Fear of Learning by canttakesky

Quote:
Originally posted by Dreamtrove:
They need to be outside the classroom, and only attend when they want to. Then the classroom would have to sell itself with some reason to go.

I am all for that. Not a big fan of compulsory education laws here.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 6:19 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

As one point on a spectrum of points, this is more acceptable.

However, keep in mind that when someone is popular or unpopular, these attitudes will leak into all aspects of a survey.

It's quite a challenge to isolate reality from opinion. One of the math teachers I absolutely despised in High School was also the only one who ever taught me any math.

I'm not sure what my appraisal of him would have been at the time, though. Today I can offer him praise, but at the time I thought he was the devil's own son.

--Anthony

Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 7:00 AM

Oh dear, another flawed education business analogy...

While I appreciate the enthusiasm in improving education, students as customers is only remotely accurate in the college scenario. These kids don't choose to go to class. Sometimes they aren't even allowed to pick their exploratory/connections classes and even those are chosen for them.

There's also somewhat of a hierarchy amongst the teachers. The teachers who have been there the longest often wind up with the 'better' students. They're not really supposed to be able to hand pick the 'good class' but it totally happens, all the fricken time. Then you have to consider things like classroom environment, supplies, what time they are doing what subject, etc... and the fact (as already mentioned) that popularity and effective teaching can be completely unrelated. In a about half of my classes, I was more popular of a teacher than my mentor teacher, but it had nothing to do with my skill, I was struggling to figure this teaching thing out. I was popular on account of being young, and maybe kinda handsome I suppose.

Back to the students, how then would you measure the effectiveness of teachers teaching remedial students? Occasionally (or sadly, perhaps more than occasionally) you get a class of 7th graders who on a whole are reading at near a 4th grade level. A good teacher might be able to get them up to a 6th grade level, but still look ineffective on the "all mighty standardized test" cause, ya know, students themselves are so standardized... Also, there are those students who just don't care. They make no effort to learn anything for reasons that likely having nothing to do with the class and are beyond the teachers control.

You want to improve education? Get their gorram parents involved! The parents are supposed to know their children better than anyone else, if anyone can help them learn their material better, it's the parents. We only get 50 minutes a day with your child and we do as much as we can with yours amongst several others. You get as much out of education as you put into and it's a 2 way street. The student has got to meet the teacher half way if you really want the best results.

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 7:22 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
These kids don't choose to go to class.

That's the problem. They should be able to choose.

And if they are going to be imprisoned in school, they should at least be treated like customers rather than inmates.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 7:28 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
One of the math teachers I absolutely despised in High School was also the only one who ever taught me any math.

I don't know the situation. But I wonder if he could have made more of an effort to be liked by you. Wouldn't that have been even better than simply being a great teacher?

See, people in power don't care about being liked. This little bit about popularity, it is simply to introduce a fraction of consciousness that the students' feelings do matter. It encourages them to make that little extra effort to get a bigger "tip" if you will.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 7:30 AM

The most popular teachers I knew as a kid, and as a teacher, are often those who go easiest on the kids, and expect the least from them.

The teachers who actually teach are usually very unpopular (until years later, when the kids realize what the teacher did for them).

So, pay based on popularity is one of the worst ideas Ive heard.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 7:32 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:
Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
These kids don't choose to go to class.
That's the problem. They should be able to choose.

So they can instead opt to stay home and play video games, and become.... utterly useless members of society?

Sure, some kids will choose to go, and some that don't will choose to make something of themselves in other ways. The rest - couch potatoes if you let them be.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 7:34 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
I don't know the situation. But I wonder if he could have made more of an effort to be liked by you. Wouldn't that have been even better than simply being a great teacher?

Maybe, but they're there to teach, not coddle.

SO much concern over how kids feel about their education.... as they're falling further and further behind. But let's make sure they feel okay about being poorly educated....

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 7:45 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Storymark:
Maybe, but they're there to teach, not coddle.

There's nothing wrong with teaching in a way that is ALSO likable.

Quote:
But let's make sure they feel okay about being poorly educated....

If they are going to be poorly educated anyway, let them be poorly educated without feeling abused as well.

Take any business. Yes, the product and service being sold is of paramount importance. Take an airline. You want to get to your destination on time--and alive. That's the most important. When you rate an airline, you rate on all aspects: safety, schedule, options, food, luggage handling, etc. It doesn't hurt to get great customer service at the ticket counter and on the plane as well, see?

Obviously, if you had to choose, you would prefer the plane not crash over friendly flight attendants. But why can't you have both? Why shouldn't you have both?

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 7:47 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Storymark:
The rest - couch potatoes if you let them be.

That is between them and their parents.

Teachers will have an easier time if they only get kids who WANT to be there.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 7:49 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Storymark:
So, pay based on popularity is one of the worst ideas Ive heard.

That is fine.

But for the record, it is pay PARTIALLY based on popularity. And I'm not even saying a big portion.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 8:37 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:
Originally posted by Storymark:
The rest - couch potatoes if you let them be.
That is between them and their parents.

Teachers will have an easier time if they only get kids who WANT to be there.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

Yeah, and that'll have NO effect on society.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 8:37 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:
Originally posted by Storymark:
So, pay based on popularity is one of the worst ideas Ive heard.
That is fine.

But for the record, it is pay PARTIALLY based on popularity. And I'm not even saying a big portion.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

Still a bad idea.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 8:50 AM

Kinda hard to get the parents involved when they're so busy slaving away to pay their indenture (read: mandatory debt) that they can barely remember their own kids names.

Worse if they were bloody fool enough to go $80,000.00USD into debt for a piece of paper who barely gets them a job which'll barely cover the payments, and woe betide them should it get outsourced.

