We all complain about taxes and we all would like to pay less taxes or none at all.
But what happens when we pay less taxes?
We won’t have the public streets and highways that we want to be in pot-holeless condition.
We wont’t have fire departments coming to put out our house-fires or the neighbors’ house-fires that might expand to our house. Does that give you a clue why tax supported fire departments are a good idea? If not, consider how safe your house would be if you were the only one on your block who paid the fire department.
The same holds for police and snowplowing and street cleaning and … Would you want to be responsible for clearing the snow from the street in front of your house?
And the irony of ironies is that the “conservatives” who complain the loudest about taxes for things they don’t like want to to throw money at the military, especially if it means a military base in their district.
Oh, yes! If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you're rich, maybe your daddy paid the teacher. If you're not rich, hundreds and thousands of tax-paying citizens paid the teacher. Or, the poor kid whose education you helped pay for in your middle-age may be the doctor that saves your life in your old age.
Showing posts with label teachers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teachers. Show all posts
Monday, February 05, 2018
Tuesday, November 07, 2017
Is the Internet overhyped?
Is
the Internet overhyped?
Melvyn D. Magree
Originally published in
Northland Reader
now
Reader Weekly
May 25, 2000
Melvyn D. Magree
Originally published in
Northland Reader
now
Reader Weekly
May 25, 2000
“We know we must connect all our classrooms to the Internet...” (Pres. William J. Clinton, State of the Union Address, January 27, 2000) (1)
Really? The band room? The wood shop? The English class?
Does the band room need Internet access to provide music? Or would the money be better spent on buying sheet music and acquiring and maintaining instruments?
Does the wood shop need Internet access to provide project plans? Or would the money be better spent on acquiring and maintaining tools?
Does the English class need Internet access to provide copies of Shakespeare? Or would the money be better spent on buying hardcover copies of Shakespeare, Richard Wright, and Ursula K. Le Guin?
Clinton’s statement and similar statements by many others are indicative more of a mania to adopt the “latest and greatest” without thinking through all the consequences. This mania is seen both in government and private organizations. Sometimes it comes from the top down, sometimes from the bottom up.
“OK, Mr. Author, if the Internet is such a mania, how come you make so much use of it for your articles? And if you use it, shouldn’t school kids learn to use it?” Yes and no.
Yes, the Internet can be a wonderful tool, but it can also be a great waste of time. “A library is where you go to find facts. The web is more like a garage sale: it's possible you'll find what you want, but only with a lot of digging, searching, and wading through things that smell funny.” (2)
I found out just how true this was in researching this article. I’ll come back to this later.
No, school children can learn to use the Internet at anytime in their lives. I am active in the University for Seniors at UMD. Many of the members are using computers for a wide variety of tasks. Many of them first used a personal computer within the last ten years. The successful users among them have two common traits: a love of learning and an ability to type.
“Even some usually pro-technology types, like Apple Computer Co. founder Steven Jobs, have expressed doubts [about computers in schools], suggesting that what students need is more classroom focus on basics like writing and mathematics and higher-level skills such as critical thinking.” (3)
Because Frank James paraphrased Steve Jobs, I wanted to find Jobs’ own words. I did a search with Alta Vista for “critical thinking”, “steve jobs” “apple”, and “education”. Alta Vista found 39 web pages. The first page was an Apple page of “Hot News”. I searched it for “critical thinking”, but it had changed! It was the only Apple page of the thirty-nine.
I checked a few other pages, but most of them “smelled funny”. So, I decided to start with Apple’s home page and search within Apple’s own site. I did a search of “critical thinking, steve jobs”, but my browser (Internet Explorer 4.5 for the Macintosh) wouldn’t load the page! The URL (or address) that Apple’s search feature created was so long that it wouldn’t even fit in the error message window! I couldn’t even search for “Jobs”!!!
One of the Internet success stories is Amazon.com, a bookseller! In fact, if you do a search for something on the internet, you are quite likely to find reviews of books on the subject rather than the text as written by the original authors. Of course, you can search the Internet for free because the search site depends heavily on revenues from booksellers who want to sell you books on the subject of your choice.
