Shoot the Wall (A.K.A. The Rant Thread)

[Carol the Dabbler]

8 minutes ago, Artemis said:

While we're on the subject, have people seen this video, and what do you think?  It's a case for curriculum reform.

 

 

I came to roughly the same conclusion when I was teaching high-school math.  Seems to me if you force a kid to stay in school studying things they don't see the point of, they'll just learn to hate learning, and will probably never open a book again.

 

[Artemis]

1 minute ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

Seems to me if you force a kid to stay in school studying things they don't see the point of, they'll just learn to hate learning, and will probably never open a book again.

I agree.  When I was in high school they made it mandatory for students to read a certain number of books per year in order to move up to the next grade.  I thought it was a terrible idea.  I never had a problem with it personally, because I was a reader anyway.  But the point was to nudge students who weren't normally readers on their own into reading more, and I observed that it had the opposite effect, only serving to make them hate reading even more.  There are ways to foster an interest in reading, but enforcing it with a penalty isn't one of them.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Donald in Mathmagic Land is on YouTube.  (Sorry, dunno how to link to it from my phone.)

I just noticed that one of the crew members is Vincent McEveety, who later directed some episodes of Star Trek.

[Sheerluck]

Hi folks, it's been a while. A few thoughts after watching that video. 

While some points are valid in some countries I guess, much of what was said was pretty much false for me. I was at a grammar school and was taught how to do pretty much everything he said he didn't get taught. School must have changed a lot since then, but even then, much of the practical matters were taught at 'optional' extra-curricular activities.

For education reform, I refer you to the essay by Dorothy L Sayers.

http://www.gbt.org/text/sayers.html

[Artemis]

I think it depends a lot on the school and location, and there has been a lot of change.  I wasn’t taught any of the things he said he didn’t get taught, even as an optional elective or extracurricular, so I can relate a bit.

My question is how we determine what is really necessary and what isn’t, which I think is an interesting issue.  There is a lot of knowledge, especially in the context of history and science, which may not be directly applicable, but I think is still important to impart students with a deeper understanding of life.  But then what possibly more current and practical things do you sacrifice to teach those.  What about music and the arts?  What is more useful: cursive, shorthand, or sign language?  There are only so many hours in a day.

 

[Sheerluck]

Clearly, if something isn't going to make you a Youtube star they should chuck it. 🙄

On a serious note though, it's the progression of how things are presented that can lead to the best possible outcome. We should study how things can build on each other and branch into new areas rather than throwing everything at the pupil without any support.

Support is key also. My nieces have far too much 'homework'. They are expected to learn everything it seems, on their own, with only their parents or *shudder* the internet to help them. 

[Artemis]

6 minutes ago, Sheerluck said:

Support is key also. My nieces have far too much 'homework'. They are expected to learn everything it seems, on their own, with only their parents or *shudder* the internet to help them.

^ Yes, 100% agreed.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

I agree with that Sayers essay, learning how to communicate and how to think are crucial -- though I don't think it needs to be formal rhetoric or formal logic.

For example, I had one student in my general math class who clearly chafed at being in school.  He told me he was hoping to transfer into a trade school, and he finally was able to.  When I saw him later on the street, he was enthusiastic about his new school, and I have no doubt that he's doing well in life.

There's a private school in Massachusetts called the Sudbury Valley School where (as I understand it) there are no required subjects, and in fact no formal classes.  The students are provided with source material for whatever they want to study, and faculty members are there to provide assistance.  The only requirement for graduation is that they go before a committee and convince them that they are prepared to be responsible for themselves.

So clearly, meaningful learning can take a number of forms.  The main difficulty I see in designing an educational system is the same difficulty that we encounter everywhere in life, namely who gets to decide what's important?  And how do we avoid a one-size-fits-all system?

[Sheerluck]

Money. It comes down to money. Money equals choice.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Money sure doesn't hurt!  But there is definitely such a thing as a very expensive worthless education.  And it's also possible to have a very modestly-funded excellent education.  My father was prevented from finishing high school, but he was one of the best-educated people I've ever known, simply because he was curious about everything, and never stopped learning.

[Arcadia]

I'm with Sheerluck on this one; most of what the video mentioned, I learned in school. Why the guy in the video didn't is up for debate. But the one place where I feel like I didn't learn much at all, where they just rehashed what I had already learned elsewhere, was in a school system that was overcrowded and underfunded. It was also in a neighborhood where the parents were much less likely to be educated themselves, and, dare I say it … less likely to think education was valuable.

Yet I'm quite sure even that school system managed to produce its share of thoughtful, knowledgeable, well-rounded individuals. Some people are just more hard-wired to learn than others, I think … or have better support systems when they aren't. And others attend the best schools in the country and still drop out at the first chance. I don't know what the answer is, but I agree, Carol … money sure helps. But try convincing taxpayers of that.

[Carol the Dabbler]

2 hours ago, Arcadia said:

I agree, Carol … money sure helps.

Actually, I said it sure doesn't hurt.

