Paging school teachers

[bmc]

This is a disturbing article. What are your thoughts on it?

The Dumbing-Down of America - Yahoo! News

[bassybill]

It's a situation that's largely mirrored over here. It's easy to blame the schools and teachers, but the fact is that a lot of kids still do well at school, so what's on offer works for them.

I think something that contributes to this problem is an anti-intellectualism that's always been around, but seems worse now than it was in the past. If you're a kid at school who likes to learn, reads a lot or takes an interest in your academic subjects, then you're a "nerd" or "geek". It's less cool to be clever now that it ever was. It's much more cool to be like the guys and gals in whatever music videos your pals happen to be into.

On a separate but related note, there are too many distractions for kids today in the form of TV, video games, movies, internet and so on. None of these media are bad in themselves and they all have great educational potential, but this certainly isn't always apparent in their everyday mass consumption. I'd really like to see kids spending more time reading some challenging books, in a wide range of genres, fictional and factual. Reading books gives you a better command of the language, and that in itself improves other skills including writing and critical analysis. There's some strong links between language capability and thinking skills.

[jmattbassplaya]

Besides the random racial slant at the end, the article expresses something that's been well known for awhile now (or at least well known to people who take an active role in the education of our nation's youth). The thing that makes me sad about our youth isn't just that they're ignorant in a lot of subjects, it's that many of them take pride in their ignorance and boast about not studying for tests, not doing their homework, and for just barely scrapping by and being 'average'.

[hrodbert696]

To tell the truth, panicky articles about how the school kids are failing to learn are pretty routine... and have been for decades. I mean, since the 1930s or so decades. I find it a bit ironic that an article about how our kids have no sense of history itself includes no historic data about student achievement that goes back farther than five years. Does anyone think kids living out on the frontier in the 1880s or something had a fantastic grasp of the ins and outs of Revolutionary military history?

There are always underachievers aplenty. There are always the few -- few -- that study seriously and shine. There are always incompetent teachers and there are always classroom heroes. Education is and always will be a constant uphill battle against indifference.

[Jim Nazium]

Originally Posted by hrodbert696

To tell the truth, panicky articles about how the school kids are failing to learn are pretty routine... and have been for decades

I agree. I've been hearing stories like this as long as I can remember (and I'm 46). I think it partly represents a generational bias from the person asking the question. Pat Buchanan's generation is shocked that today's kids don't know much about WWII or the Korean war. OK, that's a shame. But how many people of Pat's generation know how to send a text message or operate an ipod?

[bmc]

Originally Posted by Jim Nazium

But how many people of Pat's generation know how to send a text message or operate an ipod?

Apples to oranges.

One is about operating a device. The other is about knowing some contextual history about how your country eveolved, who were the important people and events that set the country on the path it's on.

Knowing how to text or download your favorite Justin Bieber tune, is undoubtedly, important stuff.

[Jim Nazium]

Originally Posted by bmc

Apples to oranges.

I know it's apples to oranges. That's the point. When someone says "kids today don't know anything", what they really mean is "kids today don't know the things I consider important". That is partly because kids today consider different things important. Use of technology is an important skill in 2011. If you can't copy and paste text from a Word document to an e-mail, or search for something using Google, you are missing an important skill. What percentage of people Pat's age can do those things? What's more likely to come up in an interview for an entry level job - computer skills or 20th century history?

[dbhokie]

I love how it all comes down to a class warfare problem.

Problem is, especially in America, kids are no longer taught how to think, they haven't been in quite some time. They are taught what to think. Standardized tests in attempts to bring equity amongst the "castes" and "classes" have done nothing but ruined learning. Kids are taught what to think to prepare for tests, and no longer taught how to think and use their brain. You end up with a bunch of zombies regurgitating someone else's thoughts about someone else, about someone else, instead of them actually thinking about the subject matter.

Frankly, I don't give a crap what people know about this or that, they should know how to think in whatever field they choose. Now we just have a bunch of insufferable know-it-alls who know little about all, and all about nothing.

End Rant. (a lot of tongue-in-cheek)

[tbrannon]

Originally Posted by dbhokie

I love how it all comes down to a class warfare problem.

