I Don't Want to be a Teacher Any More
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Bureaucrats are more or less free to make whatever cuts they want in these professions because they know that those on the front lines will quietly mutter "I will work harder" and pick up the slack until the stress finally drives them from the profession entirely.
I've never once seen an employee of the DMV run out to kinkos and spend their own money because the copier was broken.
It also reminds me of why I left the passion that led me to software - gaming. I did a lot of amateur game dev all through high school, even networked a fair bit with the local game studios and got some valuable mentorships out of the deal. But if there's any part of the engineering profession that screams of management abusing your love for your work, it's game development.
It's a lot harder to tell whether teachers are any good. I guess this is why they willingly submit to systems that privilege seniority.
Doctors? They self-regulate the size of labor supply in their fields, inflating their salaries. Why do you think we have a doctor shortage? You really think there aren't enough smart people to do the job? No, the AMA controls the number of med school graduates each year by limiting the number of accredited medical schools. They also lobby governments to legislate that nurses can't perform medical procedures (all towards the not-so-discrete goal of preserving their six-figure salaries).
Teachers? They can't be fired thanks to tenure policies. This was the biggest issue with public schooling when I grew up, and [continues to be](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/nyregion/16rubber.html?_r=...). Survive three years and you have job security for life. If my workplace hired and fired based on seniority, we would have gone bankrupt years ago.
Firefighters and policemen also can do no wrong--aside from amazing pensions they have great job security and the power to help those they know more than others in the event of disaster (e.g. Katrina).
For every example of those in the "heroic professions" doing the right thing, you have the same careerism and self-preservation that those in private industry strive for. But in many people's eyes, they can do no wrong.
Even worse when administrative does not have your (teacher's) back.
If you doubt that the Peter Principle still applies, spend some time in faculty meetings and check out the admins. There are exceptions, of course. But IMHO (observation) the "No more A-holes" rule is more honored in the breach than the observance.
Doctors can do no wrong? Is that why malpractise has help skyrocket the cost of medicine in the US? Doctor shortage a machiavellian plan to keep salaries high? Pull the other one. Yes, I do think that there aren't enough people with the smarts and the motivation to be a doctor - in fact I think that there are less of them than actually are doctors.
Policemen can do no wrong? Yes, in law courts they're seen that way, but I can guarantee you that plenty of people see police as doing plenty wrong. Police cop plenty of abuse.
And Teachers can do no wrong? Tenure or not, teachers cop it from students, administration and parents.
Firefighters can do no wrong? Meh, firefighters have the soft option. Cool toys and generally don't have to deal with the general public if they're not paramedics. Stick it to 'em :)
But really, the 'can help friends in Katrina' argument you make is just desperately clutching at straws. Not sure how this is a prime motivator for emergency personnel (I know a few, and this is not why they work in their respective forces) or as a 'can do no wrong' argument.
Actually, no, there's more than two sides to the story, and the idiots who think there are two sides to the story and making everything worse:
* Some teachers are awful, and the unions protect them. They also manipulate educational policy, both to improve teacher conditions (which is fair enough - that's their job), and to push the pet beliefs of a couple of batty union leaders.
* Most teaching "methods" (fads) suck, and are cooked up by the kind of people who get PhDs in "education" - ivory tower researchers who can't do, and can't teach, but can publish in a naval-gazing journal.
* Most "methods" (fads) require mounds of paperwork, so the teachers can prove they are complying.
* Direct Instruction (DI) was found to be the best teaching method by far, the last time they did any serious research. However, it does cramp creative teachers, and it's quite possible that more serious research will find better methods (possibly based on DI, but not as anal), but the opponents of DI don't want serious research (as their pet "methods" suck, compared to DI, and they know it) and DI fans think the problem is solved.
* Some kids are "special needs". Some kids are dumb. Some kids are smart. Some kids just look dumb because they aren't motivated, and some kids just look smart because they are being pushed hard, and nobody can agree what "smart" and "dumb" means. Mixed classes are good in some ways, but they can't be too big (or the teacher can't help the outlying kids). Big classes are good for the better kids, but only if they are streamed.
* Text books are often terrible.
* School work can be assessed (extrinsically motivated) or un-assessed (intrinsically motivated). Extrinsic motivation drives out intrinsic motivation, but some assessment is necessary. The current trend is to pile on more assessment (both tests and formally assessed homework) under the assumption that kids have already been jaded by the existing assessment, and no longer care about learning for learning's sake.
* We are spending too much, and not enough.
* Finally, there's rarely any end goal in mind. Or there are several end goals, and everyone forgets which ones are important. Feeding universities, creating a skilled workforce, providing opportunities for poor kids, getting good numbers in international tests, and most importantly convincing parents (voters) that something needs to be done, and we are already doing all that is humanly possible to help YOUR child beat the kid sitting next to them.
Do you have any good links that describe what this is? All I seem to be able to find is pages talking about how good it is, but none with a description of it that made any sense to me.
It's very anal, like I said.
The teachers get a DI textbook (made up by the inventor of DI). The teacher reads from the text book, and asks the whole class to respond on cue.
The whole class responding on cue is an important point, as it keeps the students thinking. "Everybody, what's 12 * 8?"
It uses lots of repetition, and a few standardised instructions to the class.
"Everybody open your books, to page 23. One two three. Everybody should have their books open. Put your finger on the word "MY". One two three ... Now everybody read out load ..."
