that kids are coming out of school and signing up to this crap for possibly the majority of their lives without QUESTIONING it?????

Yes, they ARE starting to take to the streets, but it's not enough, because whilst they're still signing up to it, urged on by stoopid parents who have been educated in the same institution, this will carry on and on and on....

Hey parents, sign up here to mortgage your house off, so your kids can go to Uni...then end up working in Tescos whilst you have to hope the local authority will end up finding you a house!

Geez!

Talk about Dumbing Down....

READ John Taylor Gatto and realise that all he says is true, school is doing EXACTLY what it's supposed to be doing....creating the new consumers, the new population who sign on the line and who believe everything they're being told about The New Jerusalem....

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: PatrickRose
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 04:51 AM

Ooh, forgot to mention that modular examinations are bollocks. I have no idea what happened in the first exams I did for GCSEs, only the topics.

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 04:54 AM

>>>Took a while for Ken Robinson to be brought up. I'm almost disappointed. While we're at it, Lockhart's Lament is worth reading.<<<


I was lulling them into a false sense of security, DC ;0)




"Something that needs understanding: Learning is an interesting hobby. People look up things on Wikipedia when they're bored for a reason. I wonder what would happen if we removed exams from the equation. "

You see through it all the bullshit. You have my utmost respect.

And for those who don't know the answer to DC's question, it's that if you remove the vast weight of huge examination stress from young people's shoulders they start to LOVE learning!

Yes, it's amazing, ain't it!

You see, learning is a NATURAL process..and 'education' is turning it off by constant, incessant, pedanctic, obssessive, up its own arse, testing...because of people who want to make money from it, and those who truly believe that we should beat education into the brains of all children, THEIR form of 'education', NOT what the children want to learn...

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 04:57 AM

DC, thank you for the link to 'Lockhart's Lament'...I'm in the middle of reading it. It's WONDERFUL. :0)

Subject: RE: Death of Education?
From: PatrickRose
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 05:17 AM

Welcome Lizzie. I was actually told to read it by my lecturer last semester as a homework. There's another TED Talk (which I don't think I have anymore) about how to teach Maths which did everything Lockhart asked for.

I have had many rants about my friend who is (now) a Grade 8 flautist and said "I can't wait until I've done my Grade 8 so I can play the music I want to play". What's the point of learning an instrument to pass exams?