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Education in America

As far as I can tell, this "dumbing down" is not a recent phenomenon. Back in the mid-sixties I managed a Quick Mart store in Kannapolis, N.C. Quite often I had young people come in and ask for an empolyment application...

I kept an extra register drawer under the counter with sufficient change in it for my "test." I'd place the drawer on the counter, then tell them that they were now a cashier. I then would lay a candy bar on the counter and tell them that the candy was 25 cents, so with tax added the total was 28 cents. I'd then hand them a dollar bill and ask them to count back my change...

Easily nine out of ten would fail at this trivial task, at which point I would tell them that while I would give them an application if they still wanted it, it would just waste their time and effort, as there was no way they'd be hired.

When they asked why I'd simply tell them that if they can't even count change properly, they were placing themselves at risk of being cheated out of their hard-earned money for the rest of their lives. How were they to know if they were getting back correct change from any cashier?

Once in a great while, one of them would be interested enough to ask me how to correctly count change. Most of them wound up being hired and trained...

Of course these days the electronic registers do the math and tell them what the change is, but the ignorance is still present. For example, hand them another 2 pennies after they've already entered in what you initially gave them and most of the time you'll get a blank look... :isadizzy:
 
Daveroo said:
im almost scared to bring this up....im not involved in the education system at all...nor am i happy with it at all...it failed me....rather than noticing i had a problem learning.or with social problems?..my teachers for many years sent home "report cards" that gave me barely passing grades,mainly because they were deducting so called points,for the fact i didnt apply myself..nor did i have any attention span that was detectable...yup its actually written in the notes of several report cards..i had also been given an "F" in art class while in 6th grade because as the teacher told my mom at the time..."your son is to lazy to learn his colors,and if he wont do this,i gave him and failing grade and i am going to remove him from my class".....mom says to her..."dont you understand what colorblindness means?" and the teacher told her it was an excuse to get out of a class i didnt want to apply myself too...my school life was like this from kindergarten to graduation from high school....one struggle after another from teachers who mostly wanted to just push us though the system like cattle and who didnt care what we did....and the argument that they did care doesnt fly with me..or they would have found a way to understand ADD/ADHD ect alot sooner...it wasnt...isnt..my fault i have a learning disability..i had to see a shrink to finally understand that,and that didnt happen until i was an adult and im my mid 30s...

but what i started out to say was,what ive noticed in recent times..where parents are failing these days,is that alot of young parents are so self involved with scoring pot ,or just smoking it in front of their kids,and allowing thier kids to smoke it....like my sister did with her son...and now he cant function unless high all the time,and he refuses to pay any attention to his boys education ,says its his wifes duty,all he is concerned with is his job ( he knows he needs to work to pay for his pot) and going disc golfing every afternoon..and getting high...his wife..shes the type who knew more than her teachers did.so she barely made it past 9th grade..cant hold a job...not because shes lazy..but because she has no skills..yet she thinks shes Einstine ,and you cant tell her anything..shes allways right..and everyone else is wrong.....

she asked me what i wanted for christmas a few years ago..i told her id like to collect some hitchcock movies..i didnt have any....she looked at me with a blank face and said....gawd dont be disgusting....it was then my turn for that blank face until it dawned on me that she thought the name hitchcock was a dirty word..not a mans name,at that point i asked her if she thought the holocaust was real?..or a fable?..( yes i know it happened,was horrible and im not starting a convo about that) and she looked at me and asked....is that a movie too?..
Click to expand...

First requirement of an educator is to care ... to care about the process, the student, and outcome. A teacher who does not care is a liability to society. A teacher who cared about you would have tried to find out why you were doing what you were doing and not doing what you weren't doing. A parent with such a simple and objectively provable answer as "suffering from color blindness" would then be a litmus test on said teacher. Does the teacher care or does the teacher not care? A failure to care would be in my view an immediate warrant for termination.

If not all, then certainly most of our problems in society actually have simple solutions that are easily understandable. These solutions simply require courage that too many people lack. The first courage is to tell the truth vice complicate the obvious. In your case, your education system failed you because you had too few teachers who cared about you. Too many viewed you as a seat filler unit, one each! Too many viewed your success or failure as an unhinged from the measurement of the teacher as a success or failure. The effort to educate you was deemed by too many teachers in your life as excessive and beyond their willingness to endure.

This observation is simple, but in your example, it is also searingly true! Many would object to it because to admit to this truth would be to admit to their failures as humans. They chose a profession without ever fully understanding the most important of all human traits needed for success in that endeavor.