Interesting factoid - "The Pet Goat" (think 911, George W. Bush in a classroom) was a DI book.
Repeat an hour a day every day for three years and you get really effing good. (Conversations in the third year are, obviously, more elaborate.)
DI is better than more appetising methods (i.e. ones that teachers think they would enjoy learning in), because it drills fundamentals, but I think that better methods could be built using cognitive principles.
Musicians stress practising scales, martial artists practice basic techniques, programmers practice Fizzbuzz every damn time someone links to that article, and everyone practices speaking in front of the mirror. But school-kids don't practice learning.
Creative, open-ended homework is a huge time-sink.
That's why it's important to know something of whom you address¹. "Do you follow me?", then give a review, simplification or expansion based on the response.
Your previous description of DI sounds like brain washing intended to wipe out individual identity and sounds as if it makes no effort to consider individual abilities or characters at all?
--
1 - that's probably bad grammar, I was never taught grammar
I wonder why most educators oppose it?
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120425355065601997-7B...
You have a few confounding factors:
* a middle-class society with no language problems
* less pressure on the students regarding exam scores.
Things that Finland seems to do well (from your article):
* "What they see is a relaxed, back-to-basics approach."
Really, education gets screwed up terribly by all the pressure.
But can you imagine the uproar if teachers stopped teaching the tests?
* "The Norssi School is run like a teaching hospital, with about 800 teacher trainees each year. Graduate students work with kids while instructors evaluate from the sidelines."
When is the last time you heard of a US schools training their teachers? I know teacher-training happens, but it's really half-assed.
And like I said, DI isn't necessarily the best method possible. But there hasn't been any decent research since.
It's like we've found that washing hands saves lives in hospitals, but nobody has bothered to break anything else down statistically, or research why washing hands is good (hint - germs), or even wash hands!
I think the confounding factor is not "a middle-class society" rather than "a democratic socialist society", where everyone is given the chance to perform instead of being damned by the location of their birth within their country. None of this 'born in poor location, local schools don't have funding' crap.
If the US could get rid of it's endemic Just World fallacy, half of it's problems would be solved...
And the primary thing that the Finnish society does well: - Everyone respects the teaching profession. - Teachers, who most often are at the top of their class and have a Masters, are given much autonomy and trust.
1. Prussian Indoctrination Training..that is the model that the USA adopted from Prussia. Prussia wanted to break the control of churches so they came up with this new teaching method and it was made to indoctrinate, not teach.
2. We USA people layered on that indoctrination system some other non-goal aligned stuff like school organized sports rather than have the community pay for the off-school hours sports that they will support.
3. Ones deciding budget have no kids in the local school systems.
4. The original geo-area that was Prussia finally saw the errors of the indoctrination approach and moved to a two-tiered education system. Both vocational and university prep share the same 1-6 grade school classes.
You take some corrective measures like remove sports and have the community pay for the off-time school sports they want to support frees up money to make rest of the changes.
[1]http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/edlite-chart.h...
[2]http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/edlite-chart.h...
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/teacher-pay-aro...
So while we may spend more on education, the delta is not going to teachers.
I suspect admin is a big part. There's a big controversy here in Seattle, the second in recent years where there was either large corruption or tens of millions of dollars that disappeared (the last ended up in the super of the school district losing his job -- the Seattle Times has asked for the current super to either resign or be fired).
A rewarding job with decent compensation and time off makes teaching jobs pretty competitive.
I suppose so, if you aren't including race in your demographic profile. That happens to be an area where the US and Canada diverge significantly.
Never mind that the US doesn't have an official language; a lot of people are offended if their tax dollars go to people who don't "learn our language!"
I'm contemplating a move to Pune - if I go, I certainly wouldn't expect the Indian taxpayer to pay for me to learn Hindi. Adopting yourself to the local culture/conventions/language/etc is your job - if you can't handle it, stay home.
Yet it's the big discussion that is generally off the table. Rather things are framed as big vs small gov't, yet there are a lot of inconsistencies in that argument. These inconsistencies disappear when you frame it as racists vs bleeding heart liberals.
Repeat after me: money is not the problem. The facts are simply against people who think America doesn't spend enough money on education. Rather, America doesn't spend its money effectively enough.
I'm worried that we're overloading the word "teacher", however. I'm a teacher, and I'm a learner, and I'll never stop doing those things. It's very important that we realize that the acts of teaching and learning should be important to all of us whether we are public school teachers or not. The subject is bigger than that. Much bigger.
I'm also concerned that this is beginning to sound like on of those issues where there isn't another side -- after all, who would be in favor of continuing to increase classroom size, demonizing teachers, and the constant screwing around with the rules teachers work by?
Nobody, of course. And whenever somebody describes a situation to me that is so obviously one-sided, I start becoming concerned that there are critical players or issues that are not being addressed in the essay. Even if our author is a hero and the entire universe is against him, those other forces in the universe probably work through some system of logic that should as well be considered by the reader when looking at the subject.
Finally, instead of a he-said, she-said kind of story, or even a woe-am-I kind of story, this would work much better as a systemic story. The simple sad fact of broken systems is that they are usually filled with honest people doing the best they can at all levels. Of course, that kind of story doesn't make for much of a personal essay, but it reminds us that for every essay by a school administrator talking about how bad his situation is, there's another one from a teacher, and another one from a school board member, and another one from a parent, and so on. Each of these people have an important story to tell. Personal essays by definition are very narrowly constructed items. We enjoy the emotional insight and understanding they provide and then move on, making sure that we read the dozens of other stories which are equally as valid so that we can have a bit of much-needed context.