Plus the other mandatory bullshit, house payment, car payment, home insurance, health insurance, car insurance...
(all of which are a scam, extortion and a false sense of security since they use YOUR money to hire lawyers to get out of paying up if something happens - yet if you banked that money in escrow, you'd have more than enough)

Not to mention obligatory debt, and none of em actually OWN anything, yet they work their ass off just to keep ahead of it, and mostly fail, and the first thing that goes is proper parenting.

I hate to say it, but that's the way it is, so if you want parents to be more involved, you have to "make room" for them to do so in our society - calling out of work for that stupid parent teacher confrence might be the difference between solvency and foreclosure, given how many employers are demanding 80 hour weeks on a 40 hour salary (to get around payin overtime, naturally) and when the hell do you find the time when if you *do* call off, it's a black mark against you and your employment, and therefore income, will be at risk because of it ?
Because they can always find someone more desperate than you, willing to work more for less.

As for the teachers, well what do you expect with some of the highest educational and degree requirements, requiring insane amounts of debt, for piss-poor wages that will never, ever pay it off unless you go into administration - your average classroom teacher is even MORE screwed, financially, than the average parent.
And it sure doesn't help matters with how much bullshit and tuition-padding to run up the bills goes on, I mean why exactly would a journalism student need trigonometry, for example ?

Storymark - The notion that if not FORCED to it, children will not seek education is every bit as much a lie as the notion that humans are inherently evil and must be controlled with an iron fist "for their own good", it's complete bullshit, children are naturally curious - unless you crush it out of them by making it such a miserable experience that they often wind up with PTSD (although we neither admit it nor CALL it that) as a direct result, which is another reason for the lack of parental involvement, cause the environment itself pulls all manner of psychological triggers and makes them remember shit they desperately wish to have forgotten.

It's the same thing as how folk who've been punished with forced exercise tend to be extremely slothful once they have left the environment in which it was done to them, they grow to HATE it, and that doesn't really ever go away - for example, if you force a child to write, lines and lines of some bullshit for daring to impinge on a teachers ego, even years later they will find the idea of hand-writing something repulsive, it's a negative conditioning, those "couch potatoes" are a direct RESULT of our so-called educational system, children who have grown to despise an environment that any rational being would despise, should despise - but of course denial and traumatic memory suppression have a lot to do with why adults do not act to change it, the same way many abusive parents wind up simply repeating the abuse done unto them by THEIR parents.

All that said - you need not start from scratch here, bear in mind this issue has not only been thoroughly hashed out some time prior to now, a lot of folk came forward with some damn excellent solutions to most of the issues we're talkin about here, and there are a damn lot of FreeSchool and Sudbury Model schools, which despite putting them together as fast as possible given the roadblocks the established order likes chucking in the way, have fekkin WAITING LISTS, many of em - hell, even just down the street in Ann Arbor we got a crapload of em, full to the brim, those kids are there cause they WANT to be, cause they make learning a celebrated journey of discovery instead of a hateful oppressive thing based on a penal system model.

Were your assertion correct, those buildings would be empty, and they're not.
http://education.change.org/blog/view/a_better_class_of_learning_the_s
udbury_model

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchistic_free_school

They do a good job, and even our messed up as hell conventional public education system has flirted with that model, often via Vo-Tech programs, which are sadly the first thing to go when budgets get cut, but most of the students who had any experience found them far superior to the rest of their educational experience cause they got to go "hands-on" and actually SEE a real-world, immediate USE for what they were learning, something which our conventional penal-system model does a terrible job of.

Although my home economics class gets a shout-out here, cause they actually had a mockup of a grocery aisle and cash register as visual props to bring home an understanding of HOW, WHERE and WHY this stuff was useful to know, one so effective that to this day I am quite thankful for as it's been damn useful in making maximum use of budget at the grocery store... which is also the unspoken reason my ex likes to find some contrived excuse to haul me along when she goes grocery shopping, cause she's got not a clue when it comes to price/volume/quality assessment and stuff like that, and her idea of a meal plan is, well... kinda tragic.
Not to mention she can't cook worth a damn, and and since we're yanno, right there, in the kitchen, with the groceries I just helped carry in...

Anyhow, there are also many other solutions, of varying effectiveness and many people working on the problem, so you're not starting from scratch here - and the same social structure these schools use can and has been successfully applied on a business level as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

And if you broaden your viewpoint and turn your head a little, you might see how this could also, eventually, be applied to government, since a lot of local governments, particularly in some parts of new england, are indeed run in much this fashion.

For mine own, I see conventional public schooling as a roadblock to necessary social evolution, kept there deliberately in part by folks who benefit from the status quo and are invested in keeping it that way, which is another factor in why lack of success seems so often rewarded amongst them, plus all the political factors and attempted social conditioning.

While I do not fully agree with him, one should certainly invest the time in reading much of John Taylor Gattos work, since the conventional public education system was very broken from the start, and has gotten more so over time - so "reform" efforts mostly amount to trying to glue a handful of shattered power back together into a teacup, and good luck with that....

-Frem
PS. Adding this link at the end here cause you couldn't really call it a neutral source.
http://www.sudburyschooling.com/

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 9:38 AM

All this shiny fuzzy let the children choose everything stuff just ain't practical. They should be given some choices, if for no other reason than to learn how to make them and deal with the consequences, but bottom line is, we know more about what is required in the real world than they do. Children should be required to master basic skills necessary to run their life and do any basic job. The public schools older and arguably outdated purpose was to prepare young adults for the workforce.

However, I'm not of like to thinking they should have no decisions concerning their own curriculum. They should simply take what they have to so they can do what they want to, another life lesson as to what it's like to be an adult. I worry this overly sensitive "it's okay we can do it your way every time" methodology will create a spoiled ignorant child, unable to work with anyone who doesn't understand how 'special they are and the special way they need to do things' and the real world will chew them up and spit them out.

