[blackshoe]

luke warm, on Oct 16 2008, 06:18 PM, said:

i don't think the 4th amendment has anything to do with r v. w else prostitution would be legal on a federal level...

AFAIK, working as a prostitute is not per-se illegal under federal law, except as it may occur near military establishments as designated by the Secretaries of the Military Departments (18USC1384).

The Tenth Amendment would seem to be germane in this case.

[TimG]

jdonn, on Oct 16 2008, 04:48 PM, said:

And anyway, won't a terrible teacher who chose to be a teacher probably be terrible at other jobs too?

Perhaps this person will be terrible at many jobs, or perhaps this person will be more suited to another job and be less terrible at it. But, there are jobs that play a less critical role in our society than teaching; I'd rather be inconvenienced by a terrible salesperson than have my child in a classroom with a terrible teacher.

Some unrelated public school items:

Certification is not required in all school districts, at least not in Maine. Some school districts will hire a teacher on a provisional basis, put a plan in place for certification, and count actual teaching in place of the student teaching requirement. Other school districts require certification before employment.

My son is 10 years old and in the 5th grade. The school he attends will be having a mock election soon and they have been discussing some of the issues that might be important. Today's topics seem to have been health care and immigration. He told me that Obama wants everyone to have health insurance, so he's going to raise taxes and give the money to the insurance companies. The immigration discussion apparently involved how best to split the cost of a fence or wall between the US and Mexico between the border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California (said fence being erected because Mexicans are coming to America and taking our jobs). When I asked him how the Mexicans were taking our jobs from Americans, he guessed maybe they were killing people.

Last year he came home from a cub scout meeting and told me that he was glad American troops were in Iraq because if they weren't Iraqi soldiers would be in America. If someone has a good way to explain to a 10 year-old why the US is fighting a war in Iraq, please let me know.

I was in school to pick my son up yesterday and overheard one teacher tell another about some wonderful boughten frosting. For those of you who are not quite sure, boughten frosting is the frosting that you buy already made as opposed to the kind you make from scratch. Teacher A questioned the use of boughten; Teacher B insisted it was a word. Much to my surprise (and dismay) I later found boughten in Merriam-Webster Online.

[kenberg]

Tim,

My first thought on reading your post: Your son is getting started on issues. Good for him. Never mind if it is not the way you want it.

I was 11 when the Korean War started. I actually still remember the day the newspaper had the story of the Inchon landing. Big black arrows marking the progress of the troops, cutting off the N Koreans from supplies and escape. I had been following the war daily. I thought of these things as an eleven year old would.

My teacher would talk to us about the Red Menace. My mother, otoh, was not exactly a pacifist but very skeptical. One day we had a conversation that went something like this:

Mom: Wars are about oil
Me: Mom, I don't think there is any oil in Korea.
Mom: They are fighting there, there is oil there. QED (My mother did not really say things like QED)

When my granddaughter was first exposed to the history of World War II, also at around 10 or 11, she told me they were reading soldiers' journals of how the war affected them. I asked her if the subject of Pearl Harbor had come up. No. But she is now 16 and I recently had a substantive discussion with her about the current election.


The first novel my younger daughter read was Jaws. Maybe not my choice for someone who again was maybe 10 or 11. Otoh, she was reading a novel. The first novel I can remember reading is The Third Man. Probably also not an obvious choice. The chase through the sewers of Vienna stuck with me. Tarzan was a great read also.


Your son is starting. He will not be voting for a while yet. Relax and enjoy.

Teachers are not perfect. A flash: Neither am I.

[helene_t]

kenberg, on Oct 16 2008, 11:31 PM, said:

probably a suggestion to let someone teach w/o certification is intended to allow for qualified teachers who lack the paperwork to be in the classroom. This is far from the dumbest idea I have ever heard.

I've had many uncertified teachers at primary school and they are generally better than the certified ones. This is also what one would expect since it would be relatively easy to fire an uncertified teacher due to lack of qualifications (uncertified teachers tend not to be in the union).

Also it adds to the diversity of the school staff. Having uncertified teachers tends to expose pupils a varied teaching methods and viewpoints.

[kenberg]

Apparently we also must discuss unlicensed plumbers. Apparently Joe the Plumber has no license to practice plumbing, owes the state of Ohio a thousand and change in taxes, makes nowhere near the quarter of a mil that would bring him into Obama's zone of increased taxes, and says that his plans to buy the company are more like aspirations than plans.
I recall four years ago when the big Swift Boater was asked to release his own military records he first said that he couldn't find them and then, when it was pointed out that he could get a new copy, declined to do so because he felt that they might be misinterpreted.

OK, I guess it's final, I will be voting for Obama. I have a long standing policy of ignoring any exciting new revelations that swirl up a week or two before the election. Who says we always vote our pocketbook? I have a bet on McCain from last April or so.