In my opinion, the most important factor is the attitude toward school that the parents demonstrate to their children -- or failing that, the teacher's attitude -- and hopefully the administrators' as well.  If the adults don't care, the kids are far less likely to care, and if the kids don't care, then the kids won't learn.  Contrariwise, even one passionate adult can inspire a kid.  All regardless of the school's budget.

[Artemis]

11 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

If the adults don't care, the kids are far less likely to care, and if the kids don't care, then the kids won't learn.  Contrariwise, even one passionate adult can inspire a kid.  All regardless of the school's budget.

^ I have to agree.

I started out in a school run by the small Baptist church my parents attended.  So it was a private school, but it was poor.  Dirt poor.  Our 'library' was some shelves in a closet, lol.  But the education was overall pretty good, and here's why: They expected more of us.  They taught at a more advanced level, so we learned at a more advanced level.  I think that schools tend to severely underestimate what most children are able to learn.

In 8th grade, I switched to the public school system; and it was like jumping backwards 4 or 5 grades.  That was a very difficult adjustment for me.  My public school was what people would consider an underfunded school, yet it had far, far more money per student than my private school had.  My teachers made twice as much, maybe even thrice, yet they would constantly complain to us, in class, how little money they had.  "A dollar a day" was a common phrase.  The pottery class only had two aprons, and the school refused to buy more; so it was first come first serve, and every morning was a race to the aprons, lol.  The piano for the piano class was horribly out of tune.  I asked why the school wouldn't get it tuned, and they said it was too expensive.  I asked how much it cost, and they said about $75.  Those are just two examples, but there were a lot of things like that, and the answer was always "We can't afford it.  Tell your parents to use their votes for better funding."

Well, when I was in 10th or 11th grade, they did get funding, and my school was awarded a huge amount of money.  You know what they did with it?  The teachers got new laptops, and the rest was used to build a new hockey rink, to replace an old hockey rink that had nothing wrong with it.  Nothing went towards education or the students.  (I mentioned in an earlier post that around this time I was becoming disillusioned with the education system, and this sort of thing is why it started.)

Based on my experience, and what I saw happening in other schools, I just can't buy into the money excuse.  Some schools are underfunded, it's true; and properly distributed, that money could go a long way.  But in my opinion it has very little to do with the quality of education the students receive.

 

[T.o.b.y]

2 hours ago, Artemis said:

^ I have to agree.

I started out in a school run by the small Baptist church my parents attended.  So it was a private school, but it was poor.  Dirt poor.  Our 'library' was some shelves in a closet, lol.  But the education was overall pretty good, and here's why: They expected more of us.  They taught at a more advanced level, so we learned at a more advanced level.  I think that schools tend to severely underestimate what most children are able to learn.

In 8th grade, I switched to the public school system; and it was like jumping backwards 4 or 5 grades.  That was a very difficult adjustment for me.  My public school was what people would consider an underfunded school, yet it had far, far more money per student than my private school had.  My teachers made twice as much, maybe even thrice, yet they would constantly complain to us, in class, how little money they had.  "A dollar a day" was a common phrase.  The pottery class only had two aprons, and the school refused to buy more; so it was first come first serve, and every morning was a race to the aprons, lol.  The piano for the piano class was horribly out of tune.  I asked why the school wouldn't get it tuned, and they said it was too expensive.  I asked how much it cost, and they said about $75.  Those are just two examples, but there were a lot of things like that, and the answer was always "We can't afford it.  Tell your parents to use their votes for better funding."

Well, when I was in 10th or 11th grade, they did get funding, and my school was awarded a huge amount of money.  You know what they did with it?  The teachers got new laptops, and the rest was used to build a new hockey rink, to replace an old hockey rink that had nothing wrong with it.  Nothing went towards education or the students.  (I mentioned in an earlier post that around this time I was becoming disillusioned with the education system, and this sort of thing is why it started.)

Based on my experience, and what I saw happening in other schools, I just can't buy into the money excuse.  Some schools are underfunded, it's true; and properly distributed, that money could go a long way.  But in my opinion it has very little to do with the quality of education the students receive.

 

My experience was very similar to yours. I also attended a small, fairly new private school that was run by lower middle class people in a poor area and chronically under-funded. But the teachers really cared - about us, about education, about the school, about the subjects they taught. And my parents were very involved with the school, my mother was on all kinds of boards and committees and my father worked overtime to pay my tuition and buy my books and all the other stuff we needed. When I got to university, I joined a group that volunteered to help out with sex education at public schools (yup, I got an actual license to be an assistant sex-educator, lol) and once I saw the schools, I understood why my parents had put up with the chaos and cost and personal involvement at mine...

[Arcadia]

It's true, none of the schools I went to had much emphasis on sports. Except the one that I didn't learn much from. Hmmmm, a connection? 😉 

Also, all my schools were pretty small schools, except for that one … which I suspect is more to the point. I never will forget the geography class at that school … one teacher, 120 students. Yeah, we got a lot of individualized attention … NOT.

[Carol the Dabbler]

3 hours ago, Arcadia said:

... all my schools were pretty small schools, except for that one … which I suspect is more to the point. I never will forget the geography class at that school … one teacher, 120 students. Yeah, we got a lot of individualized attention … NOT.