Some of my college friends seemed to be raised in that manner. They got their Music Ed degree, got a job the first time around (lucky with the family connections I guess) and then immediately retreated to grad school. I'm not sure what they intend to accomplish there, they were already intelligent folk who happen to poorly relate to others and make terrible teachers...

Anyhow, ideally they'd have the classes required of them and classes they could choose. Many high schools do this, but not so many children get to choose because they are too busy failing what's required of them. My limited experience is mostly within Elementary and Middle Schools, so I'm not entirely sure what it's like for that age group.

We're adults, we know better than they do and we're going to have to make some decisions for them. That doesn't mean we have to be an ass about it. I think we ought to explain why we are making the choice rather than that lame "you'll understand when you are older" nonsense. There are so many more things I'd like to say on this, but I'm sick today and the medicine is making it hard to concentrate at times.

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 10:08 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
That doesn't mean we have to be an ass about it.

That's all I'm trying to say.

That and whether kids go to school should be between them and their parents. The adults who make the decisions for the kids on what is an adequate education should be their parents, not Congress.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 10:10 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Storymark:
Yeah, and that'll have NO effect on society.

All proposed change hopes to have an effect. My bet is on positive effects.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 10:25 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
All this shiny fuzzy let the children choose everything stuff just ain't practical. They should be given some choices, if for no other reason than to learn how to make them and deal with the consequences, but bottom line is, we know more about what is required in the real world than they do. Children should be required to master basic skills necessary to run their life and do any basic job. The public schools older and arguably outdated purpose was to prepare young adults for the workforce.

However, I'm not of like to thinking they should have no decisions concerning their own curriculum. They should simply take what they have to so they can do what they want to, another life lesson as to what it's like to be an adult. I worry this overly sensitive "it's okay we can do it your way every time" methodology will create a spoiled ignorant child, unable to work with anyone who doesn't understand how 'special they are and the special way they need to do things' and the real world will chew them up and spit them out.

Completely agree.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 11:13 AM

BYTEMITE

"and the real world will chew them up and spit them out."

Forgive me for saying, I try not to get vulgar. But frankly, my opinion is the world we've created for kids is a steaming PILE that's only getting worse. The problem might not be the kids, or the manner of teaching, but the system (the real world) we're preparing them for.

I agree with you Happy Trader that the option isn't just to have everyone homeschooled, but I think the way public schools work now with the long hours, emphasis on testing, and looming threat of "do well or starve as an adult" makes it more stressful than it has to be for teachers and students, and this hurts the learning environment and ability to learn.

I think family may be the root of the solution, but not the family we're used to. It would be a concept of family that's also tied up with a concept of productive land and the home on it. A family that can grow and produce their own food, barring a crop failure, provides a stable basis of living. Someone with a similar level of learning and experience could sit in a corporate cubical, doing work most people take up to pay the bills but which is likely less productive and efficient than if most everyone just worked on a farm. I think we've shifted over the job market from farm work to corporate work, and I think this may be a bad thing, that leads a lot of people worrying about their paycheck, worrying about going hungry, never seeing the results of their hard work, and relying on television to dull their sense of disquiet.

Once you have a stable basis of living, say if everyone knows how to farm and in bad times can just go work on a farm (possibly the family farm), your civilization is freed up to start learning, branching out into new fields, possibilities, and inventing. But unless the average person has something to fall back on, they're going to be too stressed out to be interested in taking risks where they might fail. And I think this may be where the test fear in children comes from, which itself then becomes a vicious cycle preventing people from living up to their full potential.

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 11:21 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Once you have a stable basis of living, say if everyone knows how to farm and in bad times can just go work on a farm (possibly the family farm), your civilization is freed up to start learning, branching out into new fields, possibilities, and inventing.

I think you've brought up an interesting issue. But how do we get there? Is there enough arable land on earth for every family to have a farm? Do we make it an inalienable human right to own so much arable land per person?

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 11:26 AM

BYTEMITE

Technology can help. And if we allow farmland to coexist with native vegetation and fauna, maybe adopt some regionally appropriate crops instead of the standards, you can get around issues of not enough land. Having more forests, with some appropriate farming underneath the canopy, will also help such problems as global warming and climate change. Plus, if you're farming, you don't need to travel too far, which reduces the need for resources from elsewhere (imperialism) and fossil fuels.

Oh, and space travel will also be good, but just short term if we change the way we farm, we can make farmland more efficient without harming the environment. That's probably the next big technological revolution we should all be aiming for.

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 11:41 AM

Quote:
Anthony:
One of the math teachers I absolutely despised in High School was also the only one who ever taught me any math.

Yeah, this problem had occurred to me. I think that the consumer-oriented teacher would have to be both, so we should have a popularity rank but also an efficacy rank. This could be ranked by standardized tests, especially if a better testing system were devised. The increase of avg. test scores would not only be related to his ranking, but would be available to students at large:

"Professor Dick. He's an ass, but if you take his class, you'll probably be in the top 1%"

Then students can decide based on that information.

I would like a system where I could opt not to send my children to prison, err... school. If there was a good system of online testing to show that they were in fact learning, then I wouldn't have to.

Again, I maintain that if we fail to evolve a superior system, someone else will. We no longer exist in an economic vacuum.

Quote:

The most popular teachers I knew as a kid, and as a teacher, are often those who go easiest on the kids, and expect the least from them.

This happens, but I'm not sure it's consistent. I think that nice teachers were liked, regardless of their skill. The best french teacher I had in college was by far the most popular, but part of that was field trips to Quebec, extra-curricular activities, etc.

Also, okay, I only have college to go by, but it's analogous: almost all the french teachers I had were more popular than the math teachers. This is going to be a problem for the system.