One of the most optimistic works on the future of technology is Bill Gates’ The Road Ahead. It is available in good old-fashioned paper form. The only way to get the electronic form (a CD-ROM) is to buy the book. I searched for “the road ahead” on the internet, and no Microsoft page was in the first 10 pages of the 3,997 found. I went to Microsoft’s home page and did a search for “the road ahead”. The first 10 pages of the 67 found were not the text of the book. I did find that the CD-ROM might have an error! (However, on August 2, 2007, the page describing the error is no longer available.) (
Should computers be in schools at all? Of course computers should be in schools, in appropriate places. The first is in typing, sorry, keyboarding. Who wants to learn to type on a big heavy mechanical typewriter like I did over 40 years ago? But we don’t need to have the latest, biggest, fastest computers to teach typing. Even a Commodore 64 can do that. The second is in the library as an addition to a great, humongous collection of books.
For it is from books and great mentors that we learn writing, mathematics, and critical thinking. Let us make sure we have well-stocked libraries and highly-respected teachers. When we have achieved those two goals, then maybe we can think about adding computers.
(1)I accessed this quote May 4, 2000 at http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/SOTU00/sotu-text.html. That page is no longer available. I imagine each President deletes his predecessor's records after the National Archives has copied them. However, the Clinton library's copy of the speech does not have that phrase or any other mention of connecting classrooms to the Internet! After an exchange of emails with an archivist I learned that there is a briefing copy and a transcript. My search had only turned up the briefing copy. The archivist gave me the link to The American Presidency Project's copy. and the correct link in the Clinton library. I couldn't find the latter because I searched on the date of the speech, but the speech was indexed under the date of inclusion into the web site! Searching the web is not always a solo endeavour.
(2) “Kev's Collection of Cool Quotes”, Kevin Killion, accessed August 2, 2007. Kevin moved from the URL that I originally had.
(3) “Plan to wire all schools to Internet falls behind”, Chicago Tribune Online, Frank James, Chicago Tribune Washington Bureau, June 22, 1999, file available in Chicago Tribune paid archive.
©2000, 2007 Melvyn D. Magree
Monday, December 01, 2014
George Will and “Failing” schools
Here’s another letter to the editor that probably wasn’t published. This was in response to George Will’s “Tall Order for a Few Federal Dollars”. It was published in February 2001. The only easily available copy I could find was from the Southeastern Missourian, 2001-02-03 at
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1893&dat=20010203&id=H60fAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ftYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2443,4795189
The text of my letter, dated 2001-02-03 follows.
I am amazed how ideology leads a deep thinker like George Will to be as shallow as he is in “Tall Order for a Few Federal Dollars”.
At the beginning of his article, he talks about “failing schools” and how transfers to other public schools or vouchers to private schools would allow students to leave these failing schools. He goes on to list what factors lead to students’ success but he says that schools can only influence one of those factors and that additional resources won’t change any of these factors.
He also compares the “success” of private schools to the “failure” of public schools but with a superficial assumption that the student populations are identical.
He gives a measure of the skills of public school teachers without examining whether his measure is appropriate to what the teachers are doing. He also links that measure to a comparison of “cognition” of American students with that of students in other developed countries.
Furthermore, he uses that measure to show that class size won’t make any difference.
From his article and from a couple hours of newspaper and Web research, I see a different picture.
First, if students are allowed to leave “failing schools”, which students will leave? The “failing” students who are most in need of “better” teaching, or the successful students who have the advantage of the five factors of
- number of parents in home
- days absent from school
- hours spent watching television
- quantity and quality of reading matter in home
- amount of homework
If the successful students leave, won’t the failing schools fail even more? If the failing students leave, won’t they be taking their problems to other schools and lead those schools to “fail”?