[babalu1997]

helene_t, on Oct 17 2008, 07:22 AM, said:

I've had many uncertified teachers at primary school and they are generally better than the certified ones. This is also what one would expect since it would be relatively easy to fire an uncertified teacher due to lack of qualifications (uncertified teachers tend not to be in the union).

Also it adds to the diversity of the school staff. Having uncertified teachers tends to expose pupils a varied teaching methods and viewpoints.

Has anyone ever observed, when taking or teaching a general education requirement class, such as math, or science, or whatever, the education major students are usually the dumbest of them all?

Has anyone ever observed that, the people who are phd ed candidates are really trained in other areas?

Those who can, do it.
Those who can't, teach
Those who can teach, get a BS degree in education.

[kenberg]

The third debate briefly touched on education in the DC school system. The candidates failed to mention a pilot program that gives payment to students for performance. The first checks came out recently and today the Post ran a story on this program. A sixth grader who had received a check expressed his view: "It don't change nothing". Out of the mouths of babes...

[onoway]

I have heard a slightly different version:
Those who can, do.
Those who can't, teach.
Those who can't teach, teach teachers.

It would be interesting to know the reasons why so many people are now opting to homeschool. I always thought my kids would be lucky to get one really good teacher sometime in their school career, and each did. One. (not the same one, we moved a lot.) While the majority of them were competent, there also were several who were truly terrible. To make things worse, the really good ones all left the education system.

Surely in this time of instant electronic communication it is time to revamp how education is structured? Now it is possible for kids to get the very best teachers no matter where they are, as far as content is concerned. (Obviously speaking of levels above kindergarten and primary school).

[TimG]

onoway, on Oct 18 2008, 10:22 AM, said:

It would be interesting to know the reasons why so many people are now opting to homeschool.

We home schooled for three years. The reason can best be summed up by noting that my daughter gets on the school bus at 6:55 AM and is dropped off at 2:30 PM. The 455 minutes she is gone includes 265 minutes of classroom time (and that includes 50 minutes of "exploratory" classes which will be French one quarter, Industrial Arts one quarter, health one quarter (and I forget the 4th subject)). That's over three hours of riding the bus, homerooms, study halls, gym classes, lunch, etc. -- basically herding -- every day.

[kenberg]

I set out to Kindergarten in the fall of 1943. I brought a rug to nap on and crayons to draw with. We sang. We had recess. We learned to follow directions and to hold up our hands if we had to pee. Class was from 9 to 12, the rest of the day was for play. In first grade we learned to read.
Times have changed! In the best systems they learn a lot, far more than I did, and they start early. My oldest granddaughter, now 16, is taking calculus from a teacher who knows calculus. Since she doesn't much care for math she is just taking regulart calculus instead of the AP course that the serious science students take. I doubt that any teacher in the St. Paul school system in 1955 (when I was 16) could have effectively taught a calculus course, certainly not an AP version. She has already read more Shakespeare than I have or ever will. In some systems however, they learn very little. Many eighth graders know almost nothing.
The biggest difference I see between my schooldays and now is that there is now enormous variance in public schools. Some variance is inevitable and this existed in my day, but today we are far beyond "some". I doubt that this is an easy problem to solve but I regard it as immensely important.

[luke warm]

kenberg, on Oct 18 2008, 12:27 PM, said:

I set out to Kindergarten in the fall of 1943. I brought a rug to nap on and crayons to draw with. We sang. We had recess. We learned to follow directions and to hold up our hands if we had to pee. Class was from 9 to 12, the rest of the day was for play. In first grade we learned to read.
Times have changed! In the best systems they learn a lot, far more than I did, and they start early. My oldest granddaughter, now 16, is taking calculus from a teacher who knows calculus. Since she doesn't much care for math she is just taking regulart calculus instead of the AP course that the serious science students take. I doubt that any teacher in the St. Paul school system in 1955 (when I was 16) could have effectively taught a calculus course, certainly not an AP version. She has already read more Shakespeare than I have or ever will. In some systems however, they learn very little. Many eighth graders know almost nothing.
The biggest difference I see between my schooldays and now is that there is now enormous variance in public schools. Some variance is inevitable and this existed in my day, but today we are far beyond "some". I doubt that this is an easy problem to solve but I regard it as immensely important.

yet, from all reports, the actual quality of education in this country has steadily dropped since about 1966, '67... it seems amazing to me when i hear or read that there are actually hs grads who can't read or write at more than an elementary school level... such a thing was unheard of when i went to school

[onoway]

Another thing that has changed is homework. Even when my kids went to school I would have been amazed and bewildered if they had come home with homework to do (unless something they missed for some reason, or a special project) before about grade 5 or 6. Now infants in primary school carry their knapsacks of books hither and yon. Lord knows if the teachers go on strike somehow the curriculum gets attended to in weeks less time than usual, so why persecute the kids like that? Kids need time to be kids.