Problem is, especially in America, kids are no longer taught how to think, they haven't been in quite some time. They are taught what to think. Standardized tests in attempts to bring equity amongst the "castes" and "classes" have done nothing but ruined learning. Kids are taught what to think to prepare for tests, and no longer taught how to think and use their brain. You end up with a bunch of zombies regurgitating someone else's thoughts about someone else, about someone else, instead of them actually thinking about the subject matter.

Frankly, I don't give a crap what people know about this or that, they should know how to think in whatever field they choose. Now we just have a bunch of insufferable know-it-alls who know little about all, and all about nothing.

End Rant. (a lot of tongue-in-cheek)

Agreed.

I've taught for 15 years- in one of the lowest income school districts in California, in one of the best prep schools in NZ and now in a very good school district in CA. The 'problems' are the same no matter where you go in the western world.

Just my opinion, but the assumption that every single student wants to go to college is asinine. The NCLB laws here are ridiculous and as a result, we're seeing a generation of students who would have become skilled workers (plumbers, carpenters, mechanics, etc) sit on their asses in class until they're 18- taking classes that they may not be interested in and which will have little to no impact on what they actually want to do with their lives. Not to say that everyone who goes into skilled labor does poorly in school, but there are a ton of kids who sit in classrooms and get very, very little out of what's being taught.

I always tell my classes that the 'stuff' you learn in school is not really all that important- school is for learning how to learn. Stretch your brain in new directions, learn how to think in ways that you're not good at on your own. It's like the basketball player who is a great athlete, but a horrible shooter and ball handler. He'll be a better ball player by practicing the things that don't come naturally- rather than spend time polishing his dunks.

[jmattbassplaya]

Originally Posted by tbrannon

Agreed.

I've taught for 15 years- in one of the lowest income school districts in California, in one of the best prep schools in NZ and now in a very good school district in CA. The 'problems' are the same no matter where you go in the western world.

Just my opinion, but the assumption that every single student wants to go to college is asinine. The NCLB laws here are ridiculous and as a result, we're seeing a generation of students who would have become skilled workers (plumbers, carpenters, mechanics, etc) sit on their asses in class until they're 18- taking classes that they may not be interested in and which will have little to no impact on what they actually want to do with their lives. Not to say that everyone who goes into skilled labor does poorly in school, but there are a ton of kids who sit in classrooms and get very, very little out of what's being taught.

I always tell my classes that the 'stuff' you learn in school is not really all that important- school is for learning how to learn. Stretch your brain in new directions, learn how to think in ways that you're not good at on your own. It's like the basketball player who is a great athlete, but a horrible shooter and ball handler. He'll be a better ball player by practicing the things that don't come naturally- rather than spend time polishing his dunks.

I decided to keep my mouth shut in the last thread about this, but, honestly, the distinction between high school and college seems to be becoming somewhat blurry as well. Many older guys on this forum have often said that college is where you 'go to gain your critical thinking skills'. Unfortunately, and this is coming from a senior in college, even colleges are 'teaching for the test' these days.

The simple fact of the matter is that the higher education system has become a money-making industry. All they care about is cramming as many customers into a room as possible so that they can gain as much money in tuition as possible. There's almost no intimacy between students and teachers, and there's ever less interaction that would allow critical thinking skills to be obtained.

[MakiSupaStar]

Originally Posted by tbrannon

Agreed.

I've taught for 15 years- in one of the lowest income school districts in California, in one of the best prep schools in NZ and now in a very good school district in CA. The 'problems' are the same no matter where you go in the western world.

Just my opinion, but the assumption that every single student wants to go to college is asinine. The NCLB laws here are ridiculous and as a result, we're seeing a generation of students who would have become skilled workers (plumbers, carpenters, mechanics, etc) sit on their asses in class until they're 18- taking classes that they may not be interested in and which will have little to no impact on what they actually want to do with their lives. Not to say that everyone who goes into skilled labor does poorly in school, but there are a ton of kids who sit in classrooms and get very, very little out of what's being taught.

I always tell my classes that the 'stuff' you learn in school is not really all that important- school is for learning how to learn. Stretch your brain in new directions, learn how to think in ways that you're not good at on your own. It's like the basketball player who is a great athlete, but a horrible shooter and ball handler. He'll be a better ball player by practicing the things that don't come naturally- rather than spend time polishing his dunks.

