Bad teachers or the system

[PrettyBoy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkUjRGnFUe8

What do you guys think?

[1908Revelations]

PB I have slow ass dial up, so I will have to watch it at school tomorrow. I saw like 2 minutes of it, before my computer started acting crazy. So, I will have to check it out later!

However I can assume where this documentary is headed. If I had to place more blame on a particular party given the choices you gave I would have to say the system. I say that becasue you can have a dynamic teacher, but if he/she does not have a support system (admins, parents, students) who care, then there is not much that teacher can do. Yes that teacher can still be effective in his/her environment, but envolved parents who support that teachers' classroom management, along with administrators who support the classroom management and carry out effective discipline strategies will prove to be great. I am not seasoned in education, but I know what I see and what I work with.

[neosoul]

I miss the days when corporal punishment was mandatory in school

[1908Revelations]

Originally Posted by neosoul

I miss the days when corporal punishment was mandatory in school

My parents didn't need corporal punishment in schools.

ETA
They [My parents] would beat my ass if I showed out period!

[JonInKC]

The teachers that I wanted to spank me never would.

[VAgirl18]

the following is probably going to get me in trouble on here... but here's my OPINION.

the educational system in america needs to be reformed. an education should be available to everyone, but not everyone is meant to go beyond high school. there are too many people that i know who should NEVER have gotten into college. so here's one of my ideas..

have kids decide if they want to go to a trade school or a regular high school. many of the people i know that didn't go to college hated high school and barely made it through. they'd be more successful and useful to society if they'd learned a trade. there are many illegal immigrants doing work in the US because people refuse to take the lower paying jobs and are content living on welfare or off of mommy and daddy. there are jobs available and so many americans refuse to work low paying jobs because they think that its beneath them. what did your parents and grandparents do?? if it were the 1950s and you were able to get a job at the mill for peanuts, you'd be happy.

i'm sure there's more i can say on this, but not without really ranting or anything, so i'll leave it at that.

[neosoul]

Originally Posted by 1908Revelations

My parents didn't need corporal punishment in schools. They would beat my ass if I showed out period!

that NEVER stopped my mama from bringing out the wooden spoon

Hell forget the woode spoon.....my dad use to make us go pick a tree switch fromt he tree outback ........oh yeah that stung!



It is a little of both. As a parent i can see both sides. back when we were all in school ( 1970's/80s.... ok some of us more than others.....age) yes we had corp punishment to toe the line, but we also had great teachers, awesome adminstrations and PTAs/PTOs that were strong in numbers that supported the schools and the teachers. It also left the teachers able to accomplish one thing......the ability to teach!.

Teachers today are thrown so much crap their way to accomplishment in short amt of time because of all the policy and procedures, mandates and of course we cannot leave out no child let behind ......A teacher with a classroom the size of 25 plus it is hard to accomplish the daily task of teaching effectively. it is hard to blame a teacher when she or he do not recieve the support that truly isn't there.

However, on the flip side we do need to hold them accountable. Classroom management is truly an enviorment thing. I aide in my son Matt's class 1 to 2 times a week and his class is a a big class....24 kids. She knows how to get their attention and hold it and she knows time managment well. It is those teachers who should be commended.

I worry about those teachers who dont have parent support or who do and still dont know how to effectively teach. I am blessed to have a great teacher this yr for my son. a lot of the upper grade teachers are brand new and my concern is how effective are they.

[GA-Beta]

Bad teachers or the system?

Both.

In general, students in the College of Education at most/all Universities are among the weakest, entering with low ACTs, SATs, and GPAs. The College of Education often accepts weakies who flunk out of the top-line departments. This has been the case forever.

In many states, a system of lesser colleges (often called State Teachers Colleges in the past) with big and weak Education Depts. developed. In the south, the separate (but never equal) black colleges produced teachers by the thousands.

Today - we've got tons of poor teachers, further handicapped by a strong union. (I'd say this is proved by the private schools {all non-union} which hire and retain good teachers, even with lower salaries)

The system also sux. The unions are in control, and always seeking higher pay, smaller class sizes, and less accountability.

As education spending rocketed up, some controls were needed, and NCLB was passed (Bush and Kennedy were the leaders on NCLB). If all this money was being spent, some evaluations and testing were needed to learn if the money was being well spent.

The system needs some changes, and vouchers are worth trying. Give the parents some control (the money) and most of them will choose to use their voucher to pick a quality school.

There's a newspaper article this week, telling about an autoshop teacher who has some very devoted students, who want to work extra and learn more - and many of these kids struggle in other classes.

Another article tells about the NYC HS for Accounting and Food Studies, and the young chefs there who love it and have a good career ahead of them. NYC also has a HS for future "sports professionals", not learning to play but learning to lead athletic ventures.

If parents had control with vouchers, they would use them to put their kids into schools that the kids like and enjoy.

Most drop out, I think, say school is boring.

Vouchers are worth trying. The existing system isn't working.

[Lady Pi Phi]

Originally Posted by GA-Beta

Bad teachers or the system?

Both.