I teach. I have spend decades teaching. Every student I have ever taught represents an opportunity for success or failure. Nearly all have been successful. The few who have failed chew at me like a nail in the pit of my stomach. I constantly analyze every action I performed to determine anything I failed at to understand how to avoid repeating the failure in the future. But, even when I fail a student, at the core of the choice is care, based upon an analysis of the student's performance on mission should I pass him. Mission failure is worse than busting a student on a flight. What is also worse is having a student kill himself or others as a result of mission failure.

In primary school, mission failure is adding one more child to an already overburdening list of children who will grow up to become unproductive citizens, drains on society in economic, moral, and social manifestations. Any teacher who looks upon that outcome without it chewing on his soul is someone who made a bad career choice and for whom society should hand a pink slip and get out of the teaching profession as soon as possible. Again, an unerringly simple observation, but also searingly true.

Ken
 
brad kaste said:
After teaching thirty-six years I've come to firmly believe education begins at HOME. If the tone or expectations are not set by the parent or parents the chances of a youngster succeeding in our society is much slimmer. Educators, school districts,...the state and federal governments can come up with all new goals, regs, and expectations they want, but...if there's not a single book in the house,...and the kid is not expected to achieve to a certain level....his or her academic career will be nil. Sure,...there are exceptions but not too often. Which is one of the reasons why there's such a large percentage of high school drop-outs throughout most large, urban areas.
Click to expand...

I agree 100%. When I was in school the lessons were given, then homework issued. I learned a whole lot at home, doing my homework, then my parents checked my homework and made me do it over until I got it right. A parent who is really involved in their child's education process is also more likely to be involved in the school system and the decisions made by school boards.
 
Rami said:
Brad,

Thank you for addressing the elephant in the room! Parents seem to now think that educating their kids is someone else's job, not their responsibility. I'm not looking forward to having to re-educate the lost knowledge of the summer. Sometimes it takes until November to undue the damage of an idle summer.
Click to expand...

B- for you Rami :)
 
Your just putting undo expectations on him, even if he is an educator ;)








(That sentence ought to get me a C- or D+)
 
Well, there's hope for the education system in America. Yes, my SOH brothers and sisters, a new tax is being (or will soon be proposed). Yes, yet ANOTHER tax; this time to be added to your cell phone bills, and the funds collected will go to education!

Yes, as we all know, more taxes mean an instant fix to all that ails this country, right?

All I can say is I am almost to the point where I can count the days before moving to Costa Rica.

NC


 
Speaking of taxes...

There seems to be an inverse relationship between Federal funds spent on education and the standardized test scores and graduation rates of public schools. Hmmm?
 
Navy Chief said:
Well, there's hope for the education system in America. Yes, my SOH brothers and sisters, a new tax is being (or will soon be proposed). Yes, yet ANOTHER tax; this time to be added to your cell phone bills, and the funds collected will go to education!

Yes, as we all know, more taxes mean an instant fix to all that ails this country, right?

All I can say is I am almost to the point where I can count the days before moving to Costa Rica.

NC
Click to expand...

Careful you don't get into paying taxes in 2 countries, that's no fun at all.
 
After posting this thread, I felt bad. It isn't usually my way to post “inter-office gossip” and whisper behind a co-worker's back, but that's basically what I did here. I felt bad about it, so I stayed away. But the the title I gave to the thread was chosen poorly, and has given this thread “legs”, of sorts. I don't think, in this particular case, that blame can be aimed at either parents or the school system. At some point in one's life, and in my opinion that “point” is closer to 20 than 30, one assumes responsibility for one's education. And by “education” I don't mean anything run by a government, or even a private institution. The stuff in your brain, after age 16 or so, is 100% your responsibility. So, if at age 50, you don't realize that France “has cities”, that's your fault, and nobody else's. Schools and parents, while critically important, both face the same problem: “you can lead a horse to water but...”
 
The local school board here wants to institute a new grading system. The proposal features a 10 point grade scale to match other public schools and most colleges and, at least at the elementary level, no grade less than a 50 may be given. Yes, no more zero's for not turning in assignments or for completely failing, now the worst an elementary student could ever get is a 50. Just show up for class and you automatically start with a grade of 50. Wow. :isadizzy:
 
stansdds said:
The local school board here wants to institute a new grading system. The proposal features a 10 point grade scale to match other public schools and most colleges and, at least at the elementary level, no grade less than a 50 may be given. Yes, no more zero's for not turning in assignments or for completely failing, now the worst an elementary student could ever get is a 50. Just show up for class and you automatically start with a grade of 50. Wow. :isadizzy:
Click to expand...

That's pretty much like Little League or other sports youth teams all getting a trophy if they win, place, or show. Makes absolutely no sense. The quicker youngsters learn in life that failure CAN make you achieve better in the end,...the better. We now live in a watered down inclusion type society.
 
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