However, if we think we can't afford to have a decent funding for schools then nobody has apparently been heard speaking up about not affording to not have that funding. If we keep merely chasing test scores for a couple of decades, what kind of an education will we have at that point?
1) Government makes something free
2) The market for private delivery of the same thing dries up. Those few that still want to pay must pay much more than they would have before the government started giving it away for free because the market has shrunk so much
3) The same thing happens to alternatives to the thing they made free
4) Decisions are now made by those delivering the process instead of the person choosing between the alternatives. Costs and benefits are no longer weighed together or by the person that cares about the outcome the most. Considerations easily described in resumes and sound bites become uber important
5) The corporations and unions move in and start influencing the decision makers, carving out expensive niches for themselves
6) Things that truly matter but aren't profitable for the politically connected fall by the wayside
7) People getting something free put up with it because ditching the free thing for same thing done right is now a super expensive alternative
8) Delivering the free thing grows more expensive, much faster than the rate of inflation
9) Eventually the tax payers fight back and the costs of delivering the thing are slashed, along with quality. The corporations and unions have to spend and/or threaten more to hang on to their protected positions.
10) Those getting the service for free now have to spend all their time at rallies and fine tuning the stories about how badly they're being treated.
Honestly, I don't think there is a 'perfect system'. But school choice is somewhat illusory when there are limited and largely fixed numbers of places and it honestly has real, significant problems.
(As an outsider looking in, the thing that really shocks me about American schools is the consistent, persistent denigration of teachers and implication that so many are only there because their greedy, too-strong unions are protecting them in spite of incompetence and laziness while demanding outrageous salaries and pensions. I forget which country but there was an interesting example given during our election campaign last year of a country with very high outcomes and yet relatively modest teaching salaries, which was alleged to be significantly due to teaching being accorded very high status and very difficult admission criteria. The upshot of this was competent, respected teachers with pride in their jobs and better outcomes all round.)
As an "insider", the thing that really shocks me about outsiders' comments is their assumption that they know enough to comment intelligently about what's going on in the US.
Actually, it doesn't shock me at all because it's SOP.
We get that you watch US media, but don't confuse that with information.
Helpful tip - don't expect warm water at LA's beaches, let alone SF's. Yes, we know that bay watch suggests otherwise, but ....
Yes, I was rude, but correct. Since you didn't complain about the foreigner who was just as condescending yet wrong, I've got an unknown.
Do you only complain about condescending when it's from a foreigner or when it's by someone who is correct?
> You honestly believe that no foreigner knows more than what's on the news?
I'm sure that there are some foreigners who knows things about the US that aren't in the mass media.
That's why I wait until after a foreigner demonstrates that she isn't in that group before I do my rant.
There is absolutely no condescension in eftpotrm's post. He (she) only talks about the impression he's gotten. He doesn't mention how he came about this impression. You assume it comes solely from the media; I on the other hand know that it's perfectly possible to form an impression about America by conversing with Americans, visiting America, etc.
> Do you only complain about condescending when it's from a foreigner or when it's by someone who is correct?
I dunno, mu? "Foreign" and "correct" are not mutually exclusive. (My best guess is that you're trying to expose me as an evil hypocrite, but I seriously don't understand the question.)
> I'm sure that there are some foreigners who knows things about the US that aren't in the mass media.
"Some" foreigners? Good gracious. Foreigners who've participated in discussions with Americans on the internet know things about America which aren't in the mass media. The same goes for foreigners who've visited America. Etc etc. It's an awful lot of foreigners, not just some.
> That's why I wait until after a foreigner demonstrates that she isn't in that group before I do my rant.
But how did you decide that eftpotrm belonged to the group of foreigners who only get their impressions of America from the media? Because eftpotrm certainly didn't WRITE that. You just assumed it and went on a condescending rant.
I used "got their impressions from mass media" as shorthand for "don't know what they're talking about". I waited until eftpotrm demonstrated that property.
Since we can't have an infinite number of schools, any scheme will have a limited number of schools.
However, I think that you mean something different, that there can't be "enough" school choices. Since a school can be a room with a few people in it, and we have lots of rooms, it's unclear why school choice is necessarily limited in any relevant way.
Also, a school running heavily under capacity is _very_ expensive and likely to spiral down, rather quickly, for simple financial reasons.
We're seeing an introduction of a new 'free schools' policy in the UK at present. I'm not in the least saying every last school should have tight government control, but the side-effect of this policy as currently implemented is the impoverishment of existing facilities, to the detriment of their pupils.
Infinite choice is clearly not possible. Neither is the capacity for all students to get their first choice, for physical infrastructure reasons if nothing else. Hence total choice isn't deliverable, and any degree of choice is almost guaranteed to leave some schools over-occupied and needing quick (expensive) hiring and building to cover the gap, while others have too many facilities and resources for their per-head income and now have a financial black hole which, combined with the social stigma of not being the 'preferred school', tends to drag them further down.
Note I'm talking here from the perspective of how school choice works in England, as that's what I know. I'm not entirely anti the princple at all, but as I hope I've shown it does have some significant undesirable side-effects that can both increase cost and at best drive up the gap between best and worst by pushing at both ends of the spectrum - it doesn't just improve the top.
