Comments on: What happens to the children who don’t have “elite” public education

By: Lulu

Lulu — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 00:31:54 +0000

Since Scott thinks this is made-up story he has probably been away from kids who start school not knowing the English language and with uneducated, often even illiterate parents, as this child did. Without any educational toys, after-school enrichment, inadequate teachers, unmotivated classmates, his level is sadly unsurprising. I suggest you volunteer at a school like his- 95% children of illegal immigrants, and see for yourself.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 18:44:09 +0000

Most course work is just simple memorization, what exactly are you solving for anyways? You don’t even understand why you are learning this, how could you use it to solve any problem?

Agreed—but while I’m qualified to be a teacher, and think I could be quite good as I do tutor children occasionally, I wouldn’t be able to deal with the NEA so I would never consider it. I think that until the power of the teachers union is reduced dramatically, the profession will predominantly attract those who know that they wouldn’t be able to make it in industry; the hope for attracting people with real experience, while a laudable goal, is going to be extremely difficult.

I would like to see a program that enables professionals to take a two year sabbatical to teach middle or high school. We’re lagging in science and mathematics precisely because a majority of the current teachers are not qualified to teach these subjects and therefore they cannot instill the passion necessary for a child to successfully pursue these difficult paths.

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 15:45:56 +0000

Teacher’s certificates are crazy stupid, let my tell you.

Danny, I wish I had a time machine or just a quantum machine. You know how much fun I could have with that? I could explore every ramification and consequence of every plan, action, on a quantum level. The only question I would have with such tools and power at my disposal is, do I really want to know the solution when I will very likely not have the power to implement it? Or maybe with a quantum machine iwill have the power to implement it, by looking into probability cooridors.

I always found history interesting because of looking at one guy’s actions that he did because of x, y, and z having ABCD consequences.

One of the most interesting courses I had was AP Chemistry, the teacher being one of those teachers that would go to workshops at Tech and conduct teaching assignments. He chose to teach high School, and I benefited much from his wisdom and preparation. That course alone could have been called “College Preparatory 101″.

He would lecture us on behavior, good work ethics, and all the things “we needed”. It wasn’t just the course work and balancing chem equations. He made it interesting and educational because he taught us why things “mattered”. Humans like to form connections and to practice what they have learned. Classrooms don’t focus much on practice, so you have to TELL people why they are learning things. This makes their brains actually work you know, like nature intended. Humans are good at solving problems if a problem crops us, it’s how we survived against those big predators.

Most course work is just simple memorization, what exactly are you solving for anyways? You don’t even understand why you are learning this, how could you use it to solve any problem?

People with real experience can come into the classroom and say “this is what you need to know because this is how it is in the real world, forget theory”.

The old human instinct to listen to the battle scarred elder cause he’s been in a 100 battles while you are just a neophyte, still going strong.

By: jg

jg — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 06:20:21 +0000

I enjoyed listening to all these comments. Here’s a jab at America from one opinion seen at the Belmont Club. ‘American technology is inferior to the rest of the world, and will be so for the future because of an inferior educational system.’

Erp pointed out: “It’s time we demanded our grossly swollen educational bureaucracy do it or get out of the way. Remove the ridiculous teaching certificates designed to keep those with some actual knowledge out of the classrooms and let people who want to actually transfer information to eager young minds into the classrooms and then watch those kids sit up and learn.”

Agreed.

One of the small state universities has (somehow) done what ‘erp’ suggests: bringing older, often semi-retired professionals into the classroom to teach in job oriented classes.
This one newspaper account reported that the students loved the different atmosphere; the university saved bundles; and the part-time ‘teachers’ were excited by the opportunities to share what they’ve learned with young people.
What’s troubling is that general public opinion seems complacent about America’s inferior educational system.

By: Danny Lemieux

Danny Lemieux — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 04:45:15 +0000

Good point, YM. I have a small parrot that does not like being out of his cage. When we take him out for exercise, he looks for the first opportunity to fly back into his cage, where he is safe and guaranteed a meal. I agree, like my parrot, some people don’t like freedom and search for someone (the State) to take care of them. Freedom scares them. This is a weaning problem that is endemic to society (and even more so in Europe). So, what to do?

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 02:46:27 +0000

Some people don’t like freedom, danny. What are you going to do with them?

By: Danny Lemieux

Danny Lemieux — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 11:51:57 +0000

Schools can only be as good as the parents and other taxpayers that support them. The solution to the situation you described is for citizens and taxpayers to retake power from the school boards and enforce accountability. Trade-school tracking is an awful idea that, in Europe, results in caste-based societies tracking segments of the population into social classes based upon their family backgrounds. A 15 year-old kid does not yet know where they will excel in life and neither does the State. You can’t stereotype educational achievement. I have met people from well-off, highly educated families that were functional morons (no, I am not speaking of John Kerry in this case, although…) and I have met self-educated people from modest families of no education that were positively brilliant (I once knew a fur-trapper in Colorado who could recite and debate the course of ancient Egyptian history in great detail. It was his passion). The U.S. education system should remain flexible enough to allow all citizens to find their own level in life…and to suffer the consequences for good or for bad. That’s called “freedom”.

By: Scott in SF

Scott in SF — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 06:58:18 +0000

You’ve been duped, that story isn’t true. It smells like fish! Either the kid didn’t go to school, and was just like laying around somewhere, or he had the worst teachers ever, or he actually is a retard. You can’t socialize with other kids without knowing that stuff, so he must have been a loner.
I’m happy to let immigrants and the 15% of high school students who drop out on their own gumption, like bill Gates, do the manual labor. Trades, what trades? You’ve got to know math and science and how to write if you want to be any good at a trade like say Airplane mechanic, or Electrical engineer. Work in a factory is so unstable you’d be a fool to go for that. Carpentry, weilding, plumbing and roofing are still hot, but everybody with good English skills is either a forman or their working for themselves. For that you need skills and I don’t mean trade school skills. You guys are living in another decade.

By: expat

expat — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 23:58:59 +0000

I had the experience of spending a day at the one room elementary school attended by a cousin (no, it wasn’t Laura Ingalls, and it was in this century). How did these teachers do it? I suspect that it worked because they knew their kids–and their parents and grand parents.

By: Bookworm

Bookworm — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 22:44:15 +0000

The kind of flexibility you describe, expat, is definitely a good idea.