Will ignores that additional resources can change four of the five factors, including the only one he says that the schools can control - amount of homework. If classes are smaller, then teachers can give and check more homework. Schools can influence absenteeism with truant officers and counselors, neither of which work for free. Schools can help reduce hours spent watching television by providing more after school activities; activities like sports, music, and theatre cost money in material and staff time. Schools can provide a quantity of quality reading matter, but books and librarians cost money. The only factor additional resources can’t change is the number of parents.
Will writes that most failing schools serve inner-city children but inner-city Catholic schools “do better with fewer resources”. Are the public schools and the Catholic schools serving students with the same lack of success factors? Because some parents choose to send their children to Catholic schools, might more of the success factors be present in those families? Will doesn’t raise this question. Furthermore, the Catholic schools can select their students; the public schools have to take all students.
Will states that “38 percent of American teachers had college majors in academic subjects” and implies that majoring in education makes a teacher inadequately trained. However, most schools don’t get deeply into “academic subjects” until junior high. Many elementary teachers teach a wide range of subjects, especially in the lower grades. In 1997 there were about 1.2 million secondary public and private teachers and about 1.85 million elementary teachers. That means about 39% of the teachers were junior and high school teachers. That is rather close to the percent of teachers who had a major in an academic subject.
Will relates his perception that too few teachers had academic majors to how “American students’ cognition [compares] with students around the developed world”. Again, is he comparing similar groups of students? The Department of Education warns in Digest of Education Statistics 1999, Chapter 6 - International Comparisons of Education (http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2000/digest99/chapter6.html) “...international data users should be cautioned about the many problems of definition and reporting involved in the collection of data about the educational systems in the world.” Could it be that different kinds of students are being measured in different countries? For example, are the students being measured in some countries only those on an academic track as opposed to all students in the U.S.? If all students are being measured in those other countries, do they have the same mix of socio-economic classes as the U.S. does? More specifically, is there a large portion of students who lack some of the five significant success factors?
Finally, Will claims small class size “simply increases the attention each pupil gets from an inadequately trained teacher.” The Student Achievement Guarantee in Education program in Wisconsin has shown that smaller class sizes give better results (Duluth News-Tribune, Jan. 18, 2001). As one teacher put it, with larger classes “it's a lot of tying shoes”.
Follow up email to the Washington Post:
In today's Star Tribune I found a more factual rebuttal than mine to George Will's Feb. 1st column on education. It is about the ACE (A Commitment to Excellence) program in Minneapolis. [The link I had no longer works. The article was from 2001-02-04.] In short, it is about a program that targets at-risk black males to give them tutoring and counseling to help them succeed. The $500,000 program is sponsored by the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis Public Schools, and Hennepin County Children and Family Services.
You can find a link to the start of the article at http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-69979742.html.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1893&dat=20010203&id=H60fAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ftYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2443,4795189
The text of my letter, dated 2001-02-03 follows.
I am amazed how ideology leads a deep thinker like George Will to be as shallow as he is in “Tall Order for a Few Federal Dollars”.
At the beginning of his article, he talks about “failing schools” and how transfers to other public schools or vouchers to private schools would allow students to leave these failing schools. He goes on to list what factors lead to students’ success but he says that schools can only influence one of those factors and that additional resources won’t change any of these factors.
He also compares the “success” of private schools to the “failure” of public schools but with a superficial assumption that the student populations are identical.
He gives a measure of the skills of public school teachers without examining whether his measure is appropriate to what the teachers are doing. He also links that measure to a comparison of “cognition” of American students with that of students in other developed countries.
Furthermore, he uses that measure to show that class size won’t make any difference.
From his article and from a couple hours of newspaper and Web research, I see a different picture.
First, if students are allowed to leave “failing schools”, which students will leave? The “failing” students who are most in need of “better” teaching, or the successful students who have the advantage of the five factors of
- number of parents in home
- days absent from school
- hours spent watching television
- quantity and quality of reading matter in home
- amount of homework
If the successful students leave, won’t the failing schools fail even more? If the failing students leave, won’t they be taking their problems to other schools and lead those schools to “fail”?