Yes, a given smaller school can't have as many different things as a large school, but that doesn't imply that the range of things at a set of small schools is necessarily smaller than the range at a large school.
When 10 kids at a school with 400 kids want something, it may not happen. When 10 kids at a school with 100 want something, it's more likely.
That's the advantage of choice - those 10 kids can "gang up" on a small school if they get to choose where to go.
> significant undesirable side-effects that ... at best drive up the gap between best and worst by pushing at both ends of the spectrum - it doesn't just improve the top.
Just improving the top would increase the gap, which you seem to think is bad.
I'm not convinced that choice hurts the bottom. I think that it exposes the real bottom, the folks who drag down the average. When they're split out, they're more obvious.
The big advantage of separating them is that then they don't drag down other folks.
There are lots of poor parents who do all that they can to keep their kids away from trouble. Why are we forcing them to send their kids to school with trouble?
I have no problem with the gap per se - I went to a state funded selective school and I'm perfectly happy that that sort of school has a place in the system. I believe I've illustrated though how school choice as implemented in Britain necessarily impoverishes the schools perceived as poorer - through the inefficiencies and excess capacity it requires to operate while giving anything like true choice, school choice gives less popular schools higher per-pupil expenses for worse opportunities and outcomes. Someone's kids have to go there, they're paying the same taxes as everyone else to fund them, but they're getting a rotten deal.
Like I said in my first contribution - I don't think there is a perfect solution and school choice may well be the least worst option. It is not a panacea though, and we should be honest in appraising its failings.
Young kids have interests. They change over time, but they have interests.
> Early specialisation forces pupils to close off options before they may realistically be ready to.
You assume too much.
> I believe I've illustrated though how school choice as implemented in Britain necessarily impoverishes the schools perceived as poorer
Actually, you've proposed a mechanism. Even if we assume that things always work that way (and they don't), there should be nothing keeping kids at those poorer schools, so what's the problem?
> Someone's kids have to go there
Why?
If no one wants to go there, why keep it open?
> It is not a panacea though,
Strawman.
> we should be honest in appraising its failings.
We should apply that to all schemes.
I do think winner-take-all elections magnify the ability of corporations in the US. Unions are more powerful in Europe and strike paralyze France routinely, which doesn't happen in the US very often.
The problem is the government giveaway itself. I don't see proof that most of the same dynamics aren't happening elsewhere; they're just manifesting differently.
Human nature and the desire to get something for nothing are the same everywhere you go, as is getting fed up with all the distortions created.
http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-abou...
http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-well-do-above-...
And how is standardized testing supposed to solve that problem? How is throwing in an extra $3000/head supposed to solve it?
There is. Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously quipped the crucial determinant of the quality of American schools is proximity to the Canadian border. Things have gotten worse since his day.
>And how do they get into school if they don't have citizenship or visas?
That's the way it works in the US. Get your kids over the border and they can go to school. They don't need papers or English.
>It's gotten to be a royal pain in the ass to cross the Canadian border into the US since 9/11---how is it so easy for millions of Mexicans?
Things are a lot easier if you cross illegally. It's a long border, and there are various interests in the US who benefit from the influx of cheap labor. So the border isn't well policed and people who are caught crossing are simply released in Mexico. Then they hop back over the border again the next night.
>And how is standardized testing supposed to solve that problem? How is throwing in an extra $3000/head supposed to solve it?
Eh? Testing won't solve anything, and I didn't mean to imply it would. I was just trying to say the situation in Canada isn't directly comparable. US schools will never score as well as those of other first world countries no matter how much money we spend.
I don't think so. I think NCLB was a giant Fuck You to people who don't have the money to pay for private schools, a corollary to Starving the Beast. There's little other rational way to look at it.
Then, there is the family component. In a number of industrialized countries, education is highly prized and parents are deeply involved in their kids' education. Here, that is again not necessarily the case in many schools--and there is a limit to how much teachers can do to overcome that.
Also, I think that in many other industrialized countries, teachers are respected and paid reasonably compared to other professions. This draws talented people into the field (passion is important, but so is economics).
And Japan still can't get into the top 10 of the Education Index.
The big thing you don't have at private schools is often the child who can't speak English, or is special needs (whether learning or behaviorally). They simply reject them or kick them out.
To put it another way, you hear a lot fewer complaints from teachers in public schools that teach in the gifted programs.
So every standardized test has some confounding variables, and effort spent teaching the students to do better on the tests by dealing well with these variables is effort that does not go towards helping the students learn the material. If the standardized tests are known and used to evaluate the teachers the incentives suddenly get really strong to teach to the test by focusing on the idiossincrasies of specific testing schemes over teaching the actual subject.
Standardized tests are a great way to measure performance and improvement but only if the results won't be used for decision-making, otherwise it creates an instant incentive to game the system.
Heck, when I was teaching in college, I passed out copies of tests from earlier semesters. Then the students could study just to the tests and try to 'game' them. Still, had to know the material at least to some degree to do even that. Net, the students had every opportunity to study just to the tests and I was in effect teaching just to my own tests and still the students had basically to learn the material.
That the tests are not reliable and valid measures of learning and can easily be significantly 'gamed' and, thus, should not be used to evaluate K-12 teaching is just an unsupported myth being put out by propaganda of the AFT and NEA to protect bad teaching.
