Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
|
|
|
May 16, 2018 - 08:23am PT
|
Like anything else, teaching can be an art form. The artistic part of being a teacher is knowing yourself and letting whoever or whatever show up in you in the classroom. Of course, one needs to prepare a lesson plan for a day, but when you walk into the classroom, you let your agenda go and respond to what magically shows up in you and in them. This approach requires every trick, skill, and feeling that you have. The classroom becomes theatre, and for all the right reasons. Style becomes as important as content. A colleague at Cal Poly where I taught was a business law professor, and he would very often dress up in robes and even in drag to bring life to a set of issues that the Supreme Court wrestled with. As you can imagine, he was much loved and respected by students. Faculty tended to think he was frivolous even though he wrote one of the benchmark textbooks in intellectual property.
I taught for 35+ years in college and universities in three different countries. Every time I switched cultures, I had to learn new things about student cultures. That included when my students were boomers, then Gen-X, and finally Millennials. My ratings would take a hit for about 2 years until I *got* my students. Then we’d get along and have some fun.
My in-laws are primary school teachers, and their lives are highly regimented by the system’s requirements about lesson plans and monitored practices. I suspect that things have gotten that way for them because the institutions were trying to raise proficiencies of young teachers who didn’t know how to teach.
My basic argument here is that teaching is so very much more than simply communicating content.
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
|
|
May 16, 2018 - 08:35am PT
|
AntiChrist’s story shows why they love Bernie Sanders - everything will be free and they’ll be able to sit on their asses.
|
|
Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
|
|
|
May 16, 2018 - 08:54am PT
|
AntiChrist’s story shows why they love Bernie Sanders - everything will be free and they’ll be able to sit on their asses.
Boy oh boy, when you get it wrong, you REILLY get it wrong! :-)
What Sanders wants is that people reap the rewards of their labors, rather than see it go to a bunch of kleptocrats at the top of the food chain.
“We want a system in which the worker shall get what he produces and the capitalist shall produce what he gets.”
— Eugene V. Debs
|
|
fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
|
|
|
May 16, 2018 - 08:55am PT
|
My basic argument here is that teaching is so very much more than simply communicating content.
And like critical thinking, it's an ability few people have and one that likely can't be taught. The ability to truly teach is also likely disdained by larger ruling bureaucracies where deadwood can be measured in cords piled high over the student's heads.
As such, we're stuck with an economic dilemma of inadequate supply of a rare commodity.
The ability to really teach is akin to a kind of charisma. The ability to really connect with a varied and changing audience on an emotional and then technical level...
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
|
|
May 16, 2018 - 10:01am PT
|
Ya see, Gary, how our education system has failed to learn people the difference between opinions and facts?
|
|
Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
|
|
|
May 16, 2018 - 10:05am PT
|
Funny story from an econ prof re. socialism:
Prof handed back a set of exams, and there were many D's in the bunch. Unhappy faces abounded. So Prof said: "Okay, I can see that many of you are unhappy with your grades. I've got a plan for those low-scoring students to move up right now." Faces cheer up. This sounds excellent! "What I'll do is take points from the higher scoring students and distribute them to the lower performing students. That way, everyone will get a passing grade." Now the ace students were frowning. They protested. What if they worked harder? And wouldn't doing this long term lead to weaker efforts by the high performing students because their extra effort didn't benefit them? Why, yes, Jimmy. That's true. And THAT'S why socialism sucks.
BAd
|
|
Splater
climber
Grey Matter
|
|
|
May 16, 2018 - 10:40am PT
|
That is a good story; I actually did that once in a math class. The curve was based completely on the top person's total grade so 90% of that is an A, 80% is a B, etc. I purposely lost a lot of points on the last assignment
in order to lower the curve.
However I could make up an opposing "funny story" about a case where the "team leader" takes credit for everyone else's work in class,
spends all his time schmoozing the board,
and gets paid 300 times as much as anyone else, (all in subsidized stock options so his tax rate is less than everyone else's)
regardless of the long term success of the project.