Will ignores that additional resources can change four of the five factors, including the only one he says that the schools can control - amount of homework. If classes are smaller, then teachers can give and check more homework. Schools can influence absenteeism with truant officers and counselors, neither of which work for free. Schools can help reduce hours spent watching television by providing more after school activities; activities like sports, music, and theatre cost money in material and staff time. Schools can provide a quantity of quality reading matter, but books and librarians cost money. The only factor additional resources can’t change is the number of parents.
Will writes that most failing schools serve inner-city children but inner-city Catholic schools “do better with fewer resources”. Are the public schools and the Catholic schools serving students with the same lack of success factors? Because some parents choose to send their children to Catholic schools, might more of the success factors be present in those families? Will doesn’t raise this question. Furthermore, the Catholic schools can select their students; the public schools have to take all students.
Will states that “38 percent of American teachers had college majors in academic subjects” and implies that majoring in education makes a teacher inadequately trained. However, most schools don’t get deeply into “academic subjects” until junior high. Many elementary teachers teach a wide range of subjects, especially in the lower grades. In 1997 there were about 1.2 million secondary public and private teachers and about 1.85 million elementary teachers. That means about 39% of the teachers were junior and high school teachers. That is rather close to the percent of teachers who had a major in an academic subject.
Will relates his perception that too few teachers had academic majors to how “American students’ cognition [compares] with students around the developed world”. Again, is he comparing similar groups of students? The Department of Education warns in Digest of Education Statistics 1999, Chapter 6 - International Comparisons of Education (http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2000/digest99/chapter6.html) “...international data users should be cautioned about the many problems of definition and reporting involved in the collection of data about the educational systems in the world.” Could it be that different kinds of students are being measured in different countries? For example, are the students being measured in some countries only those on an academic track as opposed to all students in the U.S.? If all students are being measured in those other countries, do they have the same mix of socio-economic classes as the U.S. does? More specifically, is there a large portion of students who lack some of the five significant success factors?
Finally, Will claims small class size “simply increases the attention each pupil gets from an inadequately trained teacher.” The Student Achievement Guarantee in Education program in Wisconsin has shown that smaller class sizes give better results (Duluth News-Tribune, Jan. 18, 2001). As one teacher put it, with larger classes “it's a lot of tying shoes”.
Follow up email to the Washington Post:
In today's Star Tribune I found a more factual rebuttal than mine to George Will's Feb. 1st column on education. It is about the ACE (A Commitment to Excellence) program in Minneapolis. [The link I had no longer works. The article was from 2001-02-04.] In short, it is about a program that targets at-risk black males to give them tutoring and counseling to help them succeed. The $500,000 program is sponsored by the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis Public Schools, and Hennepin County Children and Family Services.
You can find a link to the start of the article at http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-69979742.html.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Quote of the day - Education
"To succeed, students must become thinkers, not just test-takers."
– "The secret to fixing bad schools", David L. Kirp, New York Times, 2013-02-09
I posted a comment to the article with the above quote and
"That sentence should be engraved in the head of anyone who wants successful students."
As of 8:30 this morning it had received 45 recommendations! Gosh, if I could only have that readership here!
A former teacher replied to my post that I had beat him or her to a similar post and added
"As a teacher for 27 years, I know for a fact, that exam scores are the least important indicator of how well a student is learning."
147 comments have been posted to the article. Three included that pre–school education may be expensive, but not as expensive as prisons.
I didn't post it, but many have written elsewhere that you pay something now or pay a lot more later. It is often considered investing, but too many people don't think of government spending as investment, as they cruise down the interstate built with government money, as they enjoy a game in a tax-supported stadium, or as they have no concern about food-safety because of government inspections.
– "The secret to fixing bad schools", David L. Kirp, New York Times, 2013-02-09
I posted a comment to the article with the above quote and
"That sentence should be engraved in the head of anyone who wants successful students."
As of 8:30 this morning it had received 45 recommendations! Gosh, if I could only have that readership here!
A former teacher replied to my post that I had beat him or her to a similar post and added
"As a teacher for 27 years, I know for a fact, that exam scores are the least important indicator of how well a student is learning."
