jfg wrote: The motivation should be the love of teaching and educating children. If it is a performance based system all you'll see is teachers who somehow couldn't get motivated to teach kids finding loopholes and teach to the book to get those rewards. Principals and superintendents will put mandates on teachers to teach a certain way to bring test scores up. You already see that with standardized testing. In the end, good teachers will become mediocre, some bad teachers will still be bad and the others will be able to teach by the book to get scores up. Rewards do nothing, just like in any other job motivation comes from your love of the profession.
Please don't tell me you think the current system is the correct system.
I don't know. I do know that I don't want to see government and superintendents and school boards... basically businessmen interfere with how teachers go about their job. They've screwed it up enough.
Basically, I think that if you just let teachers teach and stop giving them new standards every year and stop blaming them for parents not getting their kids to school we'll be fine. Just let them teach.
AquaMan2342 wrote: You know it's getting out of hand when educated people with degrees are fighting for jobs while someone who dropped out of your high school is getting paid 50 grand a year to load trucks.
That's a snooty way of looking at it. Maybe other people think the person who actually got off their as and unloaded trucks instead of spending half their life at school deserves a break too.
Cafe bets 2010: W/j24jags - Oakland A's more wins then NYM W/mweir145 - Oakland A's more wins then TOR (hat-trick?)
jfg wrote:The motivation should be the love of teaching and educating children. If it is a performance based system all you'll see is teachers who somehow couldn't get motivated to teach kids finding loopholes and teach to the book to get those rewards. Principals and superintendents will put mandates on teachers to teach a certain way to bring test scores up. You already see that with standardized testing. In the end, good teachers will become mediocre, some bad teachers will still be bad and the others will be able to teach by the book to get scores up. Rewards do nothing, just like in any other job motivation comes from your love of the profession.
I think you're touching on a bigger problem beyond the scope of the education system. Kids are already immersed in a fierce, performance-driven environment in which they're held by higher standards and by goals that they might not even want to aspire to (i.e. admission to Ivy League school). The kids internalize those expectations/goals set by their parents and a more than fair share of them are more concerned about keeping a letter-perfect academic/extracurricular record that they often lose sight of the learning experience. The pressure then is turned on to educators to gear those kids into being prepared for the SAT, AP tests, etc. because if they didn't try to orient their curriculum to address those needs, they would lose potential enrollees if they didn't.
Holding teachers to high performance standards without being intrusive to the way they present the material is the ideal situation. Ensure that all teachers in the department teach what's covered in the syllabus, but give them some say in the way the material is presented and the nature of the assignments. Unfortunately, that's just the case of easier said than done.
As for motivation/rewards, the fact of the matter is a lot of people don't enjoy what they do. That's not necessarily rooted in whether they love their profession or not. Some love what they do, but are frustrated by the work situation/environment they're in. Even a teacher who doesn't have a heart for the work can be good at what they do... whether it's getting results from the kids or really getting kids engaged in the subject, or both. It's also human instinct for us to want to get some kind of recognition in some way, shape, or form for what we put into the work. Fact is, they're all on the job for whatever reason they're in it for and should equally be held accountable for standards.
I fail to see whats so horrible about teaching to a test. It is after all a test thats going to decide their higher education, no? Whats wrong with getting them prepared for real life, after school. Also, whats wrong with measuring teachers, and holding their students to a higher standard? Quit coddling kids, and challenge them. Teach them failure, and how to overcome it. I read where teachers don't use red anymore because it hurts their feelings. FU. What about their feelings when they are hitting me up for "spare change" .. they need to strip the education system down to its bare bones and start over ... and the best way to start with that, is to get the federal government out of it ....
wrveres wrote:the best way to start with that, is to get the federal government out of it ....
meh... the Tenth Amendment is highly overrated - as long as you need federal highway dollars
anywho, the biggest problem with education in this country isn't governmental at all. like everything else, it's the lack of personal responsibility on the matter (madison should love that). parents who don't get involved in educating their children are some of the worst people who inhabit this country. couple that with a social system that actively casts our best, young minds as social pariahs, and you have the recipe for what you see now. did you know that the average asian-american earns 20% more than the average white american (and significantly more than every other minority group in the country)? guess which of those races is well known for having parents who are actively involved in education and who place the ignorant among them as the social outcasts? sure, they're famous for going overboard at times, but the proof is in the pudding (as they say).
jfg wrote:I don't know. I do know that I don't want to see government and superintendents and school boards... basically businessmen interfere with how teachers go about their job. They've screwed it up enough.
Who do you think would be running the schools if they are privatized and no longer ran by school boards / government?
jfg wrote:I don't know. I do know that I don't want to see government and superintendents and school boards... basically businessmen interfere with how teachers go about their job. They've screwed it up enough.
Who do you think would be running the schools if they are privatized and no longer ran by school boards / government?
The loud mouth lady down the street who doesn't like that they're making her kid take a foreign language as a graduation requirement.
FEASTERVILLE, Pa. — A high school English teacher in suburban Philadelphia who was suspended for a profanity-laced blog in which she called her young charges "disengaged, lazy whiners" is driving a sensation by daring to ask: Why are today's students unmotivated — and what's wrong with calling them out? ... "My students are out of control," Munroe, who has taught 10th, 11th and 12th grades, wrote in one post. "They are rude, disengaged, lazy whiners. They curse, discuss drugs, talk back, argue for grades, complain about everything, fancy themselves entitled to whatever they desire, and are just generally annoying." ... Munroe did not use her full name or identify her students or school in the blog, which she started in August 2009 for friends and family. Last week, she said, students brought it to the attention of the school, which suspended her with pay.
"They get angry when you ask them to think or be creative," Munroe said of her students in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday. "The students are not being held accountable." ... Munroe pointed out that she also said positive things, but she acknowledges that she did write some things out of frustration — and of a feeling that many kids today are being given a free pass at school and at home.
"Parents are more trying to be their kids' friends and less trying to be their parent," Munroe said, also noting students' lack of patience. "They want everything right now. They want it yesterday."
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