No this story does not typically apply to a classroom, only to big companies. Take Jack Welsh or Carly Fiorina as examples.
|
|
miker12
Boulder climber
Us
|
|
|
May 16, 2018 - 10:49am PT
|
I think we sometimes might hire really wrong persons.
|
|
wbw
Trad climber
'cross the great divide
|
|
|
May 16, 2018 - 11:45am PT
|
One of the big problems with working in the public school system as I see it (as 27 year high school teacher), is it is probably the closest thing to a socialist system we have in our culture.
Pay is based on education and years of service, without enough regard to results in the classroom. In the last several years, I have watched a number of colleagues get their online masters degrees in non-rigorous programs, sometimes completely unrelated to what they teach just to get the pay bump. One of the most popular online masters programs was recently de-certified because of its poor quality. Nonetheless, having that degree leads to more pay, even for second-rate teachers. If you stay in the profession long enough, that's the other way to make more money, even if you're an incompetent fool. Try discussing the issue of merit pay with a union teacher, and it's a non-starter.
This is the time of year when next year's teaching schedules are handed out. The assistant principal at my school who is in charge of scheduling likes to say this time of year that, "it's not a person, it's a job." Everyone is considered so f'ing equal, that the distinction between a skilled teacher that puts in countless unpaid hours to do their best teaching in the classroom, and the teacher that is just coasting along the path of least resistance is ignored.
This is one of the most de-motivating aspects of teaching. A person that actually has high personal/professional standards that exceed the expectations of the system isn't always valued. Sometimes they are actually resented and accused of "caring too much." I have faced some aspect of this every year that I have been a teacher. It's easier to survive in this system being mediocre and not caring too much than it is to actually believe your job is to challenge students to improve themselves.
|
|
Roughster
Sport climber
Vacaville, CA
|
|
|
May 16, 2018 - 12:00pm PT
|
Good post WBW, as my wife is a teacher in the same vein as you have discussed and has been singled out for "caring too much" and has actually had conflict with other teachers over this very topic as well.
However, the merit pay issue is one I don't agree with you on unless it can be implemented in a reasonable and realistic way.
Where a teacher teaches significantly impacts their test scores. IMO that is the biggest failing of the merit-based proponents who want to focus on test scores as the measure of merit. They do not recognize that teachers who teach at affluent white neighborhoods with helicopter parents who actually force their kids to focus on school have a much easier time and unsurprisingly higher test scores than teachers in title 1 / low socio-economic neighborhoods.
My wife teaches in a title one school where the vast majority of her students are ELA, most living well below the poverty line, 1st or 2nd generation immigrants with home lives that would make the saltiest of us tear up to hear their stories.
Test score "merit" programs would drive her away from the schools where people like her are needed the most.
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
|
|
|
May 16, 2018 - 12:50pm PT
|
Win hearts first, then you can win minds.
Most teachers don't much like students. You got to love them.
I don't see that sentiment expressed here much.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
May 16, 2018 - 12:55pm PT
|
Modern education is the slaughterhouse of the soul .......
|
|
wbw
Trad climber
'cross the great divide
|
|
|
May 16, 2018 - 02:22pm PT
|
Ah Werner, your typical opinion expressed from the viewpoint of a person that just hasn't gotten out of the Valley enough to know what you're talking about. What do you know about modern education? honestly . .
A "modern" education can be exactly what a person needs to express what their soul is made of.
Roughster, I absolutely agree with you about the difficulty of defining what constitutes "merit". I teach in an affluent high school where the kids have every advantage possible, and then some. I would never claim that what measures a teacher's competence at a school like mine should be the same as a school where kids arrive each day without having breakfast.
|
|
Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
|
|
|
May 16, 2018 - 02:26pm PT
|
The worst form of ignorance is when people don't even know the basics of the opponents they attack. Someone needs a lesson in socialism that isn't taught by Fux and Fiends.