147 comments have been posted to the article. Three included that pre–school education may be expensive, but not as expensive as prisons.
I didn't post it, but many have written elsewhere that you pay something now or pay a lot more later. It is often considered investing, but too many people don't think of government spending as investment, as they cruise down the interstate built with government money, as they enjoy a game in a tax-supported stadium, or as they have no concern about food-safety because of government inspections.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Education - maybe we haven't got the lead out yet
I wonder how many people have considered how a poor environment has caused poor school performance and how the ramifications continue.
Consider these two statements from "Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain" by David Eagleman.
"The major public health movement to remove lead-based paint grew out of an understanding that even low levels of lead can cause brain damage that makes children less intelligent and, in some cases, more impulsive and aggressive."
"As a child grows, neglect, physical abuse, and head injury can cause problems in mental development."
So, a child grows up impulsive and aggressive and becomes a parent. The now parent may also neglect and abuse his or her children. Now these children may have problems in mental development. And so it continues through the generations, some children breaking the cycle, too many not. "The sins of the fathers are visited upon the sons, yea, unto the seventh generation."
"But," you say, "lead paint was used everywhere. Wouldn't all kids have been affected?" Well, many children had the good fortune to grow up in houses where the paint was well-maintained. Others had the bad fortune to grow up in houses in which the paint deteriorated, chipped, and flaked. If the kids didn't eat some of the paint chips, they might have inhaled some of the dust from the deteriorating paint.
The problem is not to get the "lead" out of "poor-performing teachers" but to get the "lead" out of "poor performing families". That will take a lot more effort than too many are willing to spend. And I'm not talking about unwilling teachers.
Consider these two statements from "Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain" by David Eagleman.
"The major public health movement to remove lead-based paint grew out of an understanding that even low levels of lead can cause brain damage that makes children less intelligent and, in some cases, more impulsive and aggressive."
"As a child grows, neglect, physical abuse, and head injury can cause problems in mental development."
So, a child grows up impulsive and aggressive and becomes a parent. The now parent may also neglect and abuse his or her children. Now these children may have problems in mental development. And so it continues through the generations, some children breaking the cycle, too many not. "The sins of the fathers are visited upon the sons, yea, unto the seventh generation."
"But," you say, "lead paint was used everywhere. Wouldn't all kids have been affected?" Well, many children had the good fortune to grow up in houses where the paint was well-maintained. Others had the bad fortune to grow up in houses in which the paint deteriorated, chipped, and flaked. If the kids didn't eat some of the paint chips, they might have inhaled some of the dust from the deteriorating paint.
The problem is not to get the "lead" out of "poor-performing teachers" but to get the "lead" out of "poor performing families". That will take a lot more effort than too many are willing to spend. And I'm not talking about unwilling teachers.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
What does a teacher make? Surprise answer!
If you're tired of the bashing of teachers, tired of the complaints of their performance, and tired of the charges of "greedy" teacher unions", you'll enjoy this bit of stand-up ire by Taylor Mali.
You can find his biography at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Mali. His website is at http://www.taylormali.com/.
You can find his biography at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Mali. His website is at http://www.taylormali.com/.
Friday, June 29, 2012
Greedy CEO Unions
The mantra of "greedy teacher unions" or "greedy unions" or "greedy overpaid government workers" appears in letters to the editor, blogs, and even in articles by people who should be more objective. These phrases have the same nebulousness as "paying fair share". "Fair share" generally means "more" but little thought goes into why some should pay more taxes.
"Greedy unions" generally comes from those who not only don't want to pay more taxes, but they don't want to pay more wages to their employees. And guess what they form to advance their agenda? Unions!
They aren't called unions, but they are in the sense of coming together to advance an agenda. These include Chambers of Commerce, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), numerous "conservative" think tanks, and many, many trade associations.
Like every other group, they work more to advance their short-term interests than to advance the public good. They want government off the "people's backs", but then they rush to government for contracts or laws favoring one industry over another.
