S'Scout & Blue Hawk
 

Give teaching at a community college a try. I did that for two years. I thought it would be much more of a challenge and have a more lasting impact on the carreres of the younger generation.
Alas, I quickly discovered that 70% of the incoming class had to take remedial English and math classes before they could even pass the entrance exams to take my class. What was I teaching ?
"Introduction to Microprocessors and Design".
I taught at Glendale Community college back in 1979 - 1981. This was right after Motorola introduced the first true microprocessor to the market, the M6800 and the M68000 the following year.
Since the microprocessor was so new, the college asked a few of us engineers who worked on the development team to create and teach some classes on how to use this new technology.
What we found, was that the incoming class did not have the math skills to comprehend the design equations, nor the English skills to be able to comprehend the lesson manuals ! Talk about a real eye-opener !!
The sad fact is that it has only gotten worse through the years. I guess that's what happens when the teachers are made to teach to the slowest member of the class, instead of the class average. I found that when I went to college, that I learned more during the summer classes, when the class was crunched to 6 weeks instead of 26 weeks, but yet all the same amount of classwork and testing was mandated. The instructor covered everyhting one time. If you didn't get it, tough ! Over half my classmates during the summer didn't pass. Those were the classes I aced. I got bored in the regular 26 week classes and I'm sure that thee are a lot of other students who do as well.
I don't agree with teaching to a tesst, but then I also don't agree with continually passing a student to the next grade and ultimately graduation, only to discover that Jonny can't even read !! :d:
Our public schools need a serious make-over and they ned it yesterday !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sarge -

When in hell DID all that business about getting moved along in grades without having basic knowledge get started, and why? I'm not real clear about that, it seemed to happen overnight while everybody was looking the other way, thinking everything was normal in schools!

I never heard of such a thing in school! By God we ALL knew for SURE we weren't gonna pass a grade if we could not complete our finals. The simple act of passing final tests used to be a pretty fair indicator that the proficiency in a subject area had been gained, and we did not need standardized tests either. In fact, it used to be kinda fun to be in a given class, say in English or History, where a certain teacher had a reputation for writing real hard or very easy finals. We actually used to make a kind of sport out of comparing test questions after the fact. I think that fact was a very strong motivator to buckle down and at least get a "C". Being kept back a grade was just about the worst form of threat imaginable, amounting to utter social humiliation. There were, of course, always the rare breed who could not care less, but we all sort of knew where they were most likely to end up and had little to do with them if they couldn't at least pass a freakin' school test. Nobody expected that EVERYONE was gonna be National Merit scholars.

On the other hand too, there was NO possibility of so much as sassing a teacher back either. Anyone who tried that was persona non grata immediately and forever.

I'm starting to think that maybe all this was one of those unintended consequences of the 60s "counter culture"?

Public education has gotten seriously dumbed down in this country. I am going to try to find the per pupil amount of money spent ( indexed for inflation ) and the dropout rates over the past 40 years. That coupled with the afore mentioned facts of all the remedial spending that has to be done in colleges to teach the freshman class basic math and english simply means that the teachers are failing big time. Teacher's unions and the obscene amounts of money being pumped into the school systems from the federal government are obviously not helping. My question is, what the hell is going on in schools ? Not very damn much apparently.

Larry

Dang it Larry!

The freakin' teachers are nearly all doing their very best to cope with a bunch of self-centered snotty brats, a glob of scapegoating cover-yer-ass administrators and parents who think their main job is shopping...

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Quit with this blaming teachers! I just have not seen that Larry, and I have been right smack in the middle of 'em.

By the way, to hell with teacher's unions if this is the best they can do for their people, too!