You have to wonder how much long term impact these cuts have, I'm sure in the short term they can keep parents happy by producing decent test scores as they are only focusing on the tests.
Would love to know how the Australian system compares for teachers currently if anyone is involved there?
But the solution is at hand: In the US, local schools are run by the local school boards, and tough to keep reality from the school board members, including in the "wellbeing" of the students.
Computers are now part of the background, and I worry there's less of the magic needed to create a proper hacker/developer. Luck is still luck.
* Three or four really great teachers, who taught me a lot.
* Lots of teachers blathering on about personal and rather inappropriate stuff. In retrospect, many seem emotionally desperate and treated the classroom as a captive audience to their personal drama.
* Being singled out and harassed by at least four teachers.
* The school administrator plucking a brand new IBM 386sx off the cart that was headed to the desperately underpowered computer lab. He did this so he could run Windows. So he could launch a DOS-based menu system. So he could switch between two DOS-based applications he used.
Fire the administrators first.
Perhaps the system itself is the problem. Change the system.
So, is the article really just about (A) important issues in education or is it just (B) partisan politics fighting over money with some of the usual techniques of politics -- some truths, half-truths, deception, distortion, emotion, etc.?
So, to pick between (A) and (B), let's see:
(a) Source. The article is in 'The Daily Kos', and I believe I've heard that this site is essentially propaganda by the more liberal wing of the Democrats and paid for at least heavily by Soros who apparently believes that US politics should be something like some of the traditions of old Central and Eastern European socialism.
(b) Subject. The article is to grab people by the heart and the gut to have them open up below the belt, this time their wallet in their hip pocket. It's a big sales pitch leading to "Send more money".
(c) Timing. At present one of the hottest political stories in the news is the fighting in several states and especially in Wisconsin trying to reduce expenditures by state governments so that the states can have balanced budgets without raising taxes and to reduce these expenditures by fighting with unionized state employees, especially the teachers' unions.
(d) Unions. Now we come full circle: The unions are heavily in the Democrat party with propaganda site 'The Daily Kos'.
So, it seems to me that article really is about (B) partisan politics and not (A) education.
For teaching for test scores, as in
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2267851
That article was JUST politics, pure and simple.
For 'education', see
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2267851
Are you asking me to explain what it means, or are you saying it's an invalid thing to have typed because it's not in your Webster's?
For "engaging", that's mostly nonsense.
You sound like a hired propaganda spammer paid for by the AFT or the NEA.
Test scores are important: SAT, CEEB, GRE, LSAT, MCAT. Board Certification in medicine. Qualifying exams for a Ph.D. Just what is it about test scores you and our K-12 teachers do not understand?
How do you measure creativity? Social skills? Should they not be taught because they're difficult to test?
The solution is fully at hand: Local K-12 education is run by the local school boards, and they are fully free to evaluate and respect all forms of education including creativity, social skills, 'engaged' students, etc.
And I don't think school is a place to evaluate creativity or social skills, but to give people an opportunity to develop them.
And I'm really convinced that you're not quite sure what "engaged" students is supposed to mean, especially if you think it's something to be evaluated. I've been using the word to mean something like "maintain interest". You seem to use it to mean something different every time you bring it out. Has "engaged" become one of those meaningless buzzwords since I left North America last century? Is that what you're sneering at?
If the tests are asking little enough, then why are the teachers complaining they have no time to do anything but "teach to the tests"?
I can only guess. It may be that the issue is some politically correct goal of some 'social justice': So, if no child is to be left behind, then in some schools the poor teacher will have to spend 90% of the effort on the bottom 10% of the students, Maybe she wants to get these students 'engaged' -- that's hopeless.
For 'engaged', I gave lots of examples, but for the examples I gave I doubt that a significant fraction of K-12 teachers accomplish much of such 'engagement'.
In the end, the yelling and screaming about US K-12 education is (A) use the failure of the bottom 10% as a way to say that the system needs to do better and (B) use that need 'to do better' to spend much more on K-12 education and maybe double real estate taxes. US K-12 can do better but not by worrying much more about the bottom 10%.
When I was in school (high school, at least---which starts in Grade 9 in Ontario, no Junior High), students were streamed into classes according to their abilities at the given subject: Basic, General, Advanced, occasionally Enriched.
The teacher can't spend 90% of their time on the bottom 10% if the bottom 10% are in another class (where they get 100% of their teacher's time).
"Engaging" is far, far more important than you realize. Kids who are bored will absorb less and be distracted more easily. Of course, "engaging" must be a means, not an end. A teacher's not an entertainer. What do you think the word "engaging" means, anyways? Or did you not bother to learn that one because it wasn't necessary for a test?
The problem is not the taking of tests. The problem is focusing on tests at the expense of everything else.
We're talking nonsense.
E.g., you wrote:
"You talk as if there were never test scores to think about before. There always have been."
Nonsense. We're in full agreement here.
Instead of some false disagreement, we need to move on to something constructive.
You wrote:
"'Engaging' is far, far more important than you realize."
Nonsense. In simple terms, you can't know what I "realize". For more, of COURSE 'engaging' is important.
My father was something of an expert in educational theory and practiced it as the educational theorist for a military technical school (electronics, welding, hydraulics, mechanicals, etc.) for years with over 40,000 students at once.