How about developing teacher-independent learning systems? Not as the only option, but as an alternative. Peer-groups could solve problems and ask questions, and materials could be read and studied interactively online.

Quote:
Story:
So they can instead opt to stay home and play video games, and become.... utterly useless members of society?

Am I a useless member of society? I'm not offended by the remark, I just think it shows a lack of depth, and perhaps a heavy reliance on the system.

My staying home involved a lot of video games playing. At the insistence of my sister, I started hacking video games, and this is how I learned to program. It was this activity which lead to all of my employment options, and my own businesses. Nothing from college has yet turned into a marketable skill for me, though all the hardcore science has helped me direct my own healthcare.

Certainly, my lack of schooling or my playing of video games did not put me at a disadvantage in college. For the record, to be fair, I have to say I took my first college class at twelve, but still, college was easy. I don't think my parents decision was ill advised from a learning perspective.

I can see where some people might view me as not an ideal citizen because I have no debt, and so I'm not enslaved, but I think that as the owner of a small business, I serve the community, and as hopefully a larger business.

If cut free from the human mill of school, trying to produce "useful citizens" according to some master plan, kids find their own path, which may very well be more productive than the one that their elders crafted for them.

Oh, Frem. You posted. I was wondering if this was going to happen ;) I guess whatever I say is somewhat redundant.

What do you think of my opt-out if your kids can pass tests idea?

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 12:38 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
I think that the consumer-oriented teacher would have to be both, so we should have a popularity rank but also an efficacy rank.

Yes. Popularity ratings would only be a small portion of the entire score. The rest would be on efficacy, efficacy, efficacy, standardized scores, and other issues.

Quote:
If there was a good system of online testing to show that they were in fact learning, then I wouldn't have to.

I like it.

Quote:
How about developing teacher-independent learning systems? Not as the only option, but as an alternative. Peer-groups could solve problems and ask questions, and materials could be read and studied interactively online.

This is part of the strength of homeschooling. Siblings teach each other. I think peer learning/peer tutoring groups should be encouraged in schools. It is well established that teaching is a great method of learning.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 2:27 PM

Schools are too test oriented so lets change things and measure them with a bunch of new tests.

You all might be on to something when it comes to colleges, but public school students are not customers, they are not stupid, but they are also not experienced. There are some things than will and should be chosen for them to ensure they at least acquire basic math and verbal skills they will need regardless of what direction their life takes them.

Byte, you made an excellent point with that farm scenario. Too often adults and children alike do not get to see their hard work leading to anything. It's just 'stuff I'm supposed to do.' Getting to see a child progress from counting to simple addition and subtraction, to fractions is one of the sweet little rewards that enables teachers to put up with the shitty pay, red tape, low budgets, lack of equipment and the endless bullshit hurled at them from every jackass that has never worked in the classroom and thinks they can do better. We get to see our hard work leading to something. The students themselves, don't always see things that way unfortunately. I'm lucky in that respect, because I teach music and they can clearly see how my lessons make them better at playing or singing (I couldn't play that before but now I can! Shiny!).

Concerning teacher-independent learning... that sounds like a recipe for disaster. Their needs to be teacher their to at least make sure they aren't learning it wrong or to answer their questions. However, if you take that idea, put the teacher there and have the teacher give them just enough hints to not get 'stuck' but leave it to the children to discover the new concept, you have discovery learning, which some teachers are all about and others view as a massive waste of time with no empirical evidence to suggest it's remotely effective or efficient.

I would love to teach every class with somewhat of a 'discovery' method, but if I did there is no way I could get all the national standards covered before the year is over. I apologize for crude language or poor grammar, but I'm a mite unfocused from medicine and I'm not used to being sick.

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 2:42 PM

BYTEMITE

Quote:
Schools are too test oriented so lets change things and measure them with a bunch of new tests.

Didn't say new tests, at all. My argument was more about this:

Quote:
but if I did there is no way I could get all the national standards covered before the year is over.

GET RID OF THE NATIONAL STANDARDIZED TESTING. Every teacher I've ever heard hates them, and not because it can reflect poorly on the teacher, but rather because it interrupts the curriculum with something distracting and, yes, stressful. Learning doesn't happen when the environment is too stressful.

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 2:48 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
...but public school students are not customers,

Looks like you and I feel equally strongly on this point--in opposite directions of course.

Quote:
There are some things than will and should be chosen for them to ensure they at least acquire basic math and verbal skills they will need regardless of what direction their life takes them..

Math and verbal skills are so basic that they are in almost every other skill set that exists. If kids are allowed to study what they want, they will end up learning basic math and verbal skills in the process. You have to know basic math and verbal skills to play video games, for example.

I am not saying kids don't need to be taught. I am saying the government should not be in the business of making sure kids learn. That is the responsibility of parents. Parents need to be the ones to decide I want my kids to at least learn math and reading by age 18, or I want my kids to at least read Cicero in Latin by age 18, or I want my kids to at least learn to rebuild a tranny by age 18. This is outside of the prerogative of what law is for.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 2:49 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
Schools are too test oriented so lets change things and measure them with a bunch of new tests.

School tests now measure children. I am talking about introducing tests to measure teachers.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 4:17 PM

Sorry Byte, the testing remark wasn't aimed at you, it was at the CTS DT testing ideas, which CTS clarified are aimed at teachers, and which I still don't agree with. I think standardized test do more harm than good.

While I would LOVE to axe the standardized test, I do think they can be useful in gathering data if they weren't treated as being so gorram important that schools teach to the test instead of what they ought to! Also, when you have the situation of students being taught for the sole purpose of passing a test, doesn't the test itself become an unreliable source of data?

