Originally posted by -FSP-
Having been a product of the American public school system, I feel that pedagogy is a joke.
It isn't the pedagogy that is the problem, it's the whole system. Teachers cannot possibly cater to the individual needs of 40-50 students. Teachers cannot be expected to keep 40-50 unruly kids under control when they have no means of punishment. Not to mention that parents are increasingly spending less and less time with their kids, which means less discipline and less encouragement. None of this is conducive to efficient learning for all students. While a large group of kids are able to learn within the current conditions, a lot cannot and they fall through the cracks.
Gotta love countries that want to spend all their money on the military and hate taxes.
Lira
quote:
Originally posted by Theresa
It isn't the pedagogy that is the problem, it's the whole system. Teachers cannot possibly cater to the individual needs of 40-50 students. Teachers cannot be expected to keep 40-50 unruly kids under control when they have no means of punishment. Not to mention that parents are increasingly spending less and less time with their kids, which means less discipline and less encouragement. None of this is conducive to efficient learning for all students. While a large group of kids are able to learn within the current conditions, a lot cannot and they fall through the cracks.
Gotta love countries that want to spend all their money on the military and hate taxes.
Oh, I assumed it had something to do with John Dewey.
Theresa
quote:
Originally posted by Lira
Oh, I assumed it had something to do with John Dewey.
Assuming the American school system is at least marginally similar to Canada's, I am willing to bet that the things I mentioned are the primary problems.
-FSP-
quote:
Originally posted by Lira
Why?
Because they let jobbers keep their jobs here. In high school, I've had teachers who's idea of teaching was to read in class to ourselves and then do problems as they went off to la la land surfing the net. That doesn't feel like a classroom environment to me, I expect at least a short lecture. And sometimes, some of them were absent much of the time, and we were relegated to doing homework stuff, and not classroom material.
In the same school, there was even an openly racist teacher. Thankfully, I've never had that teacher. There were teachers there who wanted to be like a peer to you too, and students naturally took advantage of this.
And on the other corner of my country, they wanted to teach intelligent design as science. :wtf:
The thing that made me mad when I was in high school was that there was no room for lateral thinking. I know the value of learning fundamental knowledge should come before anything else, but the system just rewards rote memory. I don't think that students can pick themselves up by their own bootstraps intellectually as a result.
I think Noam Chomsky said it best; I'l let him finish what else I have to say:
FuzzQi
Since the 80s being a teacher has sucked even further than what it used to. And that is a summary of my literature review for last year's project.
Lilith
Anyone who wants a professional, detailed and unbiased diatribe from me about what I know, can simply pay for it like everyone else has to. Wikipedia topics on a lot of those three particular points isn't exactly highly regarded.
Jake Benson
quote:
Originally posted by Theresa
Most women aren't brought up being told to achieve academic success or to seek intelligence.
That's such total old school bull. Most colleges in the U.S. have more women than men enrolled in them because an entire generation of women grew up hearing "you can do better than men, men treat you bad, don't let them tear you down." When is this going to stop?
I'm sure wikipedia pages are created by older people where the gender inequalities are greater. But right around the age of 30 it starts tipping into the opposite direction. Now that old feminists have created a world sensitive to the plight of women which hardly exists anymore, we're going to have a United States dominated by women in another 30 years. This is good when I need a beginners tutorial though, because women are way better at communicating things. I think they make better teachers in general too because they talk about the subject like it's a flower, adding ornamental details to it which strangely piques my interest.
The17sss
quote:
Originally posted by Theresa
Gotta love countries that want to spend all their money on the military and hate taxes.
lol... huh? Sounds like someone's been absorbing the good old talking points again! We spend about 4% of our GDP on the military... around 25th on the list of countries (granted we have a large GDP). There are plenty of other ways we waste our money. About 6% of our GDP is spent on education, and it is by far at its highest levels in our history right now... obviously throwing money at the schools isn't solving anything. And name me a country that loves taxes! That being said, we have the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world.
Moongoose
quote:
Originally posted by The17sss
That being said, we have the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world.
Which doesnt actually mean anything since because of those lovely loopholes big corporations (off the top of my head GE) dont actually pay any taxes :p So it woudnt really matter if the corporate tax rate was 99%. there is no difference between 10%, 25% or 99% of 0 :)
Oh and i read or watched something just this week about 36b of (your) tax money to be given to big oil over the next few years...now thats money put to good use!
tubularbills
don't those numbers match TA as well?