Like every other group, they purport to represent all like them. As the Occupy movement claims to represent the 99%, these CEO unions claim to represent all businesses. But the large corporations do not all have the same interests, and the large corporations do not have the same interests as smaller businesses. McDonald's does not represent the interests of all restaurants, and Walgreen's does not represent the interests of all pharmacies.
Organizing to promote a special interest is the American Way. It was going on before the ink was dry on the Constitution. We just have to be vigilant in our reading to look for hidden agendas and slogans over careful thought. It's a hard job being a good citizen and voter.
"Greedy unions" generally comes from those who not only don't want to pay more taxes, but they don't want to pay more wages to their employees. And guess what they form to advance their agenda? Unions!
They aren't called unions, but they are in the sense of coming together to advance an agenda. These include Chambers of Commerce, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), numerous "conservative" think tanks, and many, many trade associations.
Like every other group, they work more to advance their short-term interests than to advance the public good. They want government off the "people's backs", but then they rush to government for contracts or laws favoring one industry over another.
Like every other group, they purport to represent all like them. As the Occupy movement claims to represent the 99%, these CEO unions claim to represent all businesses. But the large corporations do not all have the same interests, and the large corporations do not have the same interests as smaller businesses. McDonald's does not represent the interests of all restaurants, and Walgreen's does not represent the interests of all pharmacies.
Organizing to promote a special interest is the American Way. It was going on before the ink was dry on the Constitution. We just have to be vigilant in our reading to look for hidden agendas and slogans over careful thought. It's a hard job being a good citizen and voter.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Mob rule or "people's" rights
Gov. Scott Walker and the Wisconsin Senate have unleashed the whirlwind by ramming through a bill to limit the rights of union workers. It is hard to say what will get blown down.
Are the protesters storming the state capitol an attempt to govern by mobs? Or are they legitimate expressions of grievances? How many are people who will be directly impacted by this legislation? How many are people that just rally to a cause they are sympathetic to?
The police have given up trying to keep people out of the Capitol, but there are two tactics that they might try to limit the number.
First, of course, is safety. What is the occupancy limit that the fire marshall has set for the Capitol? The limit established of course before Walker was elected governor.
Second, did all the protesters vote? Any protesters who didn't vote in the last election have only themselves to blame. It would be a logistical nightmare to check if each and every protester voted, but one could ask all those who didn't vote to leave. It would be interesting to see how many, if any, walk sheepishly out.
I think Wisconsin is going to see a drastic drop in the number and quality of government workers. Some will take earlier retirement than they had planned. Some will find other lines of work, difficult as it is currently. Others may just depend on spouse income.
I wonder if some teachers will band together to form tutoring companies. For a fee, they would tutor individual or small groups of students outside of classrooms. Of course, this will limit access to learning to many, but the "short-term" pain may serve as a wake-up call to the importance of properly funding public education.
Are the protesters storming the state capitol an attempt to govern by mobs? Or are they legitimate expressions of grievances? How many are people who will be directly impacted by this legislation? How many are people that just rally to a cause they are sympathetic to?
The police have given up trying to keep people out of the Capitol, but there are two tactics that they might try to limit the number.
First, of course, is safety. What is the occupancy limit that the fire marshall has set for the Capitol? The limit established of course before Walker was elected governor.
Second, did all the protesters vote? Any protesters who didn't vote in the last election have only themselves to blame. It would be a logistical nightmare to check if each and every protester voted, but one could ask all those who didn't vote to leave. It would be interesting to see how many, if any, walk sheepishly out.
I think Wisconsin is going to see a drastic drop in the number and quality of government workers. Some will take earlier retirement than they had planned. Some will find other lines of work, difficult as it is currently. Others may just depend on spouse income.
I wonder if some teachers will band together to form tutoring companies. For a fee, they would tutor individual or small groups of students outside of classrooms. Of course, this will limit access to learning to many, but the "short-term" pain may serve as a wake-up call to the importance of properly funding public education.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Which teacher gets pay for performance for our granddaughter?
Our son, his wife, and their daughter Kayo visited Minnesota from Tokyo recently. Kayo stayed with us a few days while her parents took some relief from her high energy.