True. OK, let's get down to basics:
Socialism is worker control of the workplace. It's not people expecting free stuff, or some sort of mediocre equality. It's definitely not state ownership of production.
|
|
Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
|
|
|
May 16, 2018 - 03:44pm PT
|
I feel/felt your pain, wbw. I, too, however, have a problem with merit pay because I have no control of my "inputs," i.e. the students themselves. It was not uncommon to have half or more of my classes virtually refuse to read a stinkin' one page editorial that would be the starting point for a class discussion and then a major essay. Seriously. Lazy, distracted lumps just sitting there thinking they're going to college. I'm doing all the hardcore cheer leading, offering, encouraging meeting with me, one-on-one help, urging them to tutorial centers, you effin' name it. A huge, huge percentage couldn't be bothered, and, because I had standards, the D's and F's flowed like wine at a Vulgarian Gala. So how is my performance to be measured? I worked my ass off, grinding through crappy essays like a galley slave when way too many of these pieces were composed the night before. And when these students fail to improve, I am the one who has failed? Seriously? How do we measure merit? Of course, one result of such policies is that you will get teachers cheating on the exams to make their performance look better. This has in fact happened. Then there's the colleague of mine--and I'm certain not unique in the world of grade inflation and diminishing expectations--who simply lowered her standards so much that--surprise!--she's having an 85% "success" rate--way higher than anyone else in the department. I guess she's just a super genius, a real go-getter, and the rest of us are just punters who need to worship at her feet. Merit pay in education is very difficult if not impossible to implement. Like all business style analogies, it sounds good but doesn't hold up in practice.
Now there ARE things we can do to improve education, but that's for another post. In short, however, it means recruiting good teachers and giving them autonomy and support--i.e. let 'em flunk the ones who earn it. Always champion good standards.
Rant off.
BAd
PS: One quick example of a real success story at my old college--the nursing department. They had a super high success rate for students passing the board exams, BUT, and this cannot be stressed enough, the students who got in had to fight for it and demonstrate their preparation by completing a bunch of lower division courses and maintaining a certain GPA. Alas, this could not last because the program wasn't being "inclusive" enough, so standards were lowered, and the success rate of students taking the boards went down. If I can select my own students, damn it, bro, I'll show you "success"!!
|
|
Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
|
|
|
May 17, 2018 - 09:25am PT
|
Interesting stuff, Splater. I admire what these hard-charging charter schools are doing. Their success is hard to deny, but we have to acknowledge the selection process, something mentioned repeatedly in the article. Parents are fighting to get their kids into these schools, which is understandable. That means, of course, that these parents really care how their children are educated and so are most likely going to make sure that the kid sticks with it, gets her work done, etc. This is manifestly not the case for way too many public school children. Conventional schools have to deal with whatever walks in the door, and that is why I have huge respect for my k--12 colleagues. Good God! The horrors my 2nd grade teacher friend relates would give most of you PTSD, but she's back in the classroom everyday, doing the heavy lifting, trying her best. At the college level, I would see the mediocre, low-performing students, but I didn't have to deal with half the crap found at lower levels. My lame students usually dropped or I dropped them after they'd missed a couple of weeks of classes, which happened pretty frequently.
BAd
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
|
|
May 17, 2018 - 09:51am PT
|
^^^^ Had that discussion with third and fourth grade teachers last week. The third grader has 30 kids and one ADHD outta control monster whose parents don’t care and who consumes the majority of her time at the expense of all the others. Obviously her administration doesn’t care either. What a sh!t show!
|
|
NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
|
|
|
May 17, 2018 - 03:46pm PT
|
I don’t think I have ADHD (woah look at that pretty flower, i should learn more about block chain and machine learning... did I move the clothes to the dryer? I should make some summer vacation plans... oh wait I’m posting let’s finish that), but I was an annoying student at times. I used to bring a ziplock bag to algebra class to use as a pillow on my desk- just to be inflammatory and win some points with other delinquents in my class.
That teacher would sometimes kick me out before I even walked in the classroom if he didn’t like the look on my face :)
I respect him now for it!
|
|
Chugach
Trad climber
Vermont
|
|
|
May 18, 2018 - 08:30am PT
|
Late to the discussion and husband of a former teacher, now nurse.
Teaching is the highest paying, no accountability job there is. That's exactly what the unions have bargained for over decades, so no real surprise here.
As a parent, I'd prefer the opposite, I'd rather pay teachers double with high accountability and turnover.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!