Education today vs. Yesteryears

Shoot, in the 19th century we had one of the best education systems in the world.  Foreigners would come to small American towns and marvel at 16 year old children speaking Latin.

@dinosaur:

Well, first I’d like to say I sure wish I had more Frimmels to work with.

Thanks, but don’t give me too much credit. I’m mostly a librarian. I hardly ever make drawings these days mostly I just make the electornic stuff we get in ready for others to use. Maybe that is just our field though. Steel is on hard times.

But by and large, we don’t expect much of the kids these days and they are living up to it.  Kids before WWII had to be adults by the time they were 14 or 15 helping out with the family in a substantial way.

I certainly agree with you there. But in a way though that is a useful indicator that you are an adult: You don’t like kids’ music, you don’t like their clothes and you don’t like their attitude.

@LT04:

@General:

Shoot, in the 19th century we had one of the best education systems in the world.  Foreigners would come to small American towns and marvel at 16 year old children speaking Latin.

Well we have failed to keep that legacy going.

It was when school stopped being about being ‘educated’ and instead became about being trained to be useful to business. Colleges are now just really expensive trade schools.

What did the college graduate say at McDonald’s?

Do you want fries with that?

Here’s one for you.

School Policy District U-46 (Where I work):

Teachers are not to teach division.  Teachers may refer students to NCLB (No Child Left Behind) video #HH-5519 if the student is having problems with division problems.

The video teaches you to use your fingers and to draw objects on a page.  It’s a completely worthless piece of junk and it’s 18 minutes long.  Why can’t we just teach fractions and long division like teachers did before the Clinton then Bush administrations?

Lets leave out Bush and Clinton from future posts please.

@Imperious:

Lets leave out Bush and Clinton from future posts please.

Sorry, but at least they are from opposing parties, so we can’t blame one party or the other for this sh*t.  That’s what I was driving at.  One just expanded the inept program of the other, meaning both were completely inept!

When will they learn to let teachers write the teaching codes?

@Cmdr:

Here’s one for you.

School Policy District U-46 (Where I work):

Teachers are not to teach division.  Teachers may refer students to NCLB (No Child Left Behind) video #HH-5519 if the student is having problems with division problems.

:-o

:?

:|

:lol:

Good one you had me going for a minute there.

I can’t tell you how much stuff like that burns me up.  Kids should be required to learn long division in or before 4th grade.  My son is being told by the teacher that is what calculators are for.  I don’t think a kid should use a calculator until they are doing trig problems.  If our kkids can’t do the math, they will never learn to budget.  But how many times do you hear about thirty year olds still living at home?  It is all part of the same problem.

@dinosaur:

I can’t tell you how much stuff like that burns me up.  Kids should be required to learn long division in or before 4th grade.  My son is being told by the teacher that is what calculators are for.  I don’t think a kid should use a calculator until they are doing trig problems.  If our kkids can’t do the math, they will never learn to budget.  But how many times do you hear about thirty year olds still living at home?  It is all part of the same problem.

Exactly!  And they are required to have the calculator for the standardized test!

None of my kids knew what the dots above and below the line on the division symbol meant before I told them yesterday (Tuesday the 14th of October 2008)!

But we’re told they don’t need to learn math.  The cash registers will tell them how much change to dole out and Quick Books will tell them how much money they have in their banks!

We have a national directive that states what we are allowed to teach and what we are not allowed to teach.  It was implemented in 1993 and later Ted Kennedy (Senator) wrote an act known as the No Child Left Behind Act that reinforced the legislation signed into law in 1993 by the Congress and President at that time and gave it teeth. (Now you have the audacity to slow down so the students have time to understand what you are trying to teach, the government can pull all your federal grants which will effectively shut down your school because states give matching grants.  If you match $0 then you get $0 from the fed and $0 from the states.)

Basically, we can tie the stupification of our children back to 1993.  Between 1960 and 1993 we were not really making them educated, but at least we were not actively trying to make them less educated like we are today.

How can we talk about education and not refer to the Education Reform Act of 1993 and No Child Left Behind (2001? or was it 2002?)?

Those two pieces of legislation made this nation the stupidest (defined as least educated) of all first world nations!  If we had to innovate the light bulb, nuclear power, assembly lines or any of the other American innovations from 1850-1950 today, we’d all be doomed!

What changed?  The two acts listed above.

How do we fix it?  Repeal the two acts listed above.

Whoa there, Jen, I still think there are some aspects of the US that support the future.  One aspect of the US is that we respect intellectual property, which is a great reason to apply yourself toward innovation, although in many arena this is under attack.  Because of our patent and copyright laws, innovators accross the globe want to come here.  Although that has its own side effects, not all positive.

Incidently, has anyone else noticed the article ad at the right that invites us to inquire about the “Aniversery Addition Special Event?”  I found that to be Shakespearean.

Fortunately, some kids are gifted, and if we support those gifted kids in the sciences we will still have home grown innovators and inventors.  My son has a gift for algebra, the number crunching part of math.  I have a gift for the geometry part.  I nurture his gift and I support him as he overcomes those areas in life where he is not gifted.  Another gift we have given him is proper behavior training.  Because all his teachers say he is such a well behaved boy, they want to help him overcome his problems.

We can’t rely on society to do our parenting jobs for us.  We are only now seeing the depth of our folly in the things going on now in the public arena.

I’m not saying patents and copywrites are bad, but let’s also keep in mind those laws pre-date World War II.  I’m referring to the laws that hamstring teachers (like me who want to teach kids how to do division, but are forbidden to do so) which seems to be designed to make our kids less educated (ie stupid) than others in other nations.

I’m with you there Jen.  I was just wanting to add a little upbeat conversation to the mix.

I’d like to know,  are teachers more upset about pay issues or behavior issues in the public schools?

Well, that’s not really what I think is an issue.  I don’t know anyone who went to work as a teacher for the money (although the payscale does get pretty high if you just get a degree or two).

I think the biggest issue is being told NOT TO TEACH instead of being allowed to help the children excel at learning.