Are you suggesting that we should realistically expect people to be teachers, surrogate parents, social workers, coaches and friends? That's a pretty tall order. With those expectations you're going to be let down over and over again. We should expect teachers to educate, and I think they're trying very hard to do that with the scant resources available. As it is, many efforts they make are being shot down by under-funded programs or over-zealous parents. If you ask the parents, every kid is a genius; their children just aren't getting enough one-on-one attention. Screw the other kids in the classroom, they can fend for themselves. -monkey
You are basically saying: "You can't count on parents motivating the kids, so the teachers will have to do it". I'm sorry, but isn't that (yet) again abdicating parental responsibility to institutions because the parents won't take it? Teachers are most empathically NOT supposed to be "surrogate parents, social workers and friends". There are such things as appropriate boundaries, FFS. You may buy into romantic ideas of mentors and sensei, but you can get rid of those saccharine notions right now and put them with the myth of soldier as hero and nurse as angel. Teachers are professionals. Their job is to teach. No more, no less. The reality is that high school teachers teach one subject for one hour a week to each class of 30 unmotivated teens whose ineffectual parents have never taught them any self-discipline or about the ethics of work, and who spend the class hours daydreaming of following in the footsteps of some vacuous idiot who is rich and famous for being a self-sexualising **** or for kicking a ball around a field --if he is not kicking people in drunken brawls in nightclubs. There are students in developing countries studying their ass off, right now, by candle light, without the luxury of internet access or PCs or soft, fuzzy, friendly teachers with bleeding hearts. Many juggle jobs on the side. The problem here, Cthippo, is the same problem as that of "immigrants taking our jobs": there are much poorer, more deprived people out there, who are used to hardship, who value education and achievement more, who expect no freebies in life and who are prepared to work harder for a lifestyle you and I take for granted. If those students can achieve under their difficult circumstances, then it should be a breeze for ours.
where I live this is the case, coal mining, and the companies continue to automate it more and more meaning fewer jobs all the time
I don't think he's necessarily saying that per se, but rather that the best teachers tend to have those qualities. I've had asshole teachers that didn't care about anything, and were clearly there for the sole purpose of getting paid (why you'd do that in such a low-paying profession is beyond me, but it still happens). And surprise, surprise, teachers that have no respect or care for their students tend to have students share that same attitude towards the teacher; as such, they tend to get a lot less out of the lessons. There are dozens of factors that lead to this problem of poor education, some of which are: Unmotivated students Unmotivated teachers Uncaring parents Ignorance by any of those parties Lack of resources (textbooks, computers, etc) Politics interfering with the curriculum (teaching creationism along science, for one) Low standards Being able to function reasonably well in society while remaining poorly educated Parents seem incredibly lazy these days, if the stories we hear are anything to go by (being 20, I'm too young to be a parent or have friends that are, but too old to see it happening firsthand). They expect the schools to be a daycare and don't realize that most of the practical knowledge is gained outside of the classroom. By and large, school gets you facts while home gets you experiences. Both are equally important, though for different reasons of course. Yes, they have incredibly high expectations of what the teachers should be doing for their kids, but then refuse to cough up in order to provide the resources (or even the financial motivation) for them to do so. Of course, a lot of this spawns from the general cultural attitude we live in these days. We're having fear pushed on us all day long in the media. Some is legit, sure, but a lot is just ratings-boosting nonsense. But as a result, we still have parents freaked out that their kids are going to be abducted and murdered by a pedophile just before a nuclear holocaust. So what's the result? They keep their kids locked indoors all day long, sat in front of the computer or the games console. They won't let them go out and scrape their knees on the swingset in the backyard, or wander down to the corner store. As insignificant as it may seem, a lot of that (especially early in life - under age 8 or so maybe?) allows them to learn about the world around them; and, indeed, learn how to learn. Some people do genuinely have difficulty learning, and denying kids the opportunity to learn about their surroundings can't be helping things. This all translates into needing an incredibly complex set of steps in order to reach a solution - something that society tends to frown upon today (we want immediate results!). While I've found that the best teachers aren't at all in it for the money, raising teacher salaries couldn't hurt - if nothing else, it may further motivate them to work with students. We really do need smaller class sizes, and need to make extra help for struggling students both more accessible and less shameful. Most of all, though, we need to drive home the importance of the education before they'd be at the age where they could drop out. Sure, everyone says that they'll drop out when they're ten, but only the genuinely foolish actually do it when it's possible. This is really the hardest step, as without legal intervention requiring a HS+ education to get any job beyond a certain age, you'll still get plenty who assume they can leech off the system. I'm sure there's plenty more to it, so propose some more potential solutions. If it's true that this has become much more of a problem in the last decade or so, we really need to consider what may have sparked the change and what we can do to either fix the problem or work around it (let's not be the RIAA here and pretend that times haven't changed). It's obviously not a simple problem with a simple solution, but there's no reason that the dumbing down of the populace needs to continue.