His main 'guidance' of my education was that I be 'engaged', and in some subjects I really was. I was engaged enough, but where I wasn't he didn't push; he likely thought that such pushing would be pointless and may have been correct. In the end I did well in school, went "all the way". Far and away, the best things I did in school were from my being 'engaged', although that's a bit too mild.
So, what about 'engaged' in the article by the third grade teacher?
(a) No teacher in K-12 'engaged' me in anything. Not once. Ever. Where I was most engaged, in plane geometry, more fun than eating caramel popcorn, the teacher was the ugliest person I've ever met, and I slept in class and refused to admit doing any of her assigned homework. So, she would have turned off many students but did not affect my level of 'engagement' at all.
Actually, I made sure to work every non-trivial problem in the book including the more challenging ones in the back. I was fully "engaged".
I got 'engaged' for the usual reasons: A desire to achieve the security of adult competence. The content of the media that emphasized science got me 'engaged' in science.
(b) As I outlined, there's not a lot taught in K-8. Given that, a lot of being 'engaged' is not necessary to that learning. So, it's a bit empty for her to say that she got her students 'engaged' in learning the standard stuff in the third grade.
(c) More directly, if she can get her students 'engaged', then let's see the results in student accomplishments:
So, maybe she gets some student engaged in math and they rush ahead and pass the AP calculus exam at the end of the third grade. If then she wants to say that she got the student 'engaged', then I can believe her and chalk up some credit for her getting a student 'engaged'.
Maybe she plays some music for the students and then has as a class guest the first chair violinist of the local symphony orchestra. The violinist gives a concert in class with everything from 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' to various pieces really easy to like to some dance pieces even easier to like like to various classic showpieces to some 'video backed show and tell', say, motifs from 'The Ring', with images as in, say,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7prUFflX0_E
where the climax should get much of the class 'engaged', to something really 'engaging', the D major section of the Bach 'Chaconne':
Castelnuovo-Tedesco: "The Bach 'Chaconne' is the greatest piece of music ever written."
The central D major section is the easiest to like and has the climax of the piece. The Heifetz performance of the climax is especially 'engaging'.
A violin is such a magnificent piece of 'woodworking' that it is 'engaging' just to see one for the first time. Being just close to a violin being played for some of the best music by a good violinist is really 'engaging'.
I did that once: At Christmas at the farm I retired to an upstairs bedroom for some violin practice. Soon a niece about 8 came up to watch and listen. So, sure, soon I put my violin under her left chin, stood behind her, showed her how to hold the bow, and the next day her father asked me, "How much is a violin going to cost me?". Her mother had been trying to get the girl 'engaged' in music for years with no effect. I was successful in a few minutes. Part of the reason is that it is much easier to get a child engaged in something an adult is doing instead of something they are just saying. Having a really good musician in class will get a lot of students 'engaged'.
Next day, have a good concert pianist do much the same. Sure, start with some famous pieces some students in the class may be able to play already, e.g., the Bach C major "Prelude" from 'The Well Tempered Clavier', let the student get acknowledged, maybe get a 'master class' on this piece from the guest pianist, sitting beside him on the piano bench, get status in the class, and then get the rest of the class more eager to 'follow along' and be 'engaged'. Yes, the piece is in the movie 'Samantha: An American Girl Holiday' and there played very well. Net, Hollywood knows that third grade or so girls can like that piece.
Next day, a cellist. Sure, play something really easy to like, the 'Prelude' to the Bach first unaccompanied -- easy enough to like to be used in ad music, but the ascending chromatic scale climax near the end is one of the better moments in all of music.
Next day, have a guest outlining the math for satellite orbit determination as needed by GPS. So, get students 'engaged' in math and physics.
So, some student gets really 'engaged', checks out a violin, spends about half of each day in a back storeroom practicing, and by the end of the third grade plays the D major section of the Bach 'Chaconne'.
Now I'll give her credit for getting her students 'engaged'.
Some of the students like writing. Okay, have them start some blogs, write the initial posts, moderate the other posts, and respond, i.e., have them play the role of Fred Wilson at AVC.com. The teacher will get some chances to supervise the work and help with the writing, content, handling contentious issues, computer usage, grammar and spelling. At the end of the year, finally tell the world that the blog moderators were all of eight years old!
You wrote:
"The problem is not the taking of tests. The problem is focusing on tests at the expense of everything else."
The tests are not going to cover playing the Bach 'Chaconne' and, instead, just cover the basics of third grade material. Good students with good instruction can learn enough of the grade 1-8 material in a few months. Asking that the ordinary and normal students know the third grade material by the end of the third grade is asking very little.
For the "teaching to the test", that is presented as some sin but without details about the sinfulness. Go ahead: Teach to the test. Heck, most straight A students study just for the test and just as they perceive the teacher will write it anyway.
If the test is at all well constructed, then passing the test is a quite good indication of the learning. People have known how to write good tests for decades.
As we all know, tests are a central part of education, including via the examples I gave of CEEB, SAT, GRE, LSAT, MCAT, etc.
Net, these K-12 objections to "testing" with the vague sin of "teaching to the test" look like excuses less good than the classic "My dog ate my homework.".
One way I got back at my plane geometry teacher was what I did on the state test. I got back at all those teachers with my SAT scores, especially my math SAT score.