In general, students in the College of Education at most/all Universities are among the weakest, entering with low ACTs, SATs, and GPAs. The College of Education often accepts weakies who flunk out of the top-line departments. This has been the case forever...

Is this "those who can, do. Those who can't, teach"??

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by Lady Pi Phi

Is this "those who can, do. Those who can't, teach"??

Maybe, but probably not, and this is a much a response to GA Beta's points too.

Likely I'm defensive because I'm a teacher, but if you think about it, in most k-12 education fields, there's not much opportunity for direct "doing" anyway. (I mean, what job is it that a high school history teacher is teaching instead of doing? Publishing non-fiction historical best sellers? Are all high school English teachers failed fiction writers by this theory? In a lot of high school content fields, teaching is the only "doing" of that kind of work for the most part, and teaching can't really all start at college.)

And although it's certainly true that the average test scores are among the lowest for ed. majors, I'd like to remind people that any given individual teacher could be an exception. I assure you that my scores were not among the lowest, nor were many of those of my colleagues.

Education may be the major of last resort, but it doesn't mean the worst folks actually end up teaching or that every teacher falls into this pattern.

Would education be better is smarter people were teachers? Maybe: some studies have linked teacher intelligence and student success, but there might be drawbacks too. I think really smart people are bothered even more by the flaws in the system and if they weren't empowered to make systemic changes, it might lead to more turnover and volatility. Who knows?

You can be darn sure, though, that you aren't going to get smarter people without A) paying a lot more, which I think is unlikely to happen OR B) the rest of the job market starts stinking so bad that teaching looks better by comparison, which I think has happened in a certain fields and overall with health and retirement benefits.

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by Alphagamuga

And although it's certainly true that the average test scores are among the lowest for ed. majors, I'd like to remind people that any particular individual teacher is likely to be an exception. I assure you that my scores were not among the lowest, nor were many of those of my colleagues.

Wait, what?

This is clearly false - no teacher is "likely" to be an exception unless you can prove some systemic issue whereby there is some small number of abysmal numbers that drag down the mean . . .

Now, any given teacher might be an exception, but on the whole, any particular individual teacher is actually likely to NOT be an exception. Sorry for the nerd rant.

I'm sure what you meant was more like "there are teachers who score well, so don't give up on the whole" - this is a valid point as well, but since most students (or parents) don't have control over this element, it seems somewhat moot. In most places, you get what you're assigned - nothing more or less.

Originally Posted by Alphagamuga

Would education be better is smarter people were teachers? Maybe: some studies have linked teacher intelligence and student success, but there might be drawbacks too. I think really smart people are bothered even more by the flaws in the system and if they weren't empowered to make systemic changes, it might lead to more turnover and volatility. Who knows?

You can be darn sure, though, that you aren't going to get smarter people without A) paying a lot more, which I think is unlikely to happen OR B) the rest of the job market starts stinking so bad that teaching looks better by comparison, which I think has happened in a certain fields and overall with health and retirement benefits.

I agree with you here - I think our expectations of teachers (intelligence-wise) are a little high. I may have been slightly terse before with my MENSA example, but I think the point is sound: most smart people can make easier money doing something else.

One solution here is to severely limit teachers' classes to only those things they have mastered, especially at the middle/high school levels - increasing specialization could help. This would also allow the 'continuing education' criteria to focus on interpersonal skills work, etc. I'm not sure how you can help in elementary education, however - it seems there a large number of empathic or nurturing personality types gravitate to the work, which may not create the best pool to draw from. I don't really know.

[UGAalum94]

You were absolutely right about your first point, and I've edited to reflect it. My point was don't assume what is true for the average is true of every individual member. (And honestly, at my school, the "likely" to be an exception is true because it's a desirable place to teach and the applicant supply way exceeds the demand.)

(I do think that there may be a problem with using scores from people who study a subject to project about people who practice in that field: I suspect that the absolute dumbest of the students never pass the certification exams. I concede though even if you reviewed the scores of employed teachers, their average scores would likely be lower than the average scores of people practicing in most other professions.)

Originally Posted by KSig RC

One solution here is to severely limit teachers' classes to only those things they have mastered, especially at the middle/high school levels - increasing specialization could help. This would also allow the 'continuing education' criteria to focus on interpersonal skills work, etc. I'm not sure how you can help in elementary education, however - it seems there a large number of empathic or nurturing personality types gravitate to the work, which may not create the best pool to draw from. I don't really know.

A large enough group of people who have mastered the skills doesn't seem to exist for this to work, especially of people who would work for the pay.

(Unless maybe you are thinking of the same international students who dominate the TA positions in college. )

I think that you need empathetic and nurturing people to teach elementary schools. I'm not sure that people without these traits could do the job. But there's no reason why you couldn't find intelligent, and empathetic, nurturing people at the right price.

I think changes to the system are much more important right now than teacher recruitment because a great teacher at a school that won't allow him or her to be effective won't produce student learning gains. Even mediocre teachers are likely to be able to teach more effectively if the system is better and more effective methods are embraced by colleges of education, states, and school systems. If we make changes to the system, and we plateau in student performance, then we should start throwing more money at teacher salaries to attract better people.