Theresa
quote:
Originally posted by Jake Benson
That's such total old school bull. Most colleges in the U.S. have more women than men enrolled in them because an entire generation of women grew up hearing "you can do better than men, men treat you bad, don't let them tear you down." When is this going to stop?
I'm sure wikipedia pages are created by older people where the gender inequalities are greater. But right around the age of 30 it starts tipping into the opposite direction. Now that old feminists have created a world sensitive to the plight of women which hardly exists anymore, we're going to have a United States dominated by women in another 30 years. This is good when I need a beginners tutorial though, because women are way better at communicating things. I think they make better teachers in general too because they talk about the subject like it's a flower, adding ornamental details to it which strangely piques my interest.
Again, there is much debate about why that is happening. When you include statistics of trade schools, the numbers are a bit more leveled out, and the higher levels of education are still dominated by men.
However, an emphasis on the importance of education doesn't change the fact the women are still being socialized to believe that motherhood and being a good wife are important. Women are now expected to take on the "double workload" - they should work a full-time job all day, then come home, take care of the kids and handle all the housework. It isn't excluding the "old school bull"... it's just adding other stuff on top of it.
"plight of women which hardly exists anymore" - while I will agree that women have overcome incredible hurdles and comparatively, have it a million times better than some minorities and women in other countries, their "plight" is certainly not non-existent. Women still have a lot to fight for and there are still a lot of areas where women are not treated fairly and have yet to get true equality, especially non-white women.
"United States dominated by women"... I highly doubt that. Like I said, the highest levels of education are still dominated by men. Obviously that means women are still going to be put into lower level positions than men a lot of the time. Not to mention, who is going to make a woman who has children to take care of, the CEO of a company? Unless a woman purely rejects the social norm of being a housewife and mother, she is not likely to get demanding positions like CEO. Sure, there may be some exceptions, but I don't believe that will become the norm.
quote:
Originally posted by The17sss
lol... huh? Sounds like someone's been absorbing the good old talking points again! We spend about 4% of our GDP on the military... around 25th on the list of countries (granted we have a large GDP). There are plenty of other ways we waste our money. About 6% of our GDP is spent on education, and it is by far at its highest levels in our history right now... obviously throwing money at the schools isn't solving anything. And name me a country that loves taxes! That being said, we have the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world.
Source? Anything I have read suggests that a lot more money is being spent on the military, and definitely more than what is spent on education. However, I do have a difficult time finding official government produced data, so if you can direct me, that would be awesome.
As for loving taxes... a lot of European countries love their taxes because it translates into better living. Sweden and Denmark are among the highest taxed countries in the entire world, and they also have some of the highest happiness ratings, primarily because those taxes provide them with excellent social programs.
I will agree however, that throwing money at a problem will not always fix it. Obviously the U.S. needs to have much more stringent requirements to be a teacher and I am sure there are a lot of other things that need to be sorted out. In Canada however, I really do believe that throwing money at the problem would effectively fix the issues. Our teachers are highly qualified... they are just too overworked, and spread too thin.
The17sss
quote:
Originally posted by Theresa
Source? Anything I have read suggests that a lot more money is being spent on the military, and definitely more than what is spent on education. However, I do have a difficult time finding official government produced data, so if you can direct me, that would be awesome.
As for loving taxes... a lot of European countries love their taxes because it translates into better living. Sweden and Denmark are among the highest taxed countries in the entire world, and they also have some of the highest happiness ratings, primarily because those taxes provide them with excellent social programs.
Growing social programs (and thus growing bureaucracies) that are relying more and more on taxation from a shrinking number of private sector tax payers; the inevitable collapse/rationing/cutting is happening now. Spain's jobless rate just hit 20.3% and we've all seen what's happening in Greece over the past year. It works for a while, but ultimately it's unsustainable, and it's gonna get ugly soon.
quote:
I will agree however, that throwing money at a problem will not always fix it. Obviously the U.S. needs to have much more stringent requirements to be a teacher and I am sure there are a lot of other things that need to be sorted out.
This would be nice. If/when I have kids, I'm going to do everything I can to find good private schools for them... if they haven't been run out of operation by then.