The SAT score was correct: I had not only a lot of 'engagement' and interest in math, I had some talent as subsequent events have shown: Yes, the grand hero of mathematical economics is K. Arrow. There is a famous paper by Arrow, Hurwicz, and Uzawa. Why poor Uzawa has not gotten his Nobel prize I don't know; maybe they give at most two per paper? There was a problem stated but not solved in the paper. There was also H. Whitney, long at Harvard, of the Whitney extension theorem. So I proved a result comparable with Whitney's, assumed a little less and got a little less, used my result to solve the Arrow, et al., problem, and published.
Net, that third grade teacher should (A) have her students do well on the tests and (B) have her students get fully engaged in much more that is not on tests but quite visible as I outlined.
I'll add one more important point: However much the AFT, NEA, Department of Education, Obama, The Chosen One, Blessed Be He, want all of US K-12 run directly from DC, it is still the case that local school boards run K-12 education. Bluntly, what such a school board wants, such a school board can get. If a teacher, principal, and school really get their students and parents 'engaged', e.g., parents of third grade see their children wanting freshman college texts on math and physics, a violin, piano, or cello, are listening to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7prUFflX0_E
etc., then the school board can get 'engaged', provide what is needed for, e.g., getting a concert master into third grade classes, etc., and really go for it.
Net, that's much of just why we have local school boards.
You say you and I are in agreement; I thought I was in agreement (on that point) with the author; you imply you are in disagreement with the author. I must say, I'm confused.
As for the rest, I might be assuming that Canadian and American public school education is more similar than it actually is. Maybe what you have to say about the state of American education is less hyperbolic than I take it to be. I've lived in Japan for the last 13 years, though, and comparing the to-the-test Japanese system with its long hours of rote learning and cram schools, I definitely think the Canadian system produces better results (and the UN seems to agree). The impression left in my mind by the article was of a Canadian-like system shifting towards being more like a Japanese-like one. It may be these assumptions that have us talking at cross purposes.
Although I must assert that, while I think tests are an important gauge, "teaching to the test" is a short-term goal that, in my experience, leads to a lot of cramming and very little long-term learning. (personally, though, I never crammed---I paid attention in class, although it didn't always look like it)
That tests are fine does not mean that the Asian approach to rote learning is fine.
That some students cram for tests does not mean that tests are useless.
For being 'engaged', I gave a very long list of ways a third grade teacher might get her students engaged. So, I agree that being 'engaged' is important. But in the article the teacher was using being 'engaged' (A) in only a weak sense (my examples were much stronger) and (B) was using her weak results on 'engaged' to excuse paying less attention to good tests on the basic material.
But on being 'engaged' and actually learning well and retaining that knowledge, we've ignored the 2000 pound elephant in the room -- what the student gets at home.
Yes, the US could use some national tests of basic material during K-12: The US already has good tests at the end of K-12 (CEEB, SAT) and end of college (GRE, LSAT, GMAT). But for the rest, keep that local at the level of the family, teacher, school, and school board.
In politics, we don't have much. If keep only the solid information we may have nothing at all.
Sorry about the mess of politics. Maybe the Internet can make solid evidence more important.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2267731
I argue that the article is just politics.
Still, education is important.
Since we are on 'Hacker News' (HN), there is some considerable irony in this article:
In computing now, the workers in information technology commonly need to understand subjects such as:
algorithms, programming languages, frameworks, development environments, user interface design and development, programming for application installation, operating system administration, networking and network administration, relational database and its administration, code repositories, application instrumentation, system monitoring, many utilities and applications, software as a service, the Cloud, the social graphs and interest graphs on the Internet, how to start a company, how to raise venture capital, how to manage software development, etc.
The content of these subjects changes significantly each 12 months.
To keep up, workers need their own 'computer center' and educational resources and mostly just must teach themselves, that is, without teachers. In particular, formal courses are nearly useless because the teachers are rarely up to date on this material.
This pattern has been rock solid for nearly all parts of the US computer industry going way back to punched cards.
Net, the readers of HN overwhelmingly learn independently and are self-taught using their own time, money, and effort.
So, claims by the formal education community in K-12 and college that their classroom instruction is crucial for education is an ironic, ROFL at HN.
But HN readers are not the only ones: (1) An auto mechanic has to keep up with the new systems on the new cars. (2) Workers in construction of houses and small commercial buildings have to keep up with new materials, construction techniques, and regulations. (3) Recently chefs in high end restaurants had to learn about 'molecular gastronomy', 'tasting menus', and intricate 'wine parings'. (4) CPAs and tax lawyers need to keep up on the tax law changes.
Workers in a huge fraction of the US economy have to keep up in their fields, independently, via self-teaching, and most of this work uses their time, effort, and money.
So, let's return to K-12: Basically what is needed from K-12 is at least, by age 18, to be able to (A) read with understanding materials commonly encountered, (B) write clearly, e.g., as well as on HN, and (C) know basic arithmetic, percentages, areas, and volumes.
Now we come to some simple facts: Joe gets sick and stays home from school for three weeks. His grandmother notices that he can't read so, in those three weeks, teaches him to read. Later she does the same for (B) writing and (C) basic math. This situation is common. Basically, normal kids can pick up the 3Rs with astounding speed. Just how they do it is not clear at all, and research on 'teaching techniques' is not promising but also mostly not needed.
The K-12 system should be able to get this teaching done by the eighth grade. So, to know, sure, give some tests. Simple enough.
