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Gatekeeper
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United States of America
Feb 2000
time: 23:36
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There are students who don't want to learn. There are teachers who don't want to teach. There are parents who don't want to get involved. There are members of society who don't want to pay for top-notch schooling.
There's your recipe for trouble.
On another note, while I hesitate to stereotype all American students as idiotic — after all, I once was among their ranks, and sure as hell didn't consider myself stupid — I do feel that America's public schools could face even more trouble in the future. How so? Simple. The science classes are slowly being gutted by a grass-roots campaign (with support at the national level by certain groups) to introduce theology back into the classroom — specifically, Intelligent Design.
I have no problem with faith or religion. I consider myself a faithful person, albeit not in a cookie-cutter sort of way. Yet when I see so-called people of faith trying to derail science in public schools, it gets under my skin. Faith and religion belong in the churches for those who wish to go there and learn that way. They belong in the religion classes in public schools and universities for those wishing to learn about them. Why is that so hard for some to comprehend? After all, how would they like it if science-oriented folks tried to make it so Sunday school classes had to teach evolution, or some other scientific theory? They wouldn't, and rightly so! So why do they keep trying to force creationism, err, Intelligent Design, into public science classes?
Gatekeeper
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Darkstar
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Huntsville, AL, USA
May 1999
time: 23:36
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Mrs. T, I'm not saying that it doesn't happen at places. But it doesn't happen in the majority of the US. Not unless someone wants to make trouble for you.
So... either you ticked someone off, or you are in an exemplary system. I hope its the later. 
However, you did say pre-school. Pre-school, I am told, they pay more attention to the children at that level. That may be because the teachers at that level tend to have an extreme love for their students (a few surveys of teachers have shown preschool teachers tend to prioritize "working with/being around children" over everything else, including money, challenge, satisfication, AIR).
While I was a child in the system, I frequently skipped school. I was a chronic at certain phases of my young life. I averaged an 80% absentee rate for several years. But I was never failed, because I was always a top 1% student, often the top of the grade. Each school I was in, wanted me to stay on the rolls, because I tested out so high and that more then made up the money they lost on me being out past the mandatory fail line on my testing results. No system ever sent around anyone, and never summoned my parents to court about the matter. Only one system even bothered to phone when I was out to see if I was out for the full day, or just a half day.
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Darkstar
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Huntsville, AL, USA
May 1999
time: 23:36
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Gatekeeper, is that before or after the curriculum has been gutted by PCness and Green Proproganda and whatever else is the fad of the decade?
As for why so many people cannot seperate Science from Religion...
* Some people think Religion is more important. That's like, concerning people's souls, and like, their rewards and punishments (which can be, like, forever man!) in the here or there after. That's more important then some transitory discomfort for a few people. This is like, eternally important matter man!
* Some people don't understand the difference.
-a) Some people treate Science as a religion. That leads others to "respond in kind".
-b) Most people don't really investigate science, and take it on faith. For much of science, even if someone wanted to investigate, they'd have to learn a lot more science, and investigate that (this can be a repeating recursion).
Just another of my wacky opinions.
Please Note: this post has a big, big wink all over it.
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Gatekeeper
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United States of America
Feb 2000
time: 23:36
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quote:
Originally posted by Mrs. Tuberski
Gatekeeper, in texas, thanks to the atheist whowas recently found dead, relegion is not allowed in our public schools any longer. The people are getting all worked up over the pledge of alegince beause gods name is in it. |
I think I remember reading about that atheist — wasn't she weird, and not because she was an atheist?
WRT to the Pledge of Allegiance and God, I thought it was a "historical" thing, and had been in there since the pledge was started. Then I learned that it wasn't inserted until the 1950s, as a way of "differentiating" America from the "godless" Communists. So if it's removed from the pledge, I won't particularly care. After all, our forefathers and foremothers were quite patriotic and religious w/o having God in the pledge. They got along fine, and I suspect the majority nowadays would as well. But you can bet your booties that the extreme wings of American society will do their damndest to make life "interesting," so to speak.
Gatekeeper
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Odin
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Biology Nerd at Minnesota State University Moorhead
Sep 2000
time: 23:36
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quote:
Originally posted by Darkstar
Gatekeeper, is that before or after the curriculum has been gutted by PCness and Green Proproganda and whatever else is the fad of the decade?
As for why so many people cannot seperate Science from Religion...
* Some people think Religion is more important. That's like, concerning people's souls, and like, their rewards and punishments (which can be, like, forever man!) in the here or there after. That's more important then some transitory discomfort for a few people. This is like, eternally important matter man!
* Some people don't understand the difference.
