Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSquealer
Sly turned me on to a book called Practice Perfect. It is actually about a consulting company that works with educators to improve their teaching... but the lessons of course apply to everything. Learning is learning. Teaching is teaching... regardless of what is being learned or taught, the core methods and how the brain itself learns is the same.
Reading it and understanding what it actually takes to be outstanding at anything, the personality traits that are required, the passion that is required and the dedication that is required and based on my life experience with teachers, I just can't imagine a a bright future for our public schools. Even those that actually want to teach or that have passion for it, are often mediocre at actually teaching... meaning, just showing up and going through lesson plans and liking kids, does not constitute effective teaching.
My view is that the education system needs to be radically changed in this nation, that unions need to be kept out of it and that children need to be put first. People need to stop acting like money makes for better education, when we are being crushed by a world spending far less... and most importantly, parents need to be involved and start demanding more from their kids as well, which is also missing.
Anyway, to me, education is like discussing the best chair placement on the deck of the Titanic, arguing which chairs are more comfortable... or where to place pencil sharpeners. The system has been failing for many many decades and not improving in spite of MASSIVE increases in spending.
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I completely agree that the number of actual, high quality, teachers is pretty low. I enjoy watching baseball. I like putting on the mitt and throwing the ball around in the back yard or going to a batting cage and taking a few swings. I even played baseball in grade school and high school. This doesn't mean I could ever in a million years play at the pro level. The same goes for teachers. Many like kids, have a passion for teaching and want to do well, but don't have the actual skills to do it. Not to mention a system that is in place that hinders them at every turn.
The Finnish lead the world in education and they do it in an interesting way. In that country teaching is considered a very noble profession. They only have a few schools that actually teach and train teachers. They accept one out of every 18-20 applicants to the school. After graduating you work as an assistant for a while before you ever actually teach a class. They want to make sure the best of the best are teaching their kids. By placing such high value on the job and demanding such high results they are able to get the cream of the crop as far as teachers go so every classroom is led by someone that really knows what they are doing.
Going back to my original point, I was just explaining some of the reasons public schools cost more per student than private schools. More money doesn't solve the problems. You can throw money at things all day and never fix them, but there are inherent costs that a public school has that most private schools do not.