But, K-12 does try to do more. Especially important topics include math through analytic geometry and trigonometry, biology, chemistry, physics, and history. For these subjects, sadly, the K-12 teachers rarely know enough of the material to teach it well. Even the K-12 'experts' don't: I understand calculus quite well, thank you (learned it at several levels, taught it, applied it, published peer-reviewed original research based on it), but the people who wrote the AP calculus materials did not. Sad. To learn calculus, just get any edition of the dozen or so college calculus texts famous over the last few decades, dig in, and f'get about AP calculus.
Yes, it would be good to teach some art. Sadly, apparently they don't. There may be more on how art works just in, say,
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2246723
In the article the teacher said:
"I’m used to wild and crazy discussions about amazing novels."
"Amazing novels"? Eventually I had to conclude that, according to the standards of information safety and efficacy well established in the first half of the 20th century, novels are at most for light entertainment so that the set of all "amazing novels" is the empty set and not worth serious effort. She was largely wasting time; it's sad she didn't know that; but I can believe that most readers of 'The Daily Kos' take novels seriously. Those English majors dragged me through six years of their 'belle lettre' nonsense when I wanted to study much more in math and science. Bummer.
So, what K-12 does with these additional subjects is at best mixed.
So, net, our K-12 system is heavily for baby sitting. We shouldn't have to pay a lot for baby sitting.
So, what about education?
HN Style Solution: Put good materials on the Internet. So have careful, detailed text in PDF files. Have some lectures by some good people. And by some experts, have some lectures with some intuitive descriptions that explain the 'forest' so well that the 'trees' become mostly obvious.
With good materials, a good student could knock off grades 7-12 independently in maybe three weeks per grade except that foreign languages typically would extend the time. But, with good materials, can do well with a foreign language surprisingly quickly.
Then for 'more' in fuzzy topics such as art, human behavior, organizational behavior, civics, politics, just have some excellent lectures on the Internet and maybe some fora.
E.g., for a curiously good start on both music and painting, in one stroke, just spend right at 10 minutes with
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7prUFflX0_E
Likely a good start on art history is the 1969 TV series 'Civilization' by Kenneth Clark. There is also a book, but the video alone is fine.
Actually, for some good material in history, there are some starts: Some of the best material on the history of the 20th century is in some selected movies; it's not common to find better materials in print, and it is nearly impossible to find materials nearly as good in K-12 or the first two years of college.
E.g., the movie 'The Battle of Britain' is relatively good on its subject. Actual dates, numbers of planes, pilots, and bombs per day along with 'logistics' would help but are generally ignored by all of the history community.
The movie 'Midway' is relatively good on its subject, a turning point in the war in the Pacific and basically for the reasons made clear in the movie. The Charlton Heston character should be cut out. The timing, crucial, of the actual events in the battle should be made more clear. Details on times, distances, and speeds would help, yes, typically ignored by the history community. Still the movie is relatively good.
The series 'Victory at Sea' was a lot of US flag waving but still does provide a good outline of a lot of WWII.
The movie 'The Longest Day' is awash in 'entertainment values' but, still, does cover the essentials of D-Day.
The hugely long:
William L. Shirer, 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany, Thirtieth Anniversary Edition', ISBN 0-671-72868-7, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1981.
actually is surprisingly sparse on important content.
Sadly the biographies of Eisenhower and Patton are so far from the actual details that they are not good. Bradley's biography is better (but nothing like the character Bradley in the movie 'Patton').
Net, what K-12 is teaching in history is below what is readily available just by watching some movies for a few evenings.
Net, for formal education in K-12 and the first two years of college, it's a huge waste of time, money, and effort for all concerned and can mostly be replaced by good materials (mostly not yet available but easily could be) on the Internet, thus, letting students get on with independent learning in areas of their interests and/or more advanced formal education.
People should say, "I want good education, but I'm not going to pay a lot for what's in K-12 and the first two years of college now."
Nah -- you aren't being radical enough!
For example, it isn't necessary to know the multiplication tables in order to read mathematics at university.
The argument about basic knowledge (also known as 'gateway knowledge' i.e. stuff you need to know in order to learn most other things), is back-to-front.
If there's something you're interested in, you will learn whatever gateway knowledge is necessary to learn it or learn it more fully.
e.g. football -- you will learn to count in order to keep score
e.g. multiplayer games -- you will learn more language in order to communicate with other players
e.g. harry potter -- you will learn more english in order to read the books
e.g. selling goods at market stalls -- you will learn multiplication
In each case the learner will learn more quickly and more efficiently than in the classroom. He will learn whatever it is 'just in time' and he won't be burdened by stuff he doesn't need. And he will remember it, as required, with no testing and no exams.
So, it isn't necessary to force people to learn basic stuff. We're almost certainly wrong about what constitutes the basics, anyway. (Curricula change very slowly, according to fashion, and are shielded from criticism.)
The 3Rs are okay: They are easy enough to learn and useful quite generally.
Part of schooling is becoming a member of a country's workforce. One must learn some things to be a benefit to society - it is not just about self-directed "hedonistic" learning (ie learning only to meet ones own perceived desires).
Indeed with some forced learning one can come to understand that one's previous desires were short-sighted and wouldn't ultimately lead to the pleasure one imagined.
For example, some who watch Harry Potter movies might not apply themselves to learning to read in order to enjoy the books; even if ultimately this lead them to greater enjoyment of more varied literature and indeed more fulfilment.