B'Hawk
 

I don't know when or where it started, but it is a fact, even today, in our public schools. I was lucky (?) enough to have been sent to a Catholic school during my 3rd - 8th grades. The "loving" nuns didn't put up with ANY attitude from a student. The punishment wasn't being sent home, or talking to a school counselor. Smart-off to a nun and your fate was immediate and corporal. I received my share of retribution by both the nuns and the coach for my flipant remarks or for doing something "stupid" in class. but for all that, it focused my attention on learning.
In the school I went to (St. Anne's in Houston), we started class at 7:00 and were dismissed at 4:00 every day. Every student was required to take a foreign language class each year, as well as the mandatory catacism class (Catholic doctrine).
In the 4th grade, we were taught algebra, 5th, geometry, 6th algebra / triginometry and 7th & 8th calculus. These math classes were mandatory. There was no "general math" class offered as a substitute.
For my 9th - 12th grade, I talked my parents into letting me go to a public high school. Boy, what a shock !! I soon discovered that I was light years ahead of my classmates in virtually every subject. The high didn't even offer calculus math, you were only required to take one year of a foreign language and science classes were a joke as well. I have already taken chemistry and physics, but the public school system didn't recognize these as "valid" classes , because I had taken them in the 6th and 7th grades. The high school requirement was that these be taken in the 10th, 11th or 12th years. The same for geometry and trig., so I had to retake these courses. Needless to say, I aced them, without hardly trying. (I had only made "C's" in my catholic school !)
I saw kids graduating from high school with D's in one or more class and some with at least one "F" in their final grades. Why ? Because the terachers didn't want to have to put up with an unruly child any longer. They figured, "Let the next teacher or professor deal with it." Sad, but true. We are now paying the price for letting our teachers and school administrators "dumb-down" the curriculum and the disipline in our schools.
Grated, there are some school systems that are really trying to make a difference, but these are few and far between. Most of the schools that are really challenging kids today are the private schools, those set up by churches and/or concerned parents. Unfortunately, most parents treat the school system as a baby-sitting service and don't even know what or or or by whom their kids are being taught.
I personally know of many high school students who cannot pass the weekly volcabulary test given to second graders at a particular public school in my area. In fact, many adults can't pass it either. I was really shocked to see some of the words on the test myself and could only manage a "B"; on a second grade test ! Those kids stand a good chance a really having a true opportunity in life, IF (and that's a big if!) the middle, jounior high and high schools continue the efforts begun by the elementary school.
Parents truly NEED to get involved. They need to visit the kid's school. Drop in on a couple of their classes, unannounced, and see first-hand what's really going on. They need to attend and participate in the local Parent-Teacher Associations (PTA). Maybe then we would begin to see a change, but until parents begin to get involved, it will only get worse. :d:

There are a lot of teachers that try. There are a lot who could give a shit less. There is no incentive for them to do a good job. There is no testing of them to even see if they are competent to teach. Ever hear of "social promotion". It means pass the student regardless of their school work. That is what happens here. We have folks on our school board and who run our city school system that apparently could not make change at a 7-11. I place blame all around. And especially with parents who seem to be hypnotized by the same stupid politicians they keep electing who are going to "fix the school system". I have been a substitute teacher. I majored in education in college. My wife is a library assistant in a county school. I have many friends who work in the school system. There is an incredible amount of money wasted...

Larry

Right on Sarge, right on...

Having been a public school sub teacher though I gotta say, and it pains me to say it, there just IS no way anymore to handle "unruly" kids.. you cannot even raise your voice to them, much less make a point physically by so much as TOUCHING them (especially the girls).

I have seen professional teachers with ways they are trained in, and authorized to practise, be able to handle any kind of kid. I have noticed that kids in upper division or gifted classes have no such problems. I have also noticed that kids from private schools, especially religion-based ones, have no such problems. And there are those few teachers who could care less, or who now care less because of being forced to teach the test.

I have personally experienced being a sub for a math class where there was one girl who began from the git talking out and disrupting everyone... her outbursts were encouraged by her girlfriends, things got close to out of hand. I walked up to her, stuck my finger in her face and quietly said, "If you open your mouth one more time you are outa here, permanently." I knew damn well that if I went whole hog on this girl, it would mean writing up a disciplinary report, which I would have been more than happy to do, in great detail. Problem with that is, the parents and administration will deny the whole report on the grounds that a sub is not a "credentialed professional". The brat will be back in class tomorrow, and graduate with the customary corsage.

Well, she, of course, blurted out another stupid comment and I ordered her out. However, she rushed out the door without a hall pass. A big 'No No" under administrative rules, and a teacher must not leave the classroom. Immediately her girlfriends, and the males in class who wanted to impress them with their macho, opened up on me like you would not believe... they used the tactic of asking for bathroom passes, all at once. I had to resort to using the intercom to get the class under control. It was the closest I ever came in 7 years to "Lord of the Flies". It was terrifying, and it only took about 10% of the students to create chaos over which I had absolutely no control. To hell with the math lesson plan.

This scenario happens over and over again, thousands of times, every day... both under subs and even sometimes pro teachers who, like me, are basically pacifistic knowledge givers. I have four kids (two of each gender) from three different mothers... all of them born and raised since 1968, not one of whom would or ever has conducted themselves in such a manner in school or at home and gotten away with it. We are not an especially rigorous religious family either, though spiritual values and moral responsibility are treasured. All of them have gotten through college, and paid their own damn ways... just like I did. None of them has intentionally scraped against the law, nor have I, and I know for sure that the great majority of american families would have a story similar to mine. So, what is the problem?