Decent analysis (overall), but teachers do not start out assholes any more than kids do. If they ended up that way it was because any idealism was pummeled out of them by repeated negative experience. There are cultures where being a teacher still has considerable status attached to it, because learning and the acquisition of knowledge and skill is still valued. We don't have that here.
Very true. I think that's what I was trying to get at towards the bottom of my post, but didn't quite make the connection. It comes back to the parenting. Just sub in "respect" for "practical experience", for a start. Give the kids their stuff in order to shut them up, and they'll learn that so long as they bitch and moan enough, they'll get what they want. Teachers aren't accustomed to putting up with that, nor should they have to - so when the students try their tried-and-true approach and get unexpected results (punishment!), they get annoyed and demotivated. I take it back - I have seen this firsthand. My younger brother (15) is a thriving example. At home, all he does is whine about having to do homework and complain that he doesn't have [insert useless crap here]. If he whines about it long enough, my parents give in. He won't even get a damn glass of milk on his own - just moan about it until one of my parents gives in and gets it for him. I've never seen him show respect towards either of my parents, let alone be helpful or polite. It's disgusting. What really bugs me about it is that they know exactly what's going on and don't care. My mom only cares about being able to watch TV ("I need my Dancing With The Stars!" ) and my dad just wants him to shut up. The only thing he hasn't been able to whine his way into getting is a dog, and that's because I'm so aggressively opposed to it (counter-whining, if you will, but I opt for logic instead of sheer irritation). But getting his homework done for him? It tends to take a solid hour of moaning every night, but they give in eventually. By all means, do help him with it, but don't do it for him. It's just the result of "I want it now!" and a lack of willpower. I've explained it to them and they understand, but apparently are too apathetic to actually do anything about it. They know that they have to stop giving in for his behavior to change, but it seems they just don't want to put up with the whining. I'd be quite interested to know what happened in the 4.5 years that makes up our age difference, especially so that I don't make the same mistakes. I'm sure there are very few teachers that go into it expecting to take crap from students who don't want to learn all day long. They want to teach and be a genuinely positive member who contributes in a great way to society. But soon enough, they'll get fed up with it. I think the same is true for the power-tripping police officers - I'm sure they didn't go into it with plans to abuse their position. But a continual lack of respect and being in a position of high power (or unusually low power, as is the case with today's teachers) changes their modus operandi.
