Ever notice how ninety percent of the people you meet on a daily basis are fucking morons? It’s kind of a no-brainer to assume most of society will be functionally retarded if your entire educational system is broken, designed to produce perfect citizens, instead of developing a love of learning and fostering intellectual growth in a youngster.
America, you want your kids to stop growing up stupid? Here’s your solution:
1. Stop letting idiots teach your kids.
This one’s pretty friggin’ obvious, America. You can’t stick your kids in a classroom for eight hours a day with someone who spent eight hours a day in the same broken system and expect results. Now, the optimist might hope that those future educators pick up the knowledge they didn’t gain in high school during their stay in college, but unfortunately, young teachers are usually education majors in their larval stages.
Have you ever taken a look at the curriculum in most education departments? How about spending a little less time teaching people how to teach, and a little more time teaching them what the fuck they’re talking about. Call me crazy, but I suspect the English teacher who spent her four years in college writing big-ass papers and reading big-ass books will probably know a hell of a lot more about teaching kids to read and write than the English education major who took as many hours in courses like Educational Psychology as in actual English classes.
2. If your test is a Scantron, you didn’t learn anything.
I’m not against standards, or accountability, or any of the other buzz words educators use to defend federally mandated tests. I’m just against the whole idea of a multiple-choice, Scantron-type test. Yes, it makes for easy grading for a teacher. Unfortunately, it also doesn’t show that your students learned a damn thing.
The ability to memorize facts and formulas is only half of education. The other half is your ability to put all those pieces together and formulate actual ideas of your own. Otherwise, your ‘education’ is useless. Essays, short answer questions – hell, even oral exams – demonstrate a hell of a lot better whether or not a child has actually learned anything in school.
Accountability tests are a good thing. Multiple choice tests are not. And speaking of accountability…
3. Teachers are students too.
And I don’t mean this in the hippie “a teacher always learns from his students” way. Yeah, no shit, a teacher always learns something from his students. More importantly, a teacher should still be learning from friggin’ books and classes.
If students have to take constant federally-mandated tests, then teachers damn sure should. Fields advance, conversations progress, and society evolves. Why should our teachers be a relic?
You ever wonder why your college professors were a hell of a lot more intelligent than the majority of your elementary and high school teachers? Well, more schoolin’ helps, but the other reason is because your college professors are supposed to continue educating themselves throughout their career. Most university teachers won’t acquire or maintain a job at a good school if they don’t continue to research, write, and advance their knowledge of the field. Why do we not expect the same out of teachers at lower levels? It’s bogus. Don’t just replace the old ass books in shitty schools, replace the old ass teachers, or expect them to keep up with the field.
Conclusion
Should we even have to explain this to our school boards, our education departments, and our government leaders? These solutions are common sense. Will this solve all the education woes of America? Of course not, but it’s a start. Next week, I’ve got a few more suggestions in the area of education: more dialogue, shorter school days, and the dreaded removal of sports from school.
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Riley's Rants list education |
@Riley – “Don’t just replace the old ass books in shitty schools, replace the old ass teachers, or expect them to keep up with the field..”
True somethings evolve, others, not so much.
It’s not that I completely missed your point, but lets face it, 2nd grade math is the same today as it was fifty years ago. The details of the Louisiana Purchase are pretty much static at this point.
I think they’re many, many reason for a seemingly large decline in our national intellectual capabilities, but the three you’ve listed wouldn’t make my top five. I’ll wait to comment further until I read your follow-up post.
@Rick – “It’s not that I completely missed your point, but lets face it, 2nd grade math is the same today as it was fifty years ago. The details of the Louisiana Purchase are pretty much static at this point.”
Sure they are, but I doubt highly the teachers in a 2nd grade math class 50 years ago had students with calculators, or history classes where their students could utilize the Internet. Every field evolves, however static the raw subject material may be. Teachers who can’t keep up with that end up holding kids back.
But yes, I do agree that there are many more important reasons education fails in America. These were the most obvious and easiest to fix, so I dealt with them first.
@Riley – “How about spending a little less time teaching people how to teach, and a little more time teaching them what the fuck they’re talking about.
“Sure they are, but I doubt highly the teachers in a 2nd grade math class 50 years ago had students with calculators, or history classes where their students could utilize the Internet. Every field evolves, however static the raw subject material may be. Teachers who can’t keep up with that end up holding kids back.”
These statements seem to contradict each other.
To Rick (I do not talk @ people)–As an educator, I can categorically tell you Rick that learning how use the Internet and how to use a calculator have nothing to do with “teaching people how to teach.” Most education programs at universities focus their time on methods–how to write a lesson plan and how to use teaching aids. Fortunately for the new teachers who spent all that time learning how to write a lesson plan, the lesson plan is the first thing the evaluator is going to look at when he or she comes to the class for the bi-annual evaluation.
Unfortunately, most of the evaluation is going to focus on how well that lesson plan was written than on how well the teacher actually teaches.
There is actually a big reason for this problem. We (Americans) tend to look for the easiest ways to do things. As long as we look for short cuts, we will continue to have problems. I call it the “Shake’N Bake” society.
@SFC Rath,
That’s an excellent point. To your argument I would add that a relationship seems to exist between subject expertise and teaching ability – often people are better in one or the other. IMHO, teaching ability is more important for younger or weaker students and subject expertise is more important for older or stronger students.
@SFC Rath – “I can categorically tell you Rick that learning how use the Internet and how to use a calculator have nothing to do with “teaching people how to teach.”
I wouldn’t totally agree with this statement. I would think these things are additional tools for the teaching repertoire. Kinda like knowing how to use a hammer doesn’t make you a carpenter, but it can make you a better one if you know how to use it.
@Kavan – ” IMHO, teaching ability is more important for younger or weaker students and subject expertise is more important for older or stronger students.”
That was my thinking as well.
Rick,
I taught Louisiana public schools for 10 years and gave up after a student punched me and I got no support from the administration or the community. I am one of the English teachers you were talking about who actually has a degree in English. Without wanting to elaborate on specific details at this time, I agree wholeheartedly with what you are saying here.
I would like to add that a key reason why public schools fail is because of hopelessly inefficient leadership. In the public schools, the school boards and supervisors try to micro-manage the schools — leaving principals and teachers extremely frustrated. Student’s discipline problems are so bad now that the only way to save the school would be to send in the military. Meanwhile, however, the regulations and restraints imposed by the school boards that entangle the public schools are destroying everyone’s morale. Ironically, as taxpayers pay more and more money into the school systems, the quality of education goes down.
The public school today are in such bad trouble with out-of control-student behavior being accepted as the norm that I am truly concerned for the future of the USA. As far as I can tell after being in the public schools for ten years everyday, no parent who truly loves his or her child would send that child to a public school.
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Tom,
I agree. School boards are far too often led by complete imbeciles. At least in my own local experience (in one of those lovely Louisiana school systems you mentioned) it’s because they are too often concerned with using the position as a stepping-stone into higher political offices because the individuals in question were too stupid to jump right into a run for Legislature or city council.