How big is your vocabulary?

[BigStewMan]

Taking back the educational responsibility from the state will not be easy

not as long as we're sending our kids to school with turkey sandwiches instead of those nutritional chicken nuggets served in the cafeteria. [] You're right Mark, it's more training than education these days...personally, i favor letting parents raise their children; and abhor the notion that the "state" can do a better job. Yes, there are some lousy parents out there; but look at our politicians...they've all done a great job, right? i never had my sack lunch examined to ensure that my Mom was doing a good enough job. why teach about same sex marriage when i don't recall opposite sex marriage being taught? forget math, science, english, and history--social programming is the way they're going to make this world a better place. And it's working wonders [8-)]

[Groomlakearea51]

For a while I was worried that public education would collapse for lack of funding. Now I am worried it won't.

The "home school" program in Florida has always faced the teacher's unions. The teachers will do anything to preserve their jobs, and numbers are the driving force. They also impugn home schooling as "racist" motivated, or religiously motivated and place any and all obstacles in the way they can. The only saving grace is that the home school kids are afforded the same "tests" as the conventional kids. And they usually score better. That drives the union folks crazy. But then again it's all about the money and preservation of a system that often sacrifices the kids in the name of "standardization"......

Mark, you do know that we have wandered off the reservation a bit.... ROL!!!!!

[garyrc]

For a while I was worried that public education would collapse for lack of funding. Now I am worried it won't.

The "home school" program in Florida has always faced the teacher's unions. The teachers will do anything to preserve their jobs, and numbers are the driving force. They also impugn home schooling as "racist" motivated, or religiously motivated and place any and all obstacles in the way they can. The only saving grace is that the home school kids are afforded the same "tests" as the conventional kids. And they usually score better. That drives the union folks crazy.

Some in the union might welcome Goodman's (revised) formula of 1 Master
Teacher and 1 Intern to 7 kids; MORE teachers would be needed, not
fewer. The savings would be in cutting back the administrators and the
irrelevant paperwork requirements, rules, and any hoop to jump through
that was mandated, but not funded by the mandators.

As to the
teachers themselves, most of us have had some great ones -- I just
counted 11 that I had from elementary school through graduate school --
yes, 11 is not enough. The great 11 were not carbon copies of one another, but had different
approaches to teaching. One for instance, was very experiential in his
approach, and urged students to discover, as well as look inward. Another never stopped
talking, built elaborate theoretical and/or empirical castles in the
sky, and sometimes got applause -- of all things -- at the end of a lecture. They were both beautiful.

On the other hand
most of us have had some teachers who were incompetent, or dumber than dirt, or
approaching the demonic (I just counted 13). If I attempted to count and
rate the teachers my daughter had up through college, I suspect I would
come up with similar numbers. Believe me, I have had many earfuls
from her on this subject.

The task is to change the numbers. We can
start by treating teachers as professionals, and paying them
appropriately. As to weeding the incompetents out of their ranks, I'm
afraid this will need to be done through attrition. How do we get a better crop next time, with more like my favorite 11, and your favorite ___? 1) change the system itself
in some of the ways we have discussed on this forum. 2) Improving
education in general will improve the education of teachers, from the
time those teachers are kids in preschool. As you see, I'm not talking
about better "teacher education," but a system that would provide better
education across the board will mean that the pool from which we select
teachers will be better educated, and have their minds polished a
little more (but if we want them, we'll have to pay them).. When my
wife left her lab supervisor job to teach middle school science
(yes, people asked her what she had been smoking) she had to take the
CBEST. She found it a breeze, and the practice book looked pretty
breezy to me. Then, at a social function, I heard a group of teachers
talking about how hard the CBEST was, how some of them had to take it
twice, etc. This is tragic. Incidentally, my wife did not continue her
teaching. She couldn't stand the System.

Some would argue that
we should raise the standards for teachers. "Raising the standards,"
for teachers or students is sometimes putting the cart before the
horse, and does little more than increase anxiety and helps the kids think of themselves as inferior. If we improve education (the "treatment"), the standards (i.e., typical
performance) for both students and teachers will automatically float up
to a higher level -- slowly. In general I think the standards are the cart, and the treatment is the horse.