I consider Kayo a normal almost three-year-old. Lots of energy and lots of rest. Eagerness to please and obstinate to do things her way. Curious about almost everything from books with lots of words and pictures to nooks and crannies she shouldn't get into.
She can recite the English alphabet and my son says she knows most of the Japanese syllable chart (100+ syllables). I do know she knows the horizontal vowel sounds, but she never did the vertical consonant sounds for us. She can count to 20 in English and Japanese. She recognizes words in books. Of course, the key words for a page are bold and in a different color, but she points at the word and says it. She can switch back and forth between English and Japanese, but she speaks mostly in Japanese because her playmates speak Japanese.
Her parents don't hold fast to the "rule" of each parent speaking his or her native language to the child, but her mother speaks mostly Japanese to her.
What kindergarten or elementary teacher who was paid for performance wouldn't love to have Kayo in his or her class?
If Kayo is so normal why does she have such extraordinary skills? Simple, she has a stay-at-home mom who has her own specials skills. Kayo's mom has ten years of experience in early childhood development. Now instead of helping a roomful of toddlers and pre-schoolers, she has only one student. Class size does matter.
Now consider the effort made by a teacher with a class of thirty, many who may not even have seen a book before. That teacher probably should be paid extra for even trying.
So, if we are to pay for performance, should stay-at-home parents get paid if they spend a lot of time stimulating their kids' minds? It will never happen.
I consider Kayo a normal almost three-year-old. Lots of energy and lots of rest. Eagerness to please and obstinate to do things her way. Curious about almost everything from books with lots of words and pictures to nooks and crannies she shouldn't get into.
She can recite the English alphabet and my son says she knows most of the Japanese syllable chart (100+ syllables). I do know she knows the horizontal vowel sounds, but she never did the vertical consonant sounds for us. She can count to 20 in English and Japanese. She recognizes words in books. Of course, the key words for a page are bold and in a different color, but she points at the word and says it. She can switch back and forth between English and Japanese, but she speaks mostly in Japanese because her playmates speak Japanese.
Her parents don't hold fast to the "rule" of each parent speaking his or her native language to the child, but her mother speaks mostly Japanese to her.
What kindergarten or elementary teacher who was paid for performance wouldn't love to have Kayo in his or her class?
If Kayo is so normal why does she have such extraordinary skills? Simple, she has a stay-at-home mom who has her own specials skills. Kayo's mom has ten years of experience in early childhood development. Now instead of helping a roomful of toddlers and pre-schoolers, she has only one student. Class size does matter.
Now consider the effort made by a teacher with a class of thirty, many who may not even have seen a book before. That teacher probably should be paid extra for even trying.
So, if we are to pay for performance, should stay-at-home parents get paid if they spend a lot of time stimulating their kids' minds? It will never happen.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
If you think teacher's should be paid for performance…
I have a little exercise for you.
Take 30 critics of education and give them each 30 1/4-inch diameter bolts with 20 threads per inch. From a mixed assortment of 1/4-inch nuts with 20 threads per inch and 28 threads per inch, give each critic 30 randomly-drawn nuts. Give them, say, 10-minutes each to put the nuts on the bolts. They will each be paid according to the number of bolt-nut pairs they can successfully assemble.
Knowledge is not bolts and students are not nuts. In fact, we tend to treat either the students who have difficulty absorbing the knowledge or the teachers who cannot match the knowledge to the students as dolts.
On a more practical level, consider a history teacher's task and a chemistry teacher's environment. If the school requires all students to take history but only a self-selected few students are going to take chemistry, which teacher do you think is more likely to have the better performance?
Take 30 critics of education and give them each 30 1/4-inch diameter bolts with 20 threads per inch. From a mixed assortment of 1/4-inch nuts with 20 threads per inch and 28 threads per inch, give each critic 30 randomly-drawn nuts. Give them, say, 10-minutes each to put the nuts on the bolts. They will each be paid according to the number of bolt-nut pairs they can successfully assemble.