120 students and no sections?  Any time I've been involved in such a large class (once as a student and once as a teaching assistant), we would also meet in smaller groups with a TA to answer questions, grade papers, etc.

It's my personal opinion that today's larger schools -- even though they make it possible to have facilities that we never dreamed of, like swimming pools -- have lead to the depersonalization of education.  Nobody knows anybody, so there's no accountability, which can lead to anything from poor grades to shootings.

[Artemis]

We never received individualized attention at any of my schools, regardless of class size.  (Unless you count teachers singling me out for humiliating punishments when I did nothing wrong, or calling me “The Loser” instead of by my name.    That’s ‘individualized attention’, I guess.)  My lessons were taught the same way by all of my teachers: lecture at the front until the bell rang, and then homework.  The only real difference was what we were learning.  None of my teachers seemed to really care about their students or their jobs, and a few actually said as much.  My 6th/7th grade teacher was the worst, ugh.  Parents were pretty uninvolved as well.  My church school didn’t even have a committee or PTA.  The pastor/principal was the committee, lol.

I never had a class size of 120 though, except in college classes.  Wow.  My high school was built in the late 1800’s, so we didn’t even have rooms big enough to accommodate that many students at a time.  The most we could squeeze into a room was maybe 40, but my typical class size was more along the lines of 25 or 30 at most.

 

[Artemis]

So when I was in middle school (because all these memories are flooding back now), my teacher asked the class if anyone ate cottage cheese, and I was the only one to raise my hand.  She said that cottage cheese was disgusting and I was disgusting for eating it, and she couldn’t believe I would eat something so gross.  She claimed she was going to bring in some cottage cheese so they could all watch me eat it, and prove I was telling the truth.  I said I would be happy to eat it, because we ate it at home and I liked it.  She never did bring in the cottage cheese, but later some of my bullies beat me up for “trying to be different”.  Good Lord, all I did was answer a question.  What was I thinking...

So that was a typical hour of a school day.   

Edit: Now I'm hungry for cottage cheese, lol.  *Heads to the fridge...*

 

[Sheerluck]

My school was not very different. My teachers seemed to delight in tweaking the noses of anyone that stood out for any reason. I had the misfortune of being especially adept at maths and science. I was encouraged (re: forced) to take part in national maths and physics competitions, but the teachers would point out that fact my class and I would end up cornered in the library or other quiet spot by several larger boys who would then proceed to explain in very physical terms what they thought of my abilities.

My head said it was only roughplay and that it was all in good fun. Twaddle.

[Arcadia]

8 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

120 students and no sections?  Any time I've been involved in such a large class (once as a student and once as a teaching assistant), we would also meet in smaller groups with a TA to answer questions, grade papers, etc.

Not for that class, no. What they did was open the folding walls between three classrooms. There was a monitor to squelch troublemakers, but otherwise, just a lecturer and slides. Then they'd close the walls again and each class would go on to a different subject. Why they did it that way, I haven't a clue. To this day geography is still one of my weakest areas.

I'm sorry other people didn't get to enjoy their school experiences. Mine wasn't grand all the time, but on the whole, it was a very positive thing. And if mine was, then other people's could be, and should be … if as a society, we would commit to it. Imo.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

6 hours ago, Artemis said:

We never received individualized attention at any of my schools, regardless of class size.

  But what if you had questions???

40 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

I'm sorry other people didn't get to enjoy their school experiences. Mine wasn't grand all the time, but on the whole, it was a very positive thing.

Some of our teachers were a bit weak in their subject areas, but all in all I enjoyed school.  The only teacher that I thought treated me somewhat unfairly was in second grade, so at least I got past that pretty quickly.

And we were always allowed the opportunity to ask questions.  In general, we could raise our hands at any time and the teacher would pause to let us ask.  How the heck is anyone supposed to learn anything if they can't get clarification???

[Artemis]

15 minutes ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

But what if you had questions???

Youuuu figured it out for yourself?
 

"Look it up after class."

"It's in the book."

"That's what homework is for."

"You have to learn how to teach yourself."

"That's a discussion for another time."

"Ask your parents."

Etc.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

42 minutes ago, Artemis said:

Youuuu figured it out for yourself

And the teachers were being paid for what?

 

[Artemis]

On 10/7/2018 at 11:11 PM, Carol the Dabbler said:

And the teachers were being paid for what?

Ah, the eternal question... 

In all seriousness though, there were lessons/lecture, so that counts as teaching, right?

 

[Pseudonym]

At risk of ranting and being off topic... 😛

My f*cking car strikes again. The battery was disconnected all weekend, connected it back up this morning, got in, bloody thing won't start. Breakdown service said they can't come out for three hours. Finally managed to jump it, drove down to main road, bloody thing died again, at traffic lights, in rush hour traffic. EVENTUALLY jumped it again,  got it to a lay-by, it died again. Jumped it AGAIN, and then sat there revving it for half an hour with my foot spasming. It's half 8, I just got into work, and I'm utterly exhausted.