Both of these pretty much sum it up for me. I've been teaching for ten years now and I'm seeing an alarming focus on pushing kids toward test taking skills, and regurgitating data related to the test like good little robots. The majority of my students come from low income households with a lot of people living in close proximity to each other with a tv on in every room. They don't read, don't know how to read (at grade level), yet reading at school (or at least the meditative process of reading silently to yourself in which you mentally imagine the story or characters) has been eliminated from my curriculum. If I decided to implement it, and my principal walked in, she'd pull me into her office to ask why I was doing it. District wide, the novel has been eliminated from the curriculum for 7th and 8th grade, in favor of smaller, easier-to-digest, watered-down excerpts of politically-correct, multi-cultural stories from a text book. I have been very vocal about this. I find it alarming. The response I get back. 'Not everyone is going to be an English major'. While this is true, my response back is 'you don't have to be an English major to enjoy a good story, or to posses the skill to read through the rich literary history of the written word'.

But I can see why they did it. No one reads anymore. It's common to hear grown adults say 'I'm not a reader, or I don't read books' and you get a bunch of people not only nodding their heads in agreement, but accepting this response as almost wise and intelligent. Instead they prefer to watch the same movies over and over again as they're re-released, and then re-re-released in 3-D.

It's not just English, but history too. They don't read historical novels. My students last year read My Brother Sam is Dead. It's about how sides were chosen and families were divided and then united in the midst of the revolutionary war. The discussions that came out of that book my students will remember for the rest of their lives. As well as the essay they wrote where they had to create a thesis and support it, based upon the question 'how do know which side of war is right?'. I had all of my 32 students turn in a paper on that topic. The reason why they liked it? Common response was because it made them think. They were the last students to read a novel in 8th grade. I'm not just concerned about what they're missing, but the inference they get from removing and devaluing reading a novel.

I teach students how to learn and approach problems looking for solutions in both English and Computers. But more and more I'm being pushed away from this in favor of teaching them how to talk about and analyze their test scores. I call it the data kool-aid. It reminds me more and more of 1984, and Farenheight 451 (those are novels kids) and more and more, I'm reminded of the truth in that George Carlin rant.

[MakiSupaStar]

Z

[Absentia]

Stated wonderfully Maki.

[electracoyote]

So kids are confused about history, eh? Is there any wonder? We can't even collectively decide how to properly tell the story of our nation's history. No one is ever satisfied, someone is always offended, there are so many perspectives from which our history can be told. School districts keep playing loose and fast with the formats, and kids ultimately walk away confused.

And guess what? The same thing is happening in other core disciplines. The ideologues are constantly at odds as to how things should be taught, and even what should be taught. Our public shools are nothing more than one long laboratory experiment that keeps getting further and futher from the desired result.

I blame government interference, public school boards, and public school administrators for lack of guts, focus, and direction. This is why I took an early retirement from public education. It's a mess, and it's getting messier every year. I still have two kids in public high school, and I'm starting to feel like a bad parent for not providing them a better opportunity for a primary education.

[macaroni tony]

Jeebus, Maki, don't get yourself kicked out again!

[Relic]

Originally Posted by electracoyote

So kids are confused about history, eh? Is there any wonder? We can't even collectively decide how to properly tell the story of our nation's history. No one is ever satisfied, someone is always offended, there are so many perspectives from which our history can be told. School districts keep playing loose and fast with the formats, and kids ultimately walk away confused.

And guess what? The same thing is happening in other core disciplines. The ideologues are constantly at odds as to how things should be taught, and even what should be taught. Our public shools are nothing more than one long laboratory experiment that keeps getting further and futher from the desired result.

I blame government interference, public school boards, and public school administrators for lack of guts, focus, and direction. This is why I took an early retirement from public education. It's a mess, and it's getting messier every year. I still have two kids in public high school, and I'm starting to feel like a bad parent for not providing them a better opportunity for a primary education.

In that respect, I blame GREED plain and simple.

