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Education in America

Ask him who won the Revolutionary War...

Awhile ago, attending a grandson's middle school basketball game, I was chatting with the assistant principal, and somehow the subject of penmanship came up. He informed me that no longer is cursive handwriting a part of the curriculum because it was too stressful for the children. Talk about being struck dumb!

Onward to Idiocracy! If the toilet doesn't flush, stare at it blankly...
 
As a retired Chicago school teacher that worked with 'at risk' youngsters I wasn't shocked about a student's lack of geographical knowledge. Mind you,...my students were either high school drop-outs or kick-outs and all on probation. I prepared them for taking the GED exam. For curiosity's sake,....I would hand out at times a map of the United States,...only showing the state's boundary outline. I asked them to fill in as many states as possible and also put a large dot where the city of Chicago is located. Once in a blue moon I would actually get a student that could name an adequate amount of the states,..plus locating Chicago correctly. Most of the students were clueless. For them to read fractions on a ruler or read a state road map was beyond their comprehension. But,...it was never taught to them in lower grade levels. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm,....wonder who's fault is that?
For sure,....public education has been on a downward spiral for some time now......

 
Reply...

Hello again,

If I may chime in, I agree with this downward movement and can point to two recent initiatives that in my view have been completely counterproductive. One is "No Child Left Behind," and the other is "Race to the Top."

NCLB legislation was supposed to ensure that everyone would succeed. It turned into a detrimental application of, as you stated, dumbing down and playing to the mean. The reason for this is that schools needed to show statistical proof of meeting Federal Standards in order to maintain their funding levels, and their funds could be reduced or the schools closed if test scores got too low. (Which is inverse logic, I know :isadizzy:)

So what did they come up with? Pass / Fail standardized tests, and a sweeping change to the school curriculum to "teach to the test," so other subjects and programs such as art, music, and yes, even teaching cursive, were cut to the bone or lopped off completely. This, combined with IDEA, (The Individuals With Disabilities Act) means that a disproportionate amount of school funding goes to students with IEPs or 504 plans that need special treatment or facilities to do their work, leaving less for normal students and gifted students. Teachers have to create lessons that are all-inclusive, and therefore often don't have time to "push" higher-thinking students because they are consumed by making sure that they fulfill the requirements of students who need special help, and keeping the class grade-point average above a certain level.

Not to be mean, but some students are always going to be dimmer than a five-watt bulb, no matter what you do. As Ted Knight said in Caddyshack: "The world needs ditch-diggers, too."

Fortunately, this ungainly behemoth is being quietly disbanded, only to be replaced with..."Race to the Top," which pushes schools to excel, but they forget that the schools which excel often are those which have more resources to begin with, (i.e. - suburbs with higher property tax revenues) so the schools and students which need the money to invest in their schools are left out in the cold, while the rich get richer.

And we wonder why the system is failing our students...
 
As Paul said this guy is the same age as him that makes him around 51 and not the product of the initiatives mentioned.

I really can't understand how someone his age could be so clueless about basic geography. I had geography in 1982 in Junior High. They cancelled that class state wide in Ohio around 1984 so that there are no geography classes taught now. Note someone correct me if they did an about face on that directive but I doubt they did.

I would like to take this moment to thank Mr. Kessel my Junior High Geography Teacher. His teaching style blended well with how I learn as a result much of what I know about Geography can be traced back to his class. The reset is because of Flight Simulator.
 
My two cents worth.

Schools are supposed to be operated by the states not the feds per the 10th amendment.

Schools are being used to indoctrinate not teach.

The union sees to it that way too much money goes to administration.
 
Reply...

Terry said:
My two cents worth.

Schools are supposed to be operated by the states not the feds per the 10th amendment.

Schools are being used to indoctrinate not teach.

The union sees to it that way too much money goes to administration.
Click to expand...

Terry,

On points one and three, I agree with you. I loathe the Teacher's Union in my State and resigned from it when our district went on strike, because I put the kids in my class first, not my wallet.
 
Hey All,

Dangerousdave26 said:
When I was in my early twenties one of my coworkers (same age as me) was convinced there was a world below us.

He reasoned this was the case because why else would the sun go down every night...

Another coworker and I were in shock that he would think that but he was serious.
Click to expand...

Your co-worker was absolutely correct. There is another world below us - it is called the other side of the planet. :mixedsmi:

Schools do not indoctrinate - I certainly don't see this.

And as for the Tenth Amendment arguement it is a balancing act - the "general welfare clause" and the "necessary and proper" as correctly described by Alexander Hamilton clause give the Constitution elasticity rather than being strict and this is balanced against the 10th amendment. Whether or not the balance is appropriate with respect to education is a different question.

-Ed-
 
fxsttcb said:
That's probably why the US is ranked 18th of the 36 Industrialized Nations in secondary education. It's also reflected in our general education:
Click to expand...

I think that one reason the USA is ranked so low in HS educational prowess is that we test the entire school population, ie. both sides of the bell curve. In Germany (possibly the rest of Europe) and Japan, only college bound students are in what we consider "high school" as these countries determine who goes to college prep (Gymnasium in Germany) and who goes to trade school very early in a child's academic career. That certainly would skew the world ranking of the various countries if I'm correct in my suspicion.
 
Over the past 20 or so years I have encountered far too many kids who had just graduated from high school who had no grasp of world geography, no significant knowledge of history, poor math skills, and poor English grammar skills, yet many of them were bound for college. Yes, they all had high school diplomas, I think many of them were simply "awarded" passing grades just to get them out of the public school system. It is really sad and it is not good for our nation.
 
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.
 
Reply...

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...

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.
 
The apparent LACK of Education in America? You can give thanks to the social media, Modern Warfare/ Call of Duty, WorldStarHipHop mentality today's youth are innundated with.

:isadizzy::a1451:
 
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...

Precisely. Not only did we teach our sons how to read and basic math, we continued to work with them throughout their school years including involvement with school boards.
 
Education

Hit the nail on the head Brad. In fact my wife has noted that more and more children in her school district are being brought up by their grandparents and not their parents. This mind you is in a semi-rural district and not even in a large city where my intuition tells me it is even worse.

Not only do parents expect the Three Rs to be taught at school, but teachers are expected to teach morality and common sense too; but woe to the teacher that actually disciplines a child to teach that morality or common sense.
 
I don't think it's fair to put all the blame on teachers and schools. I'm a firm believer in the theory that you get out of your education what you put in. It depends a lot on your attitude toward school. I was raised in the same house, by the same parents, went to the same schools as my sister. I was the intellectually curious one that did my homework and actually read more than the minimum required. No genius by any stretch, but I found my classes fairly easy. My sister on the other hand, had a completely different experience. She disliked school and struggled to graduate at the bottom of her class. I don't believe I am any smarter than her, she can learn and become expert at anything that interests her.
 
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?..
 
Education can take many forms, take you to many levels, and produce a wide variety of outcomes. It is, in and of itself, not a final product but an introduction to a process that carries on through the rest of our days and becomes an intrinsic part of our humanity, if we see learning has its own rewards both practical and existential. Education is not a degree or diploma; it is not your local community or or city or state college; it is not Harvard or Princeton or McGill or CalTech or Yale; it is not technical schools or on-line courses. Education is us. Education is being human. From a child's first "Why?" to probing distant galaxies and from reconstructing ancient societies to learning how to fly-fish we do these things because we want to learn. Whether it be hiking over that far hill to see what's on the other side, or reading a biography of someone we're curious about we want learn. It's a necessary to us as food, water, and air.

Socrates said that "A mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited."

N.
 
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