Job Discussion Forums

[Nagoyaguy]

YOu may want to look into the problems caused by the stranglehold the teacher's unions and the NEA have on the public education system. Money is flung at the problem without regard for results.

Also, you may want to compare the education of home schooled kids with their counterparts in the public system.

[ChinaMovieMagic]

Nagoyaguy

I recommend you check out the Forum at the Gatto site. I think you'll find many folks there share your values and concerns.

Best wishes

[moonraven]

To the "stoopid" person who feels he has too much education,

Just a couple of points to illustrate how folks see the world differently:

1. I did very well in advertising--precisely because I am not a Type A personality. Clients get sick of the Type A jokers who sprint through their own agendas instead of trying to find out what will really serve the client.

2. One of the best jobs I have ever had was a night job during the summer between my sophomore and junior years in university. Ostensibly, I was a mechanic for big-rig trucks. In reality, I pumped gas and diesel, made a few very minor repairs and spent the rest of the night writing poems and short stories and goofing off with my buddies who drove the patrol cars for the police and sheriff's office on the night shift. They were mobile, so they brought me hamburgers and cigars. It was all very laid back--to the point that most of the truckers who stopped either joined us for cigars or sacked out in their rigs for the rest of the night. Another benefit of that silly job was that I made twice as much money as my friends who were working their butts off waitressing during the day....

As for testing for career aptitude, those tests indicated that I should have gone into astrophysics. I did enter university as a physics major. Then I read the transcripts of the Oppenheimer hearings, decided I didn't want to build better bombs at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and switched to Creative Writing and Philosophy. I have never regretted that decision.

[anonymous_alaska]

juststeven,

I don't live in alaska although i hear it's great. any teaching positions out there?

at one time i worked for the red cross stuffing envelopes. the addresses without zip codes they sent to Anonymous, Alaska. Is there really such a place?

As for the Carnegie unit, when the industrial revolution in the US occured, Carnegie needed to train the workers and managers. He created the Carnegie unit to determine who passed and moved up in the training. Eventually this idea was implemented into the public school system created at around that time.(For better or for worse.)

An interesting note. I find ESL teachers who have taught abroad and come back here to teach, teach really interesting classes even in other subjects.

Let a gadfly be a gadfly.

[distiller]

[moonraven]

For a change I agree with distiller. Teachers' unions are critically necessary to protect what quality of education exists and to prevent unjust treatment of teachers.

I was General Secretary of the AFT local at Northern Illinois University in the late 60s, early 70s. We had to initiate lawsuits for some professors to keep their jobs, and to prevent research grants that had been awarded for specific projects by professors being slushed into general departmental funds by irresponsible department heads. We also did the lion's share of lobbying the state legislature for funds, and for calling press conferences to expose university needs and concerns.

[juststeven]

Anonymous Man,
No, I don't believe there's such a place in Ak. However, I left there in 1976. I still have friends there that tell me there is a serious demand for teachers. Check it out! I hope you like extreme weather conditions, both summer and winter, because I never saw anything like it. I'm really glad it was one of my life's adventures.
As for the Carnegie 'unit' situation, I was told during studies for my M.Ed. that for every 15 hours of lecture you receive 1 unit. Basically, what our university system is all about. I'm sure that if I'm wrong, I will be corrected.

[ChinaMovieMagic]

Gatto's book (ABOVE) traces the Carnegie connection.