What we really need to do first off is define what the schools job really is. Are we preparing young adults for the work force (which for the most part is still working just fine) or do we expect more, and if so, what exactly do we expect? The clearest description for my job is 'teach the standards,' which for one of my classes are these

Quote:
GRADE 8 GENERAL MUSIC
A. Skills and Techniques/Performance
M8GM.1 - Singing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music
a. Sing accurately, with good breath control, and attention to tone quality throughout their ranges.
b. Sing with expression and technical accuracy in unison and simple harmonic settings.
c. Sing music of diverse genres and cultures, with appropriate representation of culture and style.
M8GM.2 - Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music
a. Perform on at least one instrument accurately and independently, alone and/or in small and large ensembles, with appropriate posture, playing position, technique, and expression.
b. Play by ear simple melodies and harmonic accompaniments.
c. Perform music of diverse genres and cultures, with appropriate representation of culture and style.
M8GM.3 - Reading and notating music
a. Apply standard notation symbols for pitch, rhythm, dynamics, tempo, articulation, and expression.
b. Read whole, half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth, and dotted notes and rests in simple, compound, and complex meters.
c. Read at sight simple melodies in both the treble and bass clefs.
d. Use standard notation to record their musical ideas and the musical ideas of others.
Georgia Performance Standards
Fine Arts
Georgia Department of Education
Kathy Cox, State Superintendent of Schools
Georgia Performance Standards  Fine Arts – Music Education
June 18, 2009  Page 2 of 3
B. Creation
M8GM.4 - Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments
a. Improvise simple harmonic accompaniments.
b. Improvise melodic embellishments and simple rhythmic and melodic variations.
c. Improvise short melodies, unaccompanied and with existing accompaniments. depicting given styles, meters, and tonalities.
M8GM.5- Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines
a. Compose short pieces of music within specified guidelines, demonstrating how the elements of music are used to achieve unity and variety, tension and release, and balance.
b. Arrange simple pieces of music within specified guidelines.
c. Use a variety of traditional and nontraditional sound sources and electronic media when composing and arranging music.
C. Critical Analysis/Investigate
M8GM.6 - Listening to, analyzing, and describing music
a. Accurately describe specific music events in a given aural example, using appropriate terminology.
b. Demonstrate knowledge of elements of music through analysis of music which represent diverse genres and cultures.
M8GM.7- Evaluating music and music performances
a. Critique musical performances and compositions using specific criteria.
b. Evaluate the quality and effectiveness of their own and other’s performances, compositions, and arrangements, implementing constructive suggestions for improvement.
c. Investigate various uses of music in daily experiences.
D. Cultural and Historical Context
M8GM.8 - Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts
a. Compare two or more art forms and their characteristics to describe the transformation of related subject matter into art.
b. Assess the interrelated principles and subject matter between music and other core curriculum.
c. Investigate various career paths in music.
M8GM.9 - Understanding music in relation to history and culture
a. Describe distinguishing characteristics of representative music genres and styles from a variety of cultures.

Seems quite reasonable, and it almost is, unless you're school does this stupid rotating block system that gives you 22 days (and that's before they take some of those days from you because the students need extra time in their math or science classes) to cover all those standards with one group of students and then throwing another group your way. Then there's all that equipment we don't have.

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 4:40 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
I think standardized test do more harm than good.

I think we need to measure efficacy of teachers. I am flexible on how that's done. My kid used to take them annually. They give me useful information. But if you want to see them out because they have been overemphasized in the past, that is ok with me.

What measures would you use to measure teacher efficacy or to evaluate how good a teacher is?

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 4:58 PM

CTS

Not to go all Frem on you, but not just parents: Kids need to be in charge of what kids learn. Kids are very motivated learners and know what they're interested in, what they see to learn is often stuff which does not interest the parents, and may not have even existed in the time of their parents. So, yes, the parents should bear the responsibility of ensuring that children learn a minimum, the base skills, like math and verbal, but the kids themselves should self-teach mechanical engineering and astrophysics, and if not tied to the ground by a system, they will.

The kid I told you about with the neurology (animal psychology was his specialty, for a 10yo) had no parents. He was an orphan.

I'm with you on the "better off outside the system" hell, I'm with you on most things.When I see the old arguments as they resurface, I'm brought back to these images, which seem to assure me that a black boy from Nashville orphaned at an early age who did not go to school was going to grow up ignorant, not a super-genius. It's not that he's an exception, I suspect he's the rule. Kids, taken completely out of a "system" have far more potentional.

The danger of drop outs is not that they are outside the system, it's that they are, if they are in a city particularly, into a different system. The system of drugs, crime and money. This is where they learn to be stupid. But to them, it is closer to freedom than the alternative, so they choose it. And yes, here in the boonies we have a similar crowd, but they typically go to school, and this bring me to another problem I have with the public school system: It is a central drug trafficking depot.

Sorry for the rant, I'm just thinking out loud.

Byte,

May I propose a radical counterpoint? Get rid of teachers, keep standardized testing. (No offense Happy) I mean, have facilitators, but no one whose job it is to dole out information except on request. That can be done by books and internet sites, etc. The facilitators can point kids the right way, but then the kids could teach themselves.

The standardized tests test a bare minimum of what's required. I remember taking the SATs, I was maybe 13 or 14. I aced the math and did middle of the road on the verbal. It was a wake-up call to me, my verbal skills were like 55th %ile or something, so I studied hard and took them again the following year. It's useful to know that, to see, hey, you're not as smart as you think. you need to bone up on some stuff.

I would change the format a little. I'd make it less time dependent. I think people who solve problems slightly slower score far worse on the current tests, when they might be just as smart. Maybe speed and accuracy need to be measured as two separate metrics in the testing. The current system does not take advantage of the technology at all. We could have a much better testing method.