Ok, lets take this one step at a time. The problem is that an unacceptable large portion of students in many, predominatly poor, areas don't graduate High School. Not graduating reduces their ability to succeed in life and be productive members of scoiety. Indirectly it also leads to higher crime, perpetuation of poverty and increased draw on social services. Agreed so far? The causes of this are manifold, but include: parental apathy, student apathy, enviromental factors, low expectations / tolerance of failure, lack of access to help, and the need to work to help support the family. Now, lets assume that most students are capable of becoming sucessful and productive members of the society, given adequate education and support. If we assume this is not the case, that students are a lost cause then we give up and let things continue as they are. The corollary to this assumption is that some students are not capable of becoming productive members of the society without help outside the scope of the school system because of disability, history of abuse, defiance, etc. If we assume that students can succeed, then lets look at the factors that impede or limit that success. The first is parents. The problem here may be apathy, abuse, abandonment, lack of parenting skills or a total lack of role models. It's hard to be motivated to succeed in life when you don't know anyone who has ever succeeded in life. Having identified parents (or the lack thereof) as a cause of student non-success, what do you do about it? Changing parental behaviour is extreemly difficult, and removing the student from the parent doesn't exactly have a stellar track record either. The research I've seen is that kids who stay with bad parents do better that kids who are removed from the home and are placed with better foster parents. The next causde of student non-success is student apathy. Assuming that most students are able to succeed, this is largely a problem of motivation and leadership. How do you convince a student to work hard if they have never seen anyone succeed by working hard? If the parents aren't going to fulfill this role, then who, aside from school staff is going to? Absolutly there is a place for the stuydents to self motivate, but that is not the whole answer. I also recognize that some students simply aren't going to be motivated. Next issue, enviroment. It's difficult to succeed in an enviroment where you constantly feel threatened by pervasive violence or intimidated by oppressive security and being treated like a criminal. Neither is conducive to learning. There is relatively little that can be done externally to improve the circumstances of the community at large, but things can be done to improve the enviroment of the school itself. Low expectations / tolerance of failure. This predominantly comes from three sources. The first is parents / family, and as was mentioned earlier is very difficult to change. The second source is society at large, which is even more difficult to influence. Finally, the third source is the school staff. Again this is a leadership and motivation issue and can be influenced. You may see a theme here. There are many factors that lead to student non-success. Unfortunatly, only a few of them can be influenced, and those are in the schools themselves. Let me put it another way. We're assuming that most students can succeed, but that they need help to do so. Further we're assuming that the students, with help motivation and leadership will be willing to put forth the effort to succeed. If that helpt, motivation and leadership aren't coming from the parents, then who, aside from the school, is going to provide it? We've discussed before how much of the violence in the world is linked to young people, mostly males, seeking identity inclusion and meaning. If the parents and the community and the schools don't provide these things you end up with gangs and militias and the like who will.
There are a few problems why schools are starting to become 'dropout factories'. -I think the biggest problem comes down to the curriculum. We are basically taught the same classes, over and over, that gradually get harder and harder as you advanced through the grade levels. Most of the things taught are quite irrelevant to modern life and especially business life. Ask your average middle-class adult what they learned through high school and they'll probably only be able to tell you the very basics of each course. This is a major problem because when you learn this curriculum as a student, you quickly learn how useless it is and become bored. I personally believe that modern curriculum should be overhauled and most advanced classes you are forced to sit through in high-school should be moved to college courses. -Another problem is that as these average middle-class adults grow up (and forget what they've learned due to poor curriculum planning) and have children, they just don't have the skills to sit down and help them. Nor do they have the time to in some cases. You might call it lazy, but when an adult spends an 8-10 hour day at work, then comes home to take care of their children (Dinner, Baths, Etc.) they really don't have enough time to sit down for a few hours to help with homework. -There is also a big problem with reading and kids are growing up reading less and less books. This leads to a downward spiral of reluctance to read, passed on from parent to child. I personally blame this on the vast majority of electronics kids stimulate themselves with, from television to computers and game consoles. -As well as the shitty curriculum taught in American schools, you also have teachers that are well..*******s. They make the whole adventure of going to class and learning a boring and/or frightening experience. Or there is always the fact that kids pick on other kids, and I personally think it is getting worse than it ever has been. Students are continuing to form cliques and battling it out with others just because each one of them is different from the other. It basically leads down to one thing, our culture is basically bleeding the school system dry. The students are starting to just say '**** it' and aren't taking it anymore. They've learned that you don't need to be an expert on History or Math to have a good job. They find it fruitless to spend those last four years in high school learning things they'll forget/are useless for modern life, and they drop out. I personally went to a school where, even though I had basically gotten enough credits to pass high school in 11th grade, (as I hardly took any electives) I somehow had to be held back for ANOTHER year after 12th grade. I pretty much said, screw that, and went to a dropout prevention program to get my HSD. It took me less than two weeks to pass all the tests I needed to prove I was worthy of getting my diploma and here I am. tl;dr - High School Curriculum is worthless, teachers are horrible at what they do, students are jerks to each other, and parents are too stupid and/or do not have enough time to teach their kids.
@Cthippo: The last assumption is where you (and many before you) go wrong. I've got to log now, but I'll come back to it.
