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riverboat
Joined: 22 May 2009
Posts: 117
Location: Paris, France
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 Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2012 7:49 pm Post subject: |
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Really good post. I have quite a few good friends who teach secondary school (age eleven to eighteen) in the UK, and I can't believe some of the things they tell me about the standards they're held to and the impossibility of ever meeting them. Completely unattainable ideologies of catering for every individual child, providing lessons that both challenge the gifted and simultaneously don't leave the slower learners behind, to the extent where they're supposed to be evidencing in planning how the lesson is adapted to any number of discrete ability levels/learning problems. With up to 30 children in a class of mixed abilities...it's crazy. And you're right, the system will never ever admit that it could be the children or their parents at fault, it's always the teacher's responsibility to make them achieve by hook or by crook...
This is part of the reason why I would never want to teach a) children, b) in public schools... |
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DebMer
Joined: 02 Jan 2012
Posts: 232
Location: Southern California
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| Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2012 11:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Chancellor wrote: |
NCLB is even worse for English language learners in that these kids are only given a year to become proficient in English and meet state education standards.
A friend of mine is an ESL teacher in Buffalo Public Schools (Buffalo, NY) and the administrator took away his only actual ESL class and replaced him with computers monitored by a Spanish teacher. Meanwhile, he is expected to teach English to ELLs while they're sitting in other classes (e.g. a Social Studies class) being taught by another teacher. |
Sadly, your friend has been set up to fail. |
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naturegirl321
Joined: 04 May 2003
Posts: 9041
Location: home sweet home
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| Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2012 2:56 am Post subject: |
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| BadBeagleBad wrote: |
| Good points. I remember when I was in elementary school we had the red reading group, the blue reading group and the yellow reading group. You could move between levels if you progressed, and some people did, but each group did activities that were appropriate to their skill level and needs, so the smarter kids weren't bored waiting for the slow kids, and the slower kids weren't lost when the higher performing kids were reading. Nowadays you can't do that, you might harm someone's else esteem. Forget about whether they actually learn to read or not. Another pet peave of mine is the fact that vocational education is all but gone, again, operating under the idea that everyone can, and should, go to college. In the "olden days" kids who knew they weren't going to college could take auto mechanics, or auto body classes, or woodworking or several other courses and graduation with the skills to get a decent job, one with a future. Blue collar, yes, but when did that become a crime? Now, kids that aren't going to college graduate with few, if any, skills and few jobs that are interested in training them. |
Same thing happened in my time. I recently read a book that put forth the idea that people who do a trade are richer than those who don't.
1. The idea is that if you do a trade you usually study for less time, so you can make money faster.
2. IN addition, it's not that as expensive as university, so you don't have student loans to pay back.
3. Lastly, those who do trades are usually a "lower class" and don't have to worry about keeping up with the Joneses.
I can see where they're coming from. My grandfather did a trade and has actually spent more time being retired than working. My parents both have a master degree or two and can't afford to retire.
US education? Don't get me started. I learned what happens if Train A travels at X speed and Train B at Y speed: where' they'll meet. BUt I never learned how to balance a check book or how to do my taxes.  |
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LongShiKong
Joined: 28 May 2007
Posts: 1082
Location: China
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| Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2012 1:01 pm Post subject: |
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Until a year ago, I was in a primary/junior B.Ed. Having spent most of the previous decade teaching kids in China, entering a Canadian classroom again on practicum was a shock. I felt like I was in a psych ward--the overall deficiency of attention was so much greater among Cdn kids than their Chinese counterparts. I was chastised by my visiting prof for not using 'manipulatives' (plastic blocks) to introduce triple-digit arithmetic to grade 4s. I mistakenly figured they were beyond that and were ready for more intellectually challenging word problems. I should've known as some still struggled with single- and double-digit arithmetic.
Teaching public school these days is a demanding job. You either have what it takes or you don't. |
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DebMer
Joined: 02 Jan 2012
Posts: 232
Location: Southern California
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| Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2012 3:34 pm Post subject: |
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| LongShiKong wrote: |
Teaching public school these days is a demanding job. You either have what it takes or you don't. |
All it really takes is everything you have, right down to your last ounce of, patience, effort and willpower. |
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EFLeducator
Joined: 16 Dec 2011
Posts: 595
Location: NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS
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| Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2012 10:22 pm Post subject: |
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| BadBeagleBad wrote: |
| Good points. I remember when I was in elementary school we had the red reading group, the blue reading group and the yellow reading group. You could move between levels if you progressed, and some people did, but each group did activities that were appropriate to their skill level and needs, so the smarter kids weren't bored waiting for the slow kids, and the slower kids weren't lost when the higher performing kids were reading. Nowadays you can't do that, you might harm someone's else esteem. Forget about whether they actually learn to read or not. Another pet peave of mine is the fact that vocational education is all but gone, again, operating under the idea that everyone can, and should, go to college. In the "olden days" kids who knew they weren't going to college could take auto mechanics, or auto body classes, or woodworking or several other courses and graduation with the skills to get a decent job, one with a future. Blue collar, yes, but when did that become a crime? Now, kids that aren't going to college graduate with few, if any, skills and few jobs that are interested in training them. |
| naturegirl321 wrote: |
Same thing happened in my time. I recently read a book that put forth the idea that people who do a trade are richer than those who don't.
1. The idea is that if you do a trade you usually study for less time, so you can make money faster.
2. IN addition, it's not that as expensive as university, so you don't have student loans to pay back.
3. Lastly, those who do trades are usually a "lower class" and don't have to worry about keeping up with the Joneses. |
Not always and not anymore amiga. Many are starting to see that those so-called "lower class" jobs pay far better than people with Ph.D's. In defense of the universities I will say that a lot depends on what the person majors in.
Liberal Arts? Sure you'll be a more wellrounded person , more open to no telling what, but that student better be ready to say, would you like fries with that?
You see, universities do have good things to study. PRACTICAL things like law, medical, statistics, and engineering. These are areas that have REAL WORLD knowledge. They are PRACTICAL. Society can USE people who major in one of those areas. So it depends on what one majors in.
| naturegirl321 wrote: |
| I can see where they're coming from. My grandfather did a trade and has actually spent more time being retired than working. My parents both have a master degree or two and can't afford to retire. |
Yeah, but WHAT are your parents Masters degrees IN? THAT is what makes all the difference in the world. |
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littlelauren86
Joined: 20 Sep 2011
Posts: 94
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 12:45 pm Post subject: |
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| I definitely agree with EFLeducator. The thing is that so many kids don't realize that until they graduate and they're out in the workforce. The universities really tell you something else. I really wanted to major in the "popular" major at my uni, since that particular degree was heavily promoted. Now that I look back, I'm glad I kept the major I did. Not the "best" thing to major in, but it has at least some actual marketability, rather than that popular and very generic major. Looking back, I'm like, "what the heck could I have done with that degree???" |
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