But they're not testing your knowledge of the French Revolution, or Spanish, or Physiology, they're testing your basic functional skills. If your brain is working, you should not have a problem with this.

If you're brain isn't working, then you might.

My sister was more coherent tonight. They gave her something to reduce the swelling around the tumor, so more blood could go to the brain, and her speech was much better. I know she's going to lose something, but hopefully not that. Or her reading. I worry about that. She reads, or did, 2000 wpm, with 100% comprehension. I tested her on it, as did everyone else. It was pretty remarkable. I mean 100%, give her 2000 words, she'll read them in 60 seconds, and then recite them to you verbatim.

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 5:06 PM

Happy,

Pare it down. I mean, I agree, the structure is a pain, but rather than rush job, just work on sight reading voice, or harmonizing, singing/playing in sync, or those little rhythm things to the ta-tee. Those, plus the ability to improvise chords can make some interesting stuff as I'm sure you know, but I found I got much more interested in that than in playing rote pieces from elsewhere.

This is where you can find your hidden extra time: If you get the kids into doing something they really get a kick out of, they'll do it in their off time, and then they'll be putting in a lot more practice time than anything you could assign them.

Just a thought.

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 5:18 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Not to go all Frem on you, but not just parents: Kids need to be in charge of what kids learn.

You'll get no argument from me on this count. I unschool, remember?

Quote:
So, yes, the parents should bear the responsibility of ensuring that children learn a minimum, the base skills, like math and verbal,

My point was only that parents should decide what the minimum should be, not the govt. And hopefully, parents will decide what the minimum should be with input from their children.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 5:42 PM

>>What do you think of my opt-out if your kids can pass tests idea?

Umm, remember you're talking to someone who exploited a loophole to "graduate" with a GED at sixteen, when due to everchanging bullshit credit requirements if I "stuck it out" I woulda been there till I was nineteen, or worse if they went and changed the requirements AGAIN - that moving the goalposts shit stuck me with having to take summer school for a motherfuckin ELECTIVE, mind you.

If you got the brains to opt out that way, hell yes - there USED to be college credit stuff you could do that with, simply prove you *already knew it* thoroughly and get credited, but that didn't make the enormous profit or suck the peons into the debt trap so it was shitcanned, something I hold a bit of a grudge about since that happened just as I started to get my hooks into it.

>>I would love to teach every class with somewhat of a 'discovery' method, but if I did there is no way I could get all the national standards covered before the year is over.

That is part and parcel of why they are there, much like american automotive "Safety Standards" which have utterly nothing to do with the safety of the vehicle, and everything to do with keeping foreign competition out of the marketplace - another reason is that State and Federal funding becomes linked to those scores, and it's all about the money these days, which always did irk me given what they spend it on - the school my niece goes to spent so much of their budget on a surveillence system with over a hundred cameras that has already been misused, had ZERO positive effect on the (pathetically mild by comparison) crime and drug use, and now wishes to have it removed since *somebody* not only hacked it, but assisted the PARENTS to use it to monitor the behavior of the administration and teachers towards the children...
And the worst of it is that this left their budget sucking wind and I personally had to go buy my niece some of the required textbooks they could not provide - it's WHERE and HOW you spend the dosh, not how much!

Also, no one has addressed the forced medication issue neither - which I consider so detrimental as to be a disaster since one is effectively medicating a natural response to an intolerable situation: if I can find it, I'll post up the original editorial I wrote under another name addressing this.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 5:45 PM

(ORIGINAL EDITORIAL, REPOSTED IN FULL)

A Deadly Quick-Fix

by XXXXXXXX

(Authors Note - Please keep in mind that most of this research this article is based upon is the work of others, most of them better equipped, trained and financed to do so than the author, and while such information is cross checked to the best of the authors ability, that should never replace one's own methods of verifying information.)

Let me give you an example to chew on - if your child had a cough, would you simply give him cough medicine ? - without seeing a doctor ?

What if that cough never got any better ? - would you, then keep your child on cough medicine all his life, without so much as trying to find out what the underlying problem is....without the advice of a physician ?

I sincerely hope the response to that is "No !, that's crazy !".

Or is it ?

That is, in fact - the exact pattern of the use of Psychotropic drugs on children in our school system, Ritalin being most common among them.

A 1998 Article by the Detroit News called the rapidly increasing use of Ritalin in our school system "Alarming" - and to those who do even a little investigation into the matter, it is even more so.

There is no doubt that ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) and related disorders exist, nor is there any doubt that some children can benefit from the use of proper medication to combat such disorders, that is well established fact in the medical community.

But the sheer scope of increase in it's use relative to the public school system is, quite frankly, preposterous, according to many physicians.

In order to understand why this is, one has to understand at least a little about how a persons brain functions...and how it responds to it's environment.

Doctor Bruce D. Perry, of the ChildTrauma Academy has done phenomenal research into this area, and has done wonders into breaking it down into terms that parents, caregivers and educators can understand, and much of it points to a fact that turns the whole situation on it's head.

A Frightened Mind Can Not Learn

When a child does not feel "safe", if the child's environment is not secure and stable (to the child's perception, not yours.) - the brain will react according to it's natural priorities, and foremost among them is self preservation.

In a fear/anxiety situation, the brains response is simple, calling back on the same instincts that kept the caveman alive, heart rate and respiration increases, the glands dump a chemical flood into the system, and the mind-body reflexes prepare to react in age old manner, this is called the Fight/Flight/Freeze reflex.

During this process, the abstract and cognitive portions of the brain either lie dormant, or get drowned out by the amount of other activity going on up there.

The best case example would be this, you are driving, on the highway, while discussing politics with a friend in the passenger seat....your car hits a small patch of ice, sending it into a spin, and you desperately try to recover from it without wrecking the car.

