Thread: Another sad sign of the times.......

I read that the other day, almost cried.

I do see a lot of ignorance in the OT forum, no doubt about it. But unsupported articles such as this are part of the problem. If she is so educated she'd know she needs to support her assertions with . . . something.

Luckily, she does see the causes for the problem.

What one needs to consider is that perhaps our societies are changing. Remember what the calculator did for math education? Nobody wanted to do long division ever again and the threat of batteries running down didn't convince anyone.

Now we have direct access to enough information to choke a horse.

And she missed a key point of any assertion about the lack of American interest in things beyond our border. We really don't care.

I agree, a lot of it does come down to caring. Most people just don't care enough to be informed about anything. They're too concerned with what's right in front of them. I can't count the number of women I've talked to that will elect Hillary based ONLY on her gender. Besides the fact that I think she has more balls than most guys, that's ludicrous. But I digress...

Most Americans are just too used to everything being delivered to them while they sit on the couch in front of the boob tube. Their mediocre education is more than they want, and the nightly "news" can fill in the rest. I read an interesting article last week that said people are becoming less DIY and more reliant on services. It said that some insane percentage of AAA's calls were to change a flat tire.

Throughout time schools have always been able to rely on a small number of children to motivate themselves to learn. For those who weren't...


Until the 1970s schools were able to "make" most of the remaining children learn because schools had discipline and parents backed it. Kids didn't have many excuses... they either learned or else. Teachers were respected and their word was the law. Students had textbooks and teachers taught from those books. If a kid failed, he failed and was held back. If a kid had a recurring discipline problem he was kicked out of school.

Since the 1970s schools have had to rely increasingly on "motivating" children to learn. Schools no longer are allowed to have discipline... they instead have to rely on parents to discipline their kids... and it's not working very well. A high percentage of kids and parents show teachers very little respect... the parent and the kids are always presumed to be right. If the kid is a recurring discipline problem they are shuffled around from classroom to classroom hoping they'll do better, and if not then they are bussed to another school in the district with the hope they'll do better, etc. There aren't many textbooks in use these days... instead, teachers are expected to find teaching materials and write daily lesson plans that are tailored to each individual kids learning needs. If the kid isn't interested in learning and the parent doesn't cooperate the kid fails. Nonetheless, the kid is socially promoted to the next grade level because the parent demands it... and eventually you have kids graduating who are reading at the 4th or 5th grade level. Yet, the teacher is still being held accountable for the child's learning., in spite of their ability to control many of the variables.

What's wrong with that picture? It shouldn't be surprising when you let kids decide what they want to do, most won't be very focused on learning. Nor is it surprising when you let parents who are uninvolved in the day to day workings of a classroom decide what course of action is best for their kid that learning suffers.

So lets see... pre-1970 (the discipline years) the USA was able to have the industrial revolution, put a man on the moon, prosper and become the world's economic leader. Post 1970 (the no-discipline years) we've sunk to the bottom of the industrialized world in education, we have a 40% dropout rate, what used to take kids 4-years to learn in college now takes 5-years for less credits and many can't write a literate sentence when they graduate, and our economy is in the toilet.

There's lots wrong with education, but the root is discipline, I believe.

So.... lets see.... discipline or no discipline? I guess you know which side I'm on.

PS - if you're wondering why I feel this way...

My wife's currently a teacher in a predominantly middle-class neighborhood public school. She teaches 7-classes a day to kindergarten through 8th grade students. There are no text books. She is expected to have a written set of lesson plans for each class for each day, with special accommodations for every student who is either above or below where their performance should be for their grade level. All discipline issues have to be handled by her... ie, she can't send a misbehaving student to the office. Her district (which is the largest elementary school district in Arizona) insists she interrupt her teaching and call the student's parents at the time of the infraction. She's had parents threaten her with bodily harm. She's had students tell her to go F**K herself, had students throw chairs and water bottles, etc. at her. There is no respect for teachers at her school.

So, people wonder why something like 55% of all teachers leave the profession in the first 5 years. People wonder why schools can't retain the best teachers. It's pretty obvious if you take off the rose colored glasses and look at what is instead of what you want it to be.

The last thing the system needed was the NCLB act which heaped tons of additional work on the teachers and schools for very little payback. Oh, you say the scores seem to be improving... well that's a charade... the teachers are instructed by the district administrations now to only teach what's on the test... math and reading and writing. So science, social studies, the Arts, etc are not really being taught thoroughly in most schools anymore. In my wife's school the kids go to art class where they are monitored in reading to improve their reading scores... ie, no art instruction. Parents should be both ashamed (at themselves) and outraged (at the NCLB act).

Well said!

It's sickening to see the education level of some students at college. I know some students that are about as bright as a black hole, but they're at college. I could read better at age 6 than many college seniors...

I find it extraordinarily sad and disgusting that anyone would find this poor womans lack of smarts entertaining, let alone trying to boost ones image by comparison!
AZJoe, I am with you on this as far as discipline goes!

Originally Posted by JMS

I find it extraordinarily sad and disgusting that anyone would find this poor womans lack of smarts entertaining, let alone trying to boosts ones image by comparison!
AZJoe, I am with you on this as far as discipline goes!

I echo this. Seems like a waste of time to me.

Justin

There's a lot I wanted to write here, but on reflection I think I'll just say this.

I don't know about the US, just Australia and even then just my own little world within it. My view on Australian tertiary education is that as long as we insist on treating students as "clients", our education standards will continue to decline in this country.

James.

There are many reasons that this lack of education is allowed. One of them is... Stupid people are easy to control. When my own 2 sons went through school I was surprised at what was NOT being taught to them. My oldest son is at Stanford University, 3 years so far and we still debate about many things. I can always come up with things that I learned in school, and that he has never been taught. Shocks me every time.