-a) Some people treate Science as a religion. That leads others to "respond in kind".
-b) Most people don't really investigate science, and take it on faith. For much of science, even if someone wanted to investigate, they'd have to learn a lot more science, and investigate that (this can be a repeating recursion).
Just another of my wacky opinions.
Please Note: this post has a big, big wink all over it. |
Yep, school should be about seperating facts from faith. Unfortunately, you try to do that and the voters will kick out the school board and replace it with nuts who think Creationism should be taught in school.
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Gatekeeper
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United States of America
Feb 2000
time: 23:36
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quote:
Originally posted by Darkstar
Gatekeeper, is that before or after the curriculum has been gutted by PCness and Green Proproganda and whatever else is the fad of the decade? |
Fads come and go, which is their very nature. The latest fad, it seems, is to introduce religious elements — Intelligent Design, aka creationism — into public science classes. Hopefully that, too, will go the way of Ebonics.
quote:
As for why so many people cannot seperate Science from Religion...
* Some people think Religion is more important. That's like, concerning people's souls, and like, their rewards and punishments (which can be, like, forever man!) in the here or there after. That's more important then some transitory discomfort for a few people. This is like, eternally important matter man!
* Some people don't understand the difference.
-a) Some people treate Science as a religion. That leads others to "respond in kind".
-b) Most people don't really investigate science, and take it on faith. For much of science, even if someone wanted to investigate, they'd have to learn a lot more science, and investigate that (this can be a repeating recursion).
Just another of my wacky opinions.
Please Note: this post has a big, big wink all over it. |
In the end, I believe the people of faith and scientists are seeking the same goal, just taking different paths to reach it. On one hand, people of faith don't seek physical proof that what they believe in is true — that is faith in its purest form. On the other hand, there are those who want proof and go out searching for it — that is science in its purest form. Both are one and the same in the end, all that differs is the methadology, so to speak.
Gatekeeper
P.S. Oh, and here's a right back atcha! 
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Sikander
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Boulder, Colorado, United Snakes of America
Jan 2000
time: 22:36
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quote:
Originally posted by Ted Striker
The school system really has broken down in major ways.
Ask ANY teacher if they would recommend teaching as a profession, and most of them will say no. They work long hours, get crap pay, and the kids have a host of social problems that didn't exist before.
The kids spend most of their day now learning how to take tests instead of learning how to think.
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Teacher pay isn't that bad for the quality of the teachers it currently attracts. When I was in college education majors were the stupidest on campus based on their test scores. Most of them have no more reason to complain about compensation than anyone else. However if we do want to attract a better class of person into teaching than we will have to make the profession more competitive in terms of compensation.
Compensation is only one impediment to improving teacher quality though. Licensing is at least as bad. One of my friends desperately wanted to teach. She was brilliant, and had a degree in geology as well as a teaching certificate from Michigan where we went to college. She moved with her husband to Colorado where he was attending law school and couldn't get hired here until she spent another year taking more complete wastes of time also known as education classes. Instead she tutored college students in calculus until she was hired by the University to run one of their computer centers. Another friend (with a PhD in Mathematics) had similar problems, although she eventually was allowed to teach in an inner city school while she worked on her state teaching certificate.
The point is that both of these women wanted to go into teaching in full knowledge of the conditions and pay, even though they could have made much more money doing other things. One was turned away by the system, while the other was forced into a crucible which sees a majority of those who work in it quit the profession. They were both more than qualified, and both had teaching certificates from other states. But the system is designed to protect the jobs of semi-competent union employees rather than to screen new applicants for competence.
As for the social problems, I don't see them as any more challenging than the problems of the past. What has changed is in fact the expectations of what the education system is supposed to accomplish (we aim much higher). At the same time we have diminished the freedom of action that teachers need to even match the levels of achievement seen in the past. So teachers are expected to teach much more material (including a lot of dubious material) to students who they are not allowed to effectively discipline. Add to that the fact that today's teachers (like today's nurses and secretaries) aren't nearly so skilled on average as they were in the past due to the successes of the women's movement in opening up numerous other employment opportunities for women.
I also firmly disagree about the testing issue. We need to test to see where we are, to do otherwise is insane. The testing issue has become a power struggle between the teacher's unions and the republicans, with neither side operating completely in good faith. But I hold that teaching to the test is very desirable if your test is a good one. And there is no reason whatever that a test can't test for a variety of skills (ie testing whether or not the student has actually learned to think) rather than a rote list of unconnected facts.
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17-03-2005 11:26
All governments murder innocent people. It's one of their tools they use to maintain their power.
Just teach a class for one day and come back and say that.
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