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What is school for?

Wild TurkeyWild Turkey Member Posts: 2,425 ✭✭✭✭
edited June 2002 in General Discussion
When I was a boy it was either be in school or work on the farm, and that was before air conditioning on tractors. I went willingly.

Now I have taught 15 years and am starting to seriously wonder what we are trying to do, and if there is a better way to do it.

I've got 7 weeks to get ready for a new year or find a new career. The bureacrats and abusive parents have about gotten the best of me.

We're putting a lot of money into education; what are we trying to get out?

Thanks for your thoughts

Wild Turkey"if your only tool is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail"
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Comments

  • salzosalzo Member Posts: 6,396 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    School is a place for the leftist to indoctrinate the children of this country into the leftist agenda.

    "The powers delegated by the proposed constitution to the federal governmentare few and defined, and will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace negotiation, and foreign commerce"
    -James Madison
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  • trooperchintrooperchin Member Posts: 2,632 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    .......but i learned Geometry and according to my math teacher its an IMPORTANT CLASS

    Go Army Beat Navy
    IF you wanna have fun jine the cavalry
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  • offerorofferor Member Posts: 8,625 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    In Ft. Wayne, Indiana, the major challenge for Economic Development (as a regional plan) is education of the work force. We have a work force, but don't attract as much high tech business or as many white collar career companies as we could because, in the opinions of those businesses who have researched the area, the work force is underqualified.

    Education serves three purposes. First it teaches the basics that make college possible. Second, all education teaches people how to learn, when they want to learn something new, later in life. Third, according to Marilyn Vos Savant in last week's Parade, who would you rather put in charge of something -- someone who had been awake and observant for the last 20 years, or someone who had been in a long sleep and missed all experience for the last 20 years? Obviously, learning imparts not only formal education but wisdom and experiences which lead to other important qualities, like leadership and maturity, as well.

    Kids who don't do well in high school often don't make it to college, and in today's work force that can be fatal in many parts of the country, including ours. There's a pretty good Junior Achievement program on Careers and Success you might want to look into. Have a businessman come in once a week and spend an hour talking about how to get a good career. It all boils down to solid education, then continuously updated training. I am self-taught in many areas now that I'm older, but that is because I learned to read well, type fast, do math, and all the other skills I acquired through the excellent high school education I got at New Haven, Indiana.

    As businesses have trouble in this economy, every few weeks it seems that Fort Wayne loses a few hundred more blue collar production or assembly oriented jobs. Kids need careers more than jobs. That means either advanced or specialized education, whether formal or self-acquired. I can read manuals, I can run computer tutorials, I can subscribe to informational magazines. I learned how to learn, mostly in high school. I also took piano lessons for 10 years and have made quite a bit of money as a musician on weekends. The point is, I didn't always enjoy those piano lessons. I was initially enthusiastic but went through periods and plateaus in which I would have liked to give it up. My mother and father kept saying, we didn't spend all that money on lessons so you could give up now. So I stuck it out almost through my high school years, and as a result became very, very good at it, so much so that now I have a skill I can really enjoy and WANT to be involved in.

    If I hadn't learned how to learn, I wouldn't have mastered synthesizers. I wouldn't be a self-taught computer whiz (got my first one in 1985). I wouldn't still be a voracious reader, newspaper subscriber, magazine subscriber, etc.

    Just a few random thoughts. I hope they help. I don't know what high schools are like now, but when I was in school in the 60s they were still pretty strict and, while some teachers were better liked than others, they were all about serious business. My high school's "college prep" program was tough, and a lot of us still got through it. I hear quality is down overall in America, but that good teachers are still invaluable resources. I certainly think good teachers can still make the difference. We didn't have resources other than blackboards and textbooks when I went to school, but we got the education anyway. I went on to study English (with honors) at Indiana U. and cinema at U.S.C. Yet I wasn't an outstanding high school student. I was just a little above average.

    I'm not dumb today, probably because I kept on growing my brain over the years by developing new interests and continuing to learn. I'm also a lot more employable at 52 than if I had been content to slide out of high school and "gel" shortly after college.

    I became a technical writer for the first time just about 10 years ago, and I became a marketing/PR writer only a couple of years ago. All these new skills came because I was capable of hitting the ground running on a new skill set. You should see my portfolio. It's pretty darned good. I have also been active in writing letters to the editors of newspapers on every subject of interest to me, and I get published almost every time I write -- this was true even when I lived in Los Angeles, where the papers get a lot more letters. So I can also influence my community on matters of importance to me.

    I could go on, but I think I'd better quit. This was not meant to be an essay, but to me all these elements are connected and they all rise directly from my good high school education, no matter how I felt about it at the time.

    - Life NRA Member
    "If cowardly & dishonorable men shoot unarmed men with army guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary...and not by general deprivation of constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878

    Edited by - offeror on 06/07/2002 14:18:40
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  • concealedG36concealedG36 Member Posts: 3,566 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    Offeror, good teachers do make a difference in kids' lives. But, when our society places an inordinate amount of value on monetary possessions and social status, only the most unselfish will choose to be educators. Per the recent post by SaxonPig, many of those who strive to become among the most learned members of our society are rewarded with meager salaries. Teachers today deserve our highest respect and admiration. These individuals sacrifice personal wealth in an attempt to create a better future for us all.

    I don't think I could be a teacher today, but I respect those who are. Way to go!

    Unfortunately, I also think that you get what you pay for and with today's atmosphere our kids are becoming the product of their environment. They can barely speak, read and write their own language and know nothing of their own county's history or other cultures. Forgetting yesterday's mistakes is a good way to repeat them...