I call it the "5% Rule". There will always be roughly 5% of any population in any given situation who will make the trouble for everyone else, and there is no way to get rid of them.

I hate like hell to say this in writing in public, but it really does appear that there is no way this thing will ever get resolved so long as we keep doing what we're doing.

Suggestions:
ABOLISH
a) electoral college
b) gerrymandering
c) closed primaries

Return America to a direct democracy.

BLU, Blu Blu
 

For awhile, you were making good sense, almost even condemning the education unions for harboring stupid and incompetent teachers, then you slip off the page, light up those strange shaped cigarettes, and start railing about the perfidious sections of the US Constitution over which you have neither control nor understanding. What in the name of holy bugfuggles does the electoral college have to do with the pathetic situation of public schools? So what if a section of the country is gerrymandered from here to Bandera, FUBARRED beyond belief? It has nothing, N-O-T-H-I-N-G, to do with the public schools! Turn the page, fur pete's sake, and get a new horse to beat!

There is a plethora of blame to go around regarding the state of government schools - absent or non-involved parents, lack of discipline at home early on, incompetent teachers, overpaid administrators, plagarized and politicizied curricula, and an intrusive federal government.

Scout, you cantakerous fogey!

If the people of america do not have their votes in any way altered, changed, fiddled with, manipulated, channeled, prevented, obscured, denied, purchased, discounted, or defrauded, then those whom we put in office (I remind you that it is they who make and enforce the laws under which everything operates in this country, including public schools!) will be the ones whom WE (not political party sluts) elect, live with and are able to rid ourselves of just as expediently.

It took me the better part of 50 years to get OUT of my head that old sagging shibboleth line of propaganda we were taught about the unassailable perfection of our Constitution and founders, and to figure out why the thing works as it does in practical terms. I am not about to give up riding that horse as long as it and I will live.

I don't beat horses, or anything else, they tend to respond better to gentle persuasion. I don't smoke funny cigarettes either.

If we are gonna be saddled with a constitutional Republic, then I see it as our duty to make damn sure it functions properly... which is to say that our representatives represent US, not themselves or their insipid greedy spineless party. If they will do that, then the public schools, among other things, will function as everyone knows they are supposed to.

I do not condemn teacher's unions, or any other kind of labor union. However, I will take extreme exception when they, like a political party, serve only themselves and throw crumbs to their members. Likewise, I would take exception when all that a union member wants is more money from their power structure.

If gerrymandering has nothing to do with anything, then why is it always such a total headache for the losers! They need to stop fiddling around with our districts and start representing the people who live in them. Who, besides party members, gives a damn where their idiotic boundaries are drawn! Leave the lines along county borders and get the hell on with the people's business. If they paid as much attention to schools and health care and all the rest as they do to gerrymandering then maybe our lives would improve. AND, if I want to vote for a freakin' Democrat or a Whig then by God it is my constitutional right to do so, and I intend to do just that. Some States have actually gotten this message all by themselves, and are opening up the primaries... heaven forfend.

I do not see the Constitution as perfidious. However, it has become a patchwork of special interest provisions in many cases, over which americans spend far too much time fighting and cutting deals about. I'm more of a Patrick Henry patriot Scout... and for that reason I know I'm gonna die with a broken heart about what America could have been.

In the meantime, I intend to do every possible thing to remind ordinary people like myself to keep our eye on what has truly happened to the freedoms we once thought we had... and a couple of simple peaceful measures the electorate could take toward improvement for all our citizens.

bugfuggles... I like that word...

BLUEHAWK..you are right and wrong. Our country is no where near what the founding fathers intended. It starts with an all powerful central federal government, income tax, goes on to the Supreme Court ( doing things it was never intended ), and goes on to the Federal Reserve System, which creates "fiat" money out of thin air and causes recessions and depressions at will. Our money was intended to be backed by gold or silver. Any SANE country in the last 6,000+ years of civilization has done it that way. Otherwise, your economy is out of control ( or in the control of central bankers ) which is what ours has been since 1913 when the income tax and the Federal Reserve System were put into law ( altho the 16th Amendment was not ratified by all the states and is technically iilegal ). Anyway, our country and its bloated centralized federal government is as far from what was framed in 1787 as The Communist Soviet Union was in 1919 compared to the regime of Czar Nicholas whom they overthrew.

Larry