RE: Ben Franklin. Of course, we would have the
nature/nurture problem. When Adams and Jefferson were arguing about
whether there was a natural aristocracy of talent, they finally seemed
to agree that while there might be a natural aristocracy, it would be a
pity to superimpose an artificial aristocracy on top of it, thus
hiding the talents of many. While not everyone can be Ben Franklin,
part of our problem with that is our tendency to want to select, rather
than to more deeply educate. A professor I knew said something like
this: "I, and many of my colleagues, used to think we should select the
best and the brightest, nurture them, and then present them to the
world. Now some of us want to educate every student we meet as well as
we can, whatever way we can, and we reserve the right to deny failure
to anyone. If this produces too many f***ing geniuses for society to
absorb, too bad!"

[Groomlakearea51]

"A professor I knew said something like this:

"I, and many of my colleagues, used to think we should select the best and the brightest, nurture them, and then present them to the world. Now some of us want to educate every student we meet as well as we can, whatever way we can, and we reserve the right to deny failure to anyone. If this produces too many f***ing geniuses for society to absorb, too bad!"

"Crazy Eddie" comes to mind.... An intellectual arrogance that inevtiably leads to frustration and failure when the "products" are unleashed into a society or non-discipline related social structure for which they were certainly not prepared. Denial of failure does nothing more than delay the inevitable realization that the course the student took was not a great idea......

[garyrc]

Denial of failure does nothing more than delay the inevitable realization that the course the student took was not a great idea......

It depends on how you deny the failure[].
In this individual's scheme, the attempt would be to turn failure into
success by offering extensive one on one tutoring by the professor and
a fleet of teaching assistants, some unpaid volunteers, pairing the
students in class so the higher achieving one could mentor the
struggling one, etc.. He also used retesting to mastery, using
statistically equivalent tests. His classes, as well as those of many
others, started with a two week review of prerequisite material
delivered with crystal clarity and at high speed that resembled Robin
Williams's comic "Reader's Digest version." They remembered it.

In
the roles of teaching assistant, independent tutor, consultant, and
finally instructor/lecturer, I worked with a few hundred of these
students needing extra help, Out of these hundreds, I found only three I couldn't shape up into doing good or excellent work. I still remember
their names. Perhaps someone else would have been able to help them
more. In case you are wondering, I am not aware of any grades being given away; the As in these
courses, for instance, were earned As, criterion referenced. In one professor's courses,
students would take 15 tests during the semester, and a comprehensive
one at the end. There would be many As, a few Bs, some
incompletes. A student working at the C, D, or F level would be given
help if they would take it, and if they declined help, would be reminded
that they could drop the course by a certain date. It was perfectly possible to write lower grades, if the student was bound and determined to get a low grade, but it very rarely happened (one said, "all I need to get is a D -- barely passing -- to keep my promise to my father that I would graduate from college). About 10% of the
students having trouble were having emotional or interpersonal
difficulties that swamped their work. They were referred to one of the
three sources of psychotherapy or counseling on campus.

Incidentally, the statement, "We reserve the right to deny failure to anyone," was a humorous paraphrase of the arrogant, often racist, signs seen in restaurants in the '50s and '60s that read, "We reserve the right to deny service to anyone," a
sign with which many students of color or those with long hair, etc.
would be quite familiar. The sad truth is that some students came in
with the will to fail, and fail soon, to get it over with to dispel the anxiety of believing
that they couldn't do the work. The professor in question wanted them
to discover that they could do the work (and almost all could); in so
doing, he acted to deny them failure.

[garyrc]

The task is to change the numbers. We can
start by treating teachers as professionals, and paying them
appropriately

I think the establishment has resoundingly rejected this strategy. In fact, they have determined to reduce their investment in education by maybe 50% or even more. The manifestation of the new strategy can be seen at the state level, where teachers unions are being busted and torn assunder as the first step. Ed budgets are being shredded for the plant and infrastructure elements too. What remains of the bones to be picked over, will be handed over to private industry to milk as a profit source.

I think it is fair to announce that "compulsory public education" is dead. The next dozen years or so will be a death rattle. Anecdotally, but I think as a sign of what is to come, my state has cut all the funding for the school busses in my rural county. In other words, "Hey, you want your kid in school? Get in your car and drive them." (At $5 a gallon for gas!)

More teachers at higher pay? I just can't see that happening.

I hope that's not true. If it is, it recalls Woody Allen's twist on the kinds of elected officials we get. For our purposes, I must substitute the word "system" ... "They always say we get the system we deserve --- the trouble is, I get the system they deserve."