I have read that some doctors are warning of permanent damage being done to young bodies from lugging around heavy books and papers.

[onoway]

"yet, from all reports, the actual quality of education in this country has steadily dropped since about 1966, '67... it seems amazing to me when i hear or read that there are actually hs grads who can't read or write at more than an elementary school level... such a thing was unheard of when i went to school "

Unless they were really good football or basketball players. Some college students used to get into University on athletic scholarships and they were there ONLY for the athletics..some of them were barely articulate, much less literate and certainly unable to make use of any of the classes. When they became ineligible to play they got dumped. I am told this has been cleaned up somewhat now.

[luke warm]

well you might be right... it's easy to check out, just see whether or not literacy levels have gone up or down, or see whether the average sat/act scores have risen or dropped

[hrothgar]

luke warm, on Oct 19 2008, 04:53 PM, said:

well you might be right... it's easy to check out, just see whether or not literacy levels have gone up or down, or see whether the average sat/act scores have risen or dropped

This presumes that the difficulty of the SAT has remained constant over time. As I understand matters, it is largely accepted that the SAT has been nerfed.

I think that the most significant difference has to do with the percentage of school aged students that are receiving an education. The US stresses universal education. We force students to attend school until a relatively high age. Moreover, while most schools have some kind of vocational track, its no where near as developed as what you'd find in many other countries.

I don't find it particularly surprising that you end up with a significant number of students attending high school who aren't particularly interested in learning.

[kenberg]

luke warm, on Oct 18 2008, 07:26 PM, said:

kenberg, on Oct 18 2008, 12:27 PM, said:

I set out to Kindergarten in the fall of 1943. I brought a rug to nap on and crayons to draw with. We sang. We had recess. We learned to follow directions and to hold up our hands if we had to pee. Class was from 9 to 12, the rest of the day was for play. In first grade we learned to read.
Times have changed! In the best systems they learn a lot, far more than I did,  and they start early. My oldest granddaughter, now 16, is taking calculus from a teacher who knows calculus. Since she doesn't much care for math she is just taking regulart calculus instead of the AP course that the serious science students take. I doubt that any teacher in the St. Paul school system in 1955 (when I was 16) could have effectively taught a calculus course, certainly not an AP version. She has already read more Shakespeare than I have or ever will. In some systems however, they learn very little. Many eighth graders know almost nothing.
The biggest difference I see between my schooldays and now is that there is now enormous variance in public schools. Some variance is inevitable and this existed in my day, but today we are far beyond "some".  I doubt that this is an easy problem to solve but I regard it as immensely important.

yet, from all reports, the actual quality of education in this country has steadily dropped since about 1966, '67... it seems amazing to me when i hear or read that there are actually hs grads who can't read or write at more than an elementary school level... such a thing was unheard of when i went to school

As near as I can tell, from observation rather than any statistical study, the upper end is much higher, the lower end is much, much, lower compared wit the past. I sometimes wish I could undergo hypnosis to check my memory of my 1952 eighth grade graduation class but I swear every one of us could read, write, and do arithmetic. We knew the basics of our history and our political system. My father was a carpenter. I walked to high school with a kid whose father was a plumber. The guy across the street was a cop, another a truck driver, and so on. They had not been to college and perhaps, like my father, they had not gone to high school, but they were definitely not illiterate and their kids were not illiterate. It is this population that I think is getting the educational shaft today. I mentioned my granddaughter. Her grandfather (that's me) has a Ph.D. Her father has a Ph.D. Her mother has a Ph.D. Of course her education is seen to. These kids have educational opportunities in the public schools that simply did not exist anywhere in 1950s Minnesota, even for those with the wherewithal to send their kids to private schools. As I moved into adolescence I met kids with a private school education. I was not impressed. We were all pretty much equals. It is very different now.

Various explanations have been suggested. My mother was there when I cam home from school. Opportunities for women were much less than today so very talented women became teachers. We didn't have video games. Honestly I don't know the cause. Some kids cope with their circumstances, this will always be true, but my impression is that a lot of young minds are being very seriously underdeveloped. More than a few go through 12 years of school and come out with virtually no ability to do anything. It cannot be that they are all just too dumb to learn.

I regard this gap in educational opportunity as far more serious than the widening gap in income, although of course there is a relationship between these two gaps, causation flowing in each direction.

[blackshoe]

Our republic depends on an informed and educated electorate. When we no longer have that, we will have the situation implicitly predicted by Ben Franklin's reply to a neighbor's "What kind of government have you given us, Mr. Franklin?" He said "A Republic, Madam. If you can keep it."

[mycroft]

And I heard a slightly different version (from my mother, a career teacher):

Those who can, do.
Those who can't, teach.
Those who can't teach, administrate.