Here in NJ it's at an all time friggen' disgusting level. With our teacher's union "marching" on our statehouse to protest cuts to their benefits behind a sign reading "The Second Battle of Trenton"... these are our teachers. Uh...history 101 - There were ALREADY TWO battles of Trenton during 1776. I mean, this is just a teeny tiny example of the mentality and idiocy of what goes on in this state.
Then to make matters worse, you have the "culture of dumb" here were to be a straight A student, is considered a negative, where attitude, disdain for authority and disrespect for others are considered positive attributes. I just dont know where and when it's going to end.

And just to clarify lest anyone think I'm blaming teachers specifically - teachers deserve better than that. They should have a union that is about them and the kids and not about $ and politics ONLY, and we as parents should work beside them and not against them.

[aborgman]

Originally Posted by electracoyote

So kids are confused about history, eh? Is there any wonder? We can't even collectively decide how to properly tell the story of our nation's history. No one is ever satisfied, someone is always offended, there are so many perspectives from which our history can be told. School districts keep playing loose and fast with the formats, and kids ultimately walk away confused.

As far as history goes - that is probably exactly what folks should learn from it.

It's always biased, it's always subjective, and there are always hundreds of valid viewpoints.

...and we'll never know the reality.

[aborgman]

Originally Posted by electracoyote

I blame government interference, public school boards, and public school administrators for lack of guts, focus, and direction.

I blame the folks that hire those school boards which hire those incompetent administrators.

[electracoyote]

Originally Posted by aborgman

As far as history goes - that is probably exactly what folks should learn from it.

Good point.

Until some of those valid viewpoints, even those supported by factual data, become politically incorrect and get dropped from the curriculum.

Then we have something very different from education going on.

[EricF]

Originally Posted by MakiSupaStar

Both of these pretty much sum it up for me. I've been teaching for ten years now and I'm seeing an alarming focus on pushing kids toward test taking skills, and regurgitating data related to the test like good little robots. The majority of my students come from low income households with a lot of people living in close proximity to each other with a tv on in every room. They don't read, don't know how to read (at grade level), yet reading at school (or at least the meditative process of reading silently to yourself in which you mentally imagine the story or characters) has been eliminated from my curriculum. If I decided to implement it, and my principal walked in, she'd pull me into her office to ask why I was doing it. District wide, the novel has been eliminated from the curriculum for 7th and 8th grade, in favor of smaller, easier-to-digest, watered-down excerpts of politically-correct, multi-cultural stories from a text book. I have been very vocal about this. I find it alarming. The response I get back. 'Not everyone is going to be an English major'. While this is true, my response back is 'you don't have to be an English major to enjoy a good story, or to posses the skill to read through the rich literary history of the written word'.

But I can see why they did it. No one reads anymore. It's common to hear grown adults say 'I'm not a reader, or I don't read books' and you get a bunch of people not only nodding their heads in agreement, but accepting this response as almost wise and intelligent. Instead they prefer to watch the same movies over and over again as they're re-released, and then re-re-released in 3-D.

It's not just English, but history too. They don't read historical novels. My students last year read My Brother Sam is Dead. It's about how sides were chosen and families were divided and then united in the midst of the revolutionary war. The discussions that came out of that book my students will remember for the rest of their lives. As well as the essay they wrote where they had to create a thesis and support it, based upon the question 'how do know which side of war is right?'. I had all of my 32 students turn in a paper on that topic. The reason why they liked it? Common response was because it made them think. They were the last students to read a novel in 8th grade. I'm not just concerned about what they're missing, but the inference they get from removing and devaluing reading a novel.

I teach students how to learn and approach problems looking for solutions in both English and Computers. But more and more I'm being pushed away from this in favor of teaching them how to talk about and analyze their test scores. I call it the data kool-aid. It reminds me more and more of 1984, and Farenheight 451 (those are novels kids) and more and more, I'm reminded of the truth in that George Carlin rant.

After reading this, and recalling previous comments you've made about your District's policies, the more thankful I am that my kids are at a school where reading and writing are still encouraged and valued.

Like any public school these days, their economic survival depends heavily on standarized test scores, but they seem to have found a balance between jumping through the mandated hoops and providing a well-rounded education.

To be fair, this school is in a predominantly middle-class area where some of the home challenges of lower-income families (crowded housing, etc.) are less common.