Sorry to double post, but I want to keep this seperate and you guys type toop damn fast. I agree with Firehed thatparenting is important, but I'm taking the arguement from the point at which parenting has already failed. Kids need a lot of things to succeed, if they don't get those things from their parents, then someone or somthing else needs to step in and provide them. If the school doesn't provide that role who is going to? If the partents can't or will not and the school can't or will not, do we just abandon these kids? Do we tell them "You're parents are losers, but they're the only ones who can help you so piss off?". Kids living in poverty stricken areas, with or without good parenting, need more support in order to succeed. Instead they typically get less support from their schools and the result is massive under-achievement.
Even though to basic argument has moved past the issue of pay I'd like to address it at this point in time. http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_50.htm helps to address the issue of teacher compensation and if it has an effect on student achievement. To summarize the article briefly: Teachers get paid ~$36/hr Teachers are typically contracted for 9 months/year Typical workweek is ~37 hours Teachers make more than average white collared workers Conclusions drawn by the authors of the article: "When considering teacher pay, policymakers should be aware that public school teachers, on average, are paid 36% more per-hour than the average white-collar worker and 11% more than the average professional specialty and technical worker. They should be aware that the higher relative pay for public school teachers exists in almost every metro area for which data are available. Finally, they should be aware that paying public school teachers more does not appear to be associated with higher student achievement." @DivineSin, schools aren't "becoming" dropout factories, in fact graduation rates have increased, see articles in my first post. While the motto "it takes a village" is true about raising children and brings up the valid point that parents aren't the only influence/factor in a child's life there is no way that teachers can fill the role themselves. It seems that the majority of society that influences these children do have school graduation as a priority. There is no way for a small group of people to counter every other source of influence in the student's life. An additional point that needs to be addressed is "What is the purpose of highschool?". It seems to me that everyone here thinks it should be teaching basic skills (two people have commented about the lack of electives). However I, and professors I have, feel that school is about teaching students how to learn, thus preparing them for a wide variety of skills in their adult life. It really doesn't matter what you learn as long as you become and effective learner. Lets take the example of becoming and Investment Banker after college. Investment banking firms such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, etc don't hire only finance majors, they hire people from all sorts of majors. They realize that the ability to learn is more important than coming in with a set of predetermined skills for a specific industry. In the US we're still dealing with the problem of people whose who life has consisted of working in a high paying but non-skilled factory job. When that factory leaves communities are ruined because the workers can't/won't/have difficulty with adjusting to a new job. So in summary, teachers pay is not the issue, government can't legislate culture/society, and the role of highschool needs to be clearly defined before a solution can be proposed.
There have been many remedial educational programmes to help disadvantaged kids, and they have all met with very modest success at best. The idea that schools and teaching can be improved or enhanced to compensate for the many deprivations on failings in a child's life has turned out to be a fallacy. Similarly it has been found that a child's educational performance is not correlated with how many hours a parent reads to/with them, but by how many books there are in the parental home. It is not teaching them to read that matters, but teaching them the value of reading. Same with education. It still comes down to the parents.
Of course I'm not saying that parents are the only influence here and that if the parents fail then it's the kids' problems. It takes a village to raise a child, right? Parents should be the first line, and teachers should be a fallback of sorts - or reinforce principles at home. But it works two ways - parents need to reinforce what's being taught at school. If teachers are teaching respect while parents neither demonstrate nor request it, things aren't going to work out well. Let's be realistic - both sides are highly important. The reinforce each other's values, skills, and education. When you have either side not functioning, problems will arise. But realistically, most kids are going to put more value in what comes from their parents than what comes from their teachers, if for absolutely no reason but that they spend three times as long at home as at school. Re: teacher's pay - they may make more per hour, but you also need to remember that they're only being paid about nine months out of the year. They may make 36% more per hour, but they're working less than 75% of the number of hours. That puts it at roughly equal incomes annually, and it'll tend to be a higher stress job than most other positions in the same pay range. Then remember that they also have to spend a lot of time doing work that's unpaid: grading papers, planning lessons, meeting with students after hours, etc.
I took a look at Rocket733's link and I wonder how the people in the study arrived at the average work week for teachers. Did they factor in all the time spent at home grading papers, or all the hours worked during the breaks (teachers here in Texas are required to attend workshops, inservices)? My mother once calculated her hourly wage based on the actual hours she worked, and her result put her at less than minimum wage. The other teachers I've known have all found similar results. -monkey