Are you, at that point, *capable* , of maintaining the conversation about politics ? is your friend ?

No, because that portion of your brain is "kicked on the back burner" in a manner of speaking, while the immediate priority of self-preservation is addressed.

There are various degrees of this state, of course, with the above example being one of the more extreme, however, a person who is even at a low level of fear/anxiety has difficulty concentrating, using abstract thought, and many of the processes needed for "Learning".

How does this relate, you ask ?

Simple - if a child in a classroom is at a Fear/Anxiety state, learning will be much more difficult for them....they will fidget, be distracted easily, inattentive - every single symptom we attribute to ADD and related disorders.

Why would a child be in such a state while attending a public school ?

My question would be, why wouldn't they ?

Not so very long ago, children with difficulties at home used to enjoy school, because it was to them a safe and secure environment, with nice, predictable schedule and little, if any, threats or surprises.

Look at the school system now - less recess, longer classes, more classes, more pressure, more students, less teachers, higher requirements, more homework, less funding, more violence, more coverage of that violence, in ways both good and bad, too much coverage of that violence no matter how you look at it, and a significantly higher level of stress than any child should ever have to face.

The first report on these problems that I know of was a 1978 study by the National Institute of Education, and was a much unheeded call that things were going wrong that needed attention - as far as known and obvious by public policy, this report was largely ignored.

In July 1999, the FBI's NCAVC held a symposium on school shootings and threat assessment. The symposium included 160 educators, school administrators, mental health professionals, teachers and administrators from each of the schools included in the study, NCAVC staff members, law enforcement officers and the prosecutors involved in investigating each of the shootings. Also in attendance were experts in disciplines including adolescent violence, mental health, suicide, school and family dynamics.

They also released their findings and recommended threat management and intervention process via public release on Sept 6th 2000...a significantly more logical and effective one than the current process used by most schools at this time.

Again, the warnings that something was seriously wrong went unheeded.

Violence begets fear, which begets yet more violence, and we've let this cycle continue largely unchecked for over twenty years, till it's reached a critical mass that can no longer be ignored or unheeded - and that has been addressed in previous articles.

However - it is that very atmosphere of fear, in our public schools, that creates a "hostile environment", which our children react to, and more specifically, their minds react to by kicking into that above-mentioned Fear/Anxiety state.

And what do we do about it ?

Instead of treating the underlying problem of the hostile environment our schools have become, we simply take the symptoms and make excuses for them...maybe it's ADD, maybe it's a Learning Disability...let's just medicate it till it goes away - the quick fix.

Our society doesn't help in this situation very much, being far more dependant on instant gratification and reaction "band-aids" instead of actual problem solving, and as for the medical community ? shocking.

Most health plans push hard for medication instead of treatment simply because medication is cheaper, both financially and in doctors time and effort - the average pediatrician sees a child for an average of only 7-1/2 minutes, and proper diagnoses of behavioral disorder takes, on average, at least 90 Minutes.

Treating one is very time consuming and expensive, often $150 or more for a single session.

Of course, many times it is the school itself, without any medical training, trying to perform a "diagnoses" and demand treatment - two cases of such an event will be included at the end of this article.

As if that were not enough....why not follow the dollar, why not ask "who's benefitting from all this?" - It's a good question.

The company that makes the most common of these drugs, Ritalin is currently under litigation due to accusations that they - "planned, conspired, and colluded to create, develop and promote the diagnosis of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in a highly successful effort to increase the market for its product Ritalin."

And no overworked teacher is going to complain about 40 kids who just sit there and stare like little zombies, nor is any school administrator going to complain about the lack of disciplinary problems due to medicating them out of existence, now, are they ?

What is really frightening is that many of these kids are on medication that is "off-label", a medical term for the use of medication that has not been properly tested and/or approved for use on children, and many are on more than one....for example, many kids on Ritalin who have developed problems sleeping are now given Clonidine as well - where does it stop ? what affects are these untested pharmacological regimens going to have in the long run....do we really need to medicate, and then medicate symptoms caused by the original medication ?

It seems the only one's getting the short end of this stick are the kids, and involved parents.

What we seem to be doing here, is medicating our children's natural responses to an environment we have by inaction allowed to become hostile, instead of working to make that environment safe, secure and comfortable to them.

After a long period of time with such chemical support, more often than not discontinued at the end of the school year, many of these kids turn to other methods of "chemical support" most definitely not approved by the FDA, especially older ones.....psychological/chemical dependance kicks in, and they reach for another, even more dangerous chemical "Crutch" to help them through the day.

Oh, didn't you know ? Ritalin and Thorazine are two *highly* addictive substances, so when that first pill gets dropped, even with all the other issues, the child now has to eventually kick that monkey off his back, too - on top of everything else.

"What's the matter with kids these days ?" - we've made them into little zombie-junkies, that's what's the matter with them...and you really, honestly think they will not hate us for it ?

Get a clue, fix the problem, not the symptoms - go with your kid to school tomorrow and discuss this with the administrator, and if they don't listen, do what you have to - it's your kid, not theirs, after all.

Me...I recommend home schooling or tutoring, I would not suffer any child I know through public schools at this time...and they have a long way to go before I would.

The choice is yours.

