Instead of the mind numbing content presented in our classrooms by teachers who are often hamstrung in how and what they teach (or prevented from teaching), why can’t we have more teachers like this who are told, as Hunter was when he asked as a new teacher what he should do, “What do you want to do?” and be allowed to do it. Yeah, not an effective way to create slaves and drones, but imagine what a country we’d have if every student had only this particular class when they were young.
0
Support the Blog — Buy This Book!
For Kindle and with free ePub version. Only $9.49 Great reading.
Here is what Gary Shapiro CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) said: Dvorak's writing sings with insight and clarity. Whether or not you agree with John's views, he will get you thinking and is never boring. These essays are worth the read!
Put this ad on your blog!
Syndicate
Subscribe to Main Blog feed here:
Subscribe to Comments too (below):
Junk Email Filter
I don’t see any problem with a teach the test mantra. If you are teaching the kids properly, they should be able to handle the test, which presumably is testing for the things you want them to learn.
Clearly the majority of DU posters were not well served by whatever education system they traversed. They are skilled at repeating whatever appeals to their emotions, without wasting the least bit of cerebral energy.
In my not humble opinion, the problem is POLITICAL CORRECTNESS.
Not everybody is equally adept at learning. Back when “things were good”, (translation for TEAD: blacks had to drink out of separate water fountains) they were able to separate students by intellectual ability. When equal opportunity came into effect, they had to all be lumped together. The intent was to bring the poor students up, but obviously, the result was to bring the good students down.
Teachers are no worse now than they ever were. All the complaints about unions are just typical brainwashing of the stupid (translation for TEAD: you) to start down the slope of disbanding unions in general. “Ohh…boo hoo, just think of the children.”
Just think of the children. Guffaw. On the plus side, it only works on stupid people, on the minus side, there are a lot of stupid people.
The school system is geared for the industrial revolution and factory style white colar jobs. Bad news, that world is over.
Testing for those skills will only perpetuate a US workforce unequipped to compete in the current world economy. Back to basics in school or business is a dead end.
Education quick hitters:
Race to the Top is designed to help states and district collect data and not to help the classroom teacher.
Parents need to grow up and be parents that will support the school and teacher rather than arguing “Johnny is really a good boy…”
In the U.S. everyone is educated even the unwilling
Special Education is very expensive
Making Education a RIGHT devalues the education
Why public education is important to the US economy. Hint, look at the graph.
You aren’t going to get your jobs from the rust belt anymore.
In Woody Allen’s landmark (?) movie “Annie Hall”
the bard stated that “Those that cannot do , teach , and those that cannot teach – teach gym”
True and if you are ever going to hack into a school division’s FTP account and need a good user name – seldom ever checked or assumed of logic and brains – set up a dummy account in a gym teacher’s name
You certainly can find online easily enough – thanks to you own self taught computer and internet browsing skills
Lord help us
Nice clip. TED is a terrific resource for enlightenment from visionaries.
FOX Snooze should share this clip with their sheeple for at least two important reasons:
1. Enlightenment for the loonie right to allow their brainwashed spawn to think for themselves.
2. Some negros with an afro, beard and white robe can be good people.
I love it when the unions are blamed. There is never any specific reasons why, just it’s the union’s fault.
The argument that bad teachers can’t be fired is bogus. Teachers get fired all the time for cause.
The teacher is not the most important facet in a child’s learning. Of course the right wing nuts will insist they are. Only a teacher doesn’t pick the curriculum. The teacher doesn’t pick the textbooks. The teacher doesn’t pick the school or classroom. The teacher doesn’t pick what the child eats or even if the child has a dinner that night. The teacher doesn’t pick the child’s home life / gang affiliation / parents choice of addiction / etc. Yet the right wing nuts picked the teachers to blame.
It is time to move away from our decentralized “Local School Boards” and use larger districts. Stop distracting arguments such as advocating the teaching on creationism and praying to some “invisible dude in the sky”.
TeaTroll said: “Progressive are why our education system sucks.”
Ironic, much?
#1 Nailed it “Teach to the test” kills proper teaching.
#26 as well: “Due to budget constraints, the local school board just voted to non-renew all probationary contracts. i.e., the new teachers without tenure — the ones with the new ideas.”
So the old teachers stay, because they’re cutting funding to education.
Regressives don’t realize they are biting away at what makes this country a first world country. Proper democracy. Libraries. (Fairly good) public education. A strong middle class. A social security net. Clean water and air. Laws that make sense instead of sharia law (e.g. illegal abortions, no separation between church and state). They want to turn this country into a banana-christian-taliban-run republic, and most are not even smart enough to realize that.
I’d say the 4th graders in John Hunter’s class should tackle the education issue in 5th grade. I’m sure they’d do better than the DU pablum I’ve read in this thread.
The majority of parents don’t have enough time (for many different reasons) to work with their own kids on learning, and that’s not the fault of the kids or teachers. If you think one teacher with 30 kids should be more effective than one-parent-to-one-kid your not seeing things very clearly.
I volunteer four hours every week in my son’s 1st grade class. Kids’ learning maturity varies widely, but I’ve watched 25 of the 30 kids in the class learn to read AND write over the course of this year. Of the other five, I’d say they’ll be learning soon, as their mind’s mature. I don’t blame the teacher for the readiness of the student. I do believe parents can make the difference in their kids having the confidence to engage and achieve.
I discovered this incredibly powerful video done by this 17 year-old high school student describing the idiocy of the school system and how it enslaves us and creates obedient drones who will obey the false dicates of fake superiors.
The video is called “A 17th Perspective (school)” by username KidToTheWorld
http://youtu.be/RwtwrfQbb4A