    Gun Control Disarms Victims, NOT Criminals
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  • idsman75idsman75 Member Posts: 13,398 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I picked up an informational folder from the unemployment office. As an E-6 in the Army I make almost as much as the median income of people that hold down executive positions in my area. The difference between someone who has a high school diploma and a post-secondary vocational certificate is almost nothing when you look at median income. The difference in median income between someone with a high school diploma and someone with a four-year degree in my area is a matter of two or three dollars an hour.
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  • pikeal1pikeal1 Member Posts: 2,707
    edited November -1
    Wild Turkey. Stick it out. There are too few of you and the country can't afford to lose another one. Good teachers are something that kids take with them for the rest of their lives. Be different, teach the kids stuff that they want to learn...make it interesting, and I can guarantee you that if you are that cool teacher that all the kids hope they get next year, it will be well worth it.

    When kids like their teachers, they are more willing to learn, and more willing to sit through the boring stuff (and there is always boring stuff) in hopes that the next chapter will be a little more interesting and fun.

    Alex
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  • 4GodandCountry4GodandCountry Member Posts: 3,968
    edited November -1
    Public education is to teach the children what the government wants them to learn and mold them into the good little tax payers like their parents are. What the government doesn't seem to realise is that as the free world trade market takes over, the American workers wages will be cut down drastically to compete with foreign labor costs or lost altogether. More and more companies leave our country every year. They find it less expensive and more profitable to move their operations to other countries that don't have environmental standards or safety standards. The costs of labor in these foreign countries are pennies on the dollar compared to a working wage for an American laborer. As the American workers loose their jobs, houses, means of transportation, ect. ect. how would the government gain its tax revenues? Property confiscations? White collar workers in a slave state working for a food voucher and roof over their heads? I don't know the answer but it seems like a dismal future is in store for those that I'll leave behind some day...

    When Clinton left office they gave him a 21 gun salute. Its a damn shame they all missed....
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  • He DogHe Dog Member Posts: 51,593 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Wild Turkey I spent almost as many years in school as Saxon did, and I am a strong proponent of formal education. Having said that, I could not do what you do, and I much admire you for doing it. It is most unfortunate that parents have forced their crack babies and other challenged children into mainstream programs. It is unfortunate that it is your fault when when you have a little trouble with children parents were not responsible enough to parent.

    My hat is off!
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  • offerorofferor Member Posts: 8,625 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    Let me start this way: The two problems posed in the first post were bureaucracy and abusive parents. Those problems are both SCHOOL MANAGEMENT problems, with solutions that are dependent upon positive changes in school management. Teacher salaries and low paying jobs in Mexico are a different subject. But if the question is "why am I doing this?", I would still answer, because we need teachers to motivate and teach our kids how to be employed in more technical, scientific, computer literate, white collar careers if the low-education blue collar assembly and production jobs are going to go to Mexico. Until the large corporations open universities down there and start turning out whizes, the better careers are the ones our kids have to shoot for here where we have the resources for higher education and better technical training.

    As for the parents, it is up to strong, principled school management to back teachers and lay down the law for abusive parents, so they know rudeness and threats will get them nowhere. I would not work as a teacher where school management did not back up teachers 100% in their reasonable efforts to assure a disciplined classroom environment. Even though the paddle with the holes drilled in it is no longer a teaching device for the unruly, that does not mean that any student should be impolite, uncooperative or mouthy and get away with it. Period.

    I have taught one Careers class for Junior Achievement in a high school, and while it was rewarding it was also hard. The balance between an informative and entertaining lecture and enough student involvement to keep them soaking up the info can be tough to strike. I appreciated the help of the teacher whose class I was visiting in helping me to remember to keep relating to them.

    I did well enough that he asked me back to his class the next year, but I have not had sufficient motivation to repeat the experience. I think one must have the passion for prying open the young minds and getting them on your side, to the "aha!" experience. I think it is the "aha!" experience that rewards a person enough to begin wanting to learn on their own.

    - Life NRA Member
    "If cowardly & dishonorable men shoot unarmed men with army guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary...and not by general deprivation of constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878

    Edited by - offeror on 06/07/2002 14:28:06

    Edited by - offeror on 06/07/2002 14:31:02
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  • 4GodandCountry4GodandCountry Member Posts: 3,968
    edited November -1
    Strong Principaled School Management? What world are you living in, must not be the USA where they are fighting tooth and nail to try to introduce sexual awareness and homo acceptance to grade schoolers. Teaching our children that guns are evil and trying to turn an entire generation into a bunch of pacifist/socialist mush brained robots. Their Idea of history is the woman who got school prayer outlawed.

    When Clinton left office they gave him a 21 gun salute. Its a damn shame they all missed....
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  • offerorofferor Member Posts: 8,625 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    Unless you plan to put your kids into some private school that is willing to teach them the earth is flat and the sun spins around it, the public schools have got to give kids an education that prepares them for life "out there." Heck, I had sex education in Sunday school back in the 60s in a Lutheran church in the Midwest. I'm not sure either of us is out of touch, but we certainly have lived in different places. I still say competent management in any institution defends their employees against nuisance suits and false claims from whatever source. Kids need discipline, and unfortunately for us, some parents need to know their limitations. It would be nice if parents all acted like ladies and gentlemen when interacting with their school officials, but apparently some have gotten the idea that it is their "right" to tell teachers (and cops, and waiters in nice restaurants) how to do their jobs because they "work for us citizens." Baloney. They get a salary, they know who their supervisor is, and his name ain't "Joe Public with a chip on his shoulder."

    - Life NRA Member
    "If cowardly & dishonorable men shoot unarmed men with army guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary...and not by general deprivation of constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
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