-XXXXXXXX

Related links:
(ETA: A lot of which seem to be dead, now)

Articles about Ritalin Use relative to the school system:
http://www.salon.com/health/log/2000/02/23/kid_drugs/
http://www.vachss.com/help_text/archive/cinc_post1.html
http://detnews.com/1998/metrox/ritalin/1alarm/1alarm.htm

Lawsuit Information:
http://www.breggin.com/classaction.html
http://www.ritalinfraud.com/

Students "Ordered" to take Ritalin:
http://add.about.com/health/add/library/weekly/aa081700a.htm
http://add.about.com/health/add/library/weekly/aa011300a.htm

Findings of an in-patient setting study concerned about overmedication:
http://www.cqc.state.ny.us/pubmedch.htm

Severe Case Example of a child's response to a "hostile" environment:
http://www.childprotectionreform.org/policy/trends/massnewstory5.htm

Summary of the 1978 NIE Study:
http://www.nssc1.org/studies/studies/nie.htm

FBI press release and downloadable PDF:
http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel00/school.htm

*Highly* recommended link:
CITIVAS Child Trauma Academy
http://www.childtrauma.org

(Extra credit - without the wonderful work done by Dr Perry and his staff, and his explanations of child responses to fear/anxiety - this article would not have been possible.)

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 6:04 PM

Glad you reposted that article, Frem. This is the only thing that I agree with Scientologists on. I hate psychotropic meds. It's abominable the way they use it on kids.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 6:33 PM

Oh, I agree with the Scientologists on a lot. I think I disagree where they say "You should follow the leaders of the Church." I think this is where most religions lose me. I owe far more to Scientology than I care to admit, it's really a field worthy of study by the common citizen. I wonder if I started a protestant Scientology if they would burn me at stake in Area 51. Probably.

Still, not to be under-rated. It's among my list of "ten faiths that hold deep inner truths to life."

Anyway, yes, Frem, thanks for the reminder that the system is far more insane than I usually give it credit for.

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 6:52 PM

Oh dear, I hope I didn't get too melodramatic, I'm actually doing quite fine all things considered. While they aren't taking to simple sight reading yet, I have managed to show them what about the rap and hip hop beats they like so much and what makes it sound so cool. It took a little while for them to really grasp the concept of syncopation and how to reproduce it, but it was a pretty big 'light bulb' moment. I'm hoping to carry this wave of enthusiasm into other areas of music. I suspect this is a good example of what you'd like to see in education, adapting the information to a medium the students enjoy and relate to better. That's great when it works and it does work more often than some might think.

Concerning what to do, many of these kids have never read music before and I am teaching them from the ground up. Singing in unison is hard enough for them, I'm not sure we'll be able to handle harmony (amongst the students) anytime soon. Were I in a school I would (theoretically) have better equipment and some instruments for the children to play.

I am currently employed part time, teaching classes after school under the century 21 grant for the cultural center and community resource center. I student taught last year in a title I public school and work with public school teachers often. My supervisors are quite happy with what I'm doing ('specially considering how much we don't have and my talent for working with next to nothing) and there is (relatively) little pressure but also little money in what I'm currently doing. In a nutshell, they wanted me to teach them what they aren't getting out of school in a manner a government funded program would approve of, like addressing the standards. I know, I know, you'd think the standards would be addressed in schools. Unfortunately, most of these students don't have music classes and those that are are still have a lot to learn there.

The stressful bits and details come from my experiences in the public school student teaching, like when I had to create a new curriculum for one of our classes because the new Georgia Standards made the old class obsolete. It was a good student teaching experience because I got a taste of harder and not so shiny parts of teaching. I'm still looking to get a full time music teaching job in a public school, unless of course I get a better paying offer that still allows me to make a positive impact on the community. Ah, who am I kidding, I'll do almost anything if it's a better offer (and legal of course). I like enriching these children's lives through music education, and I do believe music is an essential part of our education and well... our humanity. I also believe I have student loans that won't pay themselves.

Back to General Music type stuff. In general music we 'play to learn' rather than 'learn to play.' Rote songs are not the lesson, but rather tools for teaching the lesson. We would use a song like John Jacob Jinglehiemerschmidt to teach dynamics (softness and loudness), not for the purpose of learning that song. I'd love to do more with instruments, but all I have is what I can bring with me, my french horn, drum pad and sticks, and an electronic keyboard. I have 24 students. We do our best and do a lot of rhythmic and clapping related things. I'm basically building up rhythm, and then building everything else on top of the rhythm foundation. In my experiences as a teacher, student and when performing professionally, rhythm is always the hardest and most important aspect of music. Who cares you if can play the right notes when they are in the wrong place right? So I figure, for the purposes of this program (and pragmatically considering how little I have to work with) I figure if anything is to be over emphasized, it's gonna be rhythm.

Alright, I reached this point and almost forgot what I was intending to respond to. I hate being sick lol. Oh yeah, getting rid of teachers. Just who are these people you speak of answering questions if they aren't teachers? Also, how will the children begin their own lesson? Who's going to show them where and how to start? It's an interesting idea, but likely filled with trial and error (and of course the danger of learning things wrong and not realizing the error) based exploration which is as healthy as it is inefficient. If the students could spend weeks getting the hang of the Pythagorean Theorem on their own, or days with a teacher and then move on to learning something new, which would you prefer? I think they'd get more out of discovering it for themselves (assuming they didn't become immediately dissatisfied when denied instant gratification and move on to something else) but they wouldn't get as much done in the same amount of time without a teacher.

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 6:59 PM

I agree, as a society we are way to quick to turn to drugs. Can't sleep? Here's some drugs! Feeling down? Here's some drugs! Having problems paying attention during a boring class on information that holds no interest to you? Drugs! It's ridiculous. I understand that sometimes there are chemical imbalances and the like that can be rectified with these medications, but I fear far too often we address 'symptoms' with these drugs and never fix what's actually wrong with the patient.

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Wednesday, December 8, 2010 2:11 AM

Happy,

just moderating my anti-establishment rant so as not to call for your job

Actually, I'd much prefer a completely self directed system where you could be a musician, and students could simply come to you for help, and then you could go on tour, and they'd think you were way cool

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Wednesday, December 8, 2010 8:26 AM