Knowledge is not bolts and students are not nuts. In fact, we tend to treat either the students who have difficulty absorbing the knowledge or the teachers who cannot match the knowledge to the students as dolts.
On a more practical level, consider a history teacher's task and a chemistry teacher's environment. If the school requires all students to take history but only a self-selected few students are going to take chemistry, which teacher do you think is more likely to have the better performance?
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
In defense of teachers
"Greedy teacher unions!" "Underperforming schools!" and many other simplistic slogans pollute the discussion about improving education. But more thoughtful people wonder how to counter all the other problems that make learning difficult: disinterested parents, bullies, too much testing, too little class time, and on it goes with things that are outside the control of teachers.
For a good summary of these problems, see "Teachers aren't the problem" by Micheal Kennedy, Star Tribune, 2007-06-17. Kennedy teaches at Southwest High School in Minneapolis.
For a good summary of these problems, see "Teachers aren't the problem" by Micheal Kennedy, Star Tribune, 2007-06-17. Kennedy teaches at Southwest High School in Minneapolis.
Friday, May 01, 2009
Our teachers have more influence than we credit them with
Jim Heffernan wrote an interesting blog on "battle-axe" teachers. I sent him the following response.
Thanks for your blog on battle-axe teachers.
But our education took all kinds.
My favorite battle-axe was my 10A and 12th grade English teacher, Miss Palmer at West High School in Cleveland. I remember her most for her teaching of Shakespeare. She taught Julius Caesar in tenth grade and Hamlet and Macbeth in 12th grade. I really got to appreciate Shakespeare because she first had us read an act at a time and then a few scenes at a time. We had to memorize passages but the really high point was looking at the pieces as a whole.
She also lived a block or two from me and would drive me to school occasionally and would pay me to mow her lawn. Maybe that softened my attitude toward her. But then when one of our classmates decided to go into the Army, she kept him waiting at her locked classroom door until she was good and ready to sign the necessary permissions. I thought she was being unfair.
On the opposite end were the teachers who had high expectations of their students and expressed deep regret when students went outside their expectations. I remember twice disappointing my geometry teacher when I accepted a challenge to break a pencil on my geometry book and went through to page 70 or so and when I idly used a compass to draw circles on my desk. She just couldn’t believe I would do such a thing.
One of my regrets in life is not keeping contact with such important influences on my life.
Thanks for your blog on battle-axe teachers.
But our education took all kinds.
My favorite battle-axe was my 10A and 12th grade English teacher, Miss Palmer at West High School in Cleveland. I remember her most for her teaching of Shakespeare. She taught Julius Caesar in tenth grade and Hamlet and Macbeth in 12th grade. I really got to appreciate Shakespeare because she first had us read an act at a time and then a few scenes at a time. We had to memorize passages but the really high point was looking at the pieces as a whole.
She also lived a block or two from me and would drive me to school occasionally and would pay me to mow her lawn. Maybe that softened my attitude toward her. But then when one of our classmates decided to go into the Army, she kept him waiting at her locked classroom door until she was good and ready to sign the necessary permissions. I thought she was being unfair.
On the opposite end were the teachers who had high expectations of their students and expressed deep regret when students went outside their expectations. I remember twice disappointing my geometry teacher when I accepted a challenge to break a pencil on my geometry book and went through to page 70 or so and when I idly used a compass to draw circles on my desk. She just couldn’t believe I would do such a thing.
One of my regrets in life is not keeping contact with such important influences on my life.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
We want excellence in education?
Today we had our chimney cleaned by an ex-teacher. After 15 years of teaching English, he became a chimneysweep. He has less hassle, more fun, and more pay as a chimneysweep than he did as a teacher.
This says a lot of how much value we put on education in our country. Not that we should consider chimneysweeps as unskilled or performing an unneeded service, but that without highly-valued teachers, all other work is meaningless towards a better society.
This says a lot of how much value we put on education in our country. Not that we should consider chimneysweeps as unskilled or performing an unneeded service, but that without highly-valued teachers, all other work is meaningless towards a better society.
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