Somedays, I get it.

[learnteach]

Little lost lambs, straying...what could be stupider than a sheep? A willful High School student. I spend more time on basic discipline than on teaching here, and it's worn me down to where I understand why the Lord would destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, and why you can't find a good man there--"Good" is relative; in the land of the goof off, the one working is the one who gets their stuff stolen or pilfered or stuffed full of paper, and verbally ridiculed, and physically abused.



So, in short, I haven't defeated the prevailing culture of violence and stupidity completely enough. And if you are not part of the problem, you better duck and cover. And...wow.

School should use computers. No, really, we're in Silicon Valley; the students are all carrying machines (cell phones, music players, game systems) that can literally give them all the answers, but the State Requirements (derived from the Federal Requirements) is that they close the books, sit in a room, and pass a test--a form of test used no where else in life, and a set of skills they don't really need.

Education Reform Now! What do we want?

It's Amerika. We want more money.

I don't think modern schooling is serving us well, just as I don't think modern government is serving us well. But I don't really have an answer. Just some up close and personal observations.

The scary thing? According to the population figures, soon the majority of youth in California will be immigrants (more or less.) And they're not doing well in these schools.

Just one set of thoughts...

Comments

[katie-in-london.livejournal.com]

actually, after numerous class discussions and some reading, I've started to wonder how much America (and thus the bulk of Americans, obviously not you or I, else we wouldn't be posting here!) value education. If American policies can't reflect education as a priority value, how can we say immigrants coming here don't? I have to think they do value a better life and more opportunity for their children and thus education would seem to follow.

I see the hard problem to fix being one of communication and culture. Beyond the mere language gap that, in theory, can be fixed by ESL (which is called by a different acronym now, but I'm blanking on it..) there is constant communication that needs to happen between teacher-family-community for true education to be completely successful. Different cultural communication styles, ignorence on both sides, make this incredibly difficult in the diverse school system of today.

and on a totally personal, and possibly biased note as I'm not an immigrant just a native of San Jose, I see many immigrant families living within their own little bubble of a commnuity, rather than taking part and sharing with the whole and that bothers me. If I went to another country I would want to communicate with my kids teachers and thus would be forced to learn how.

of course JT already made the counter point to that: who has time to learn how when you have to work two jobs just to get by/ feed your family?

Sorry, I don't even know you! I hope you don't think I'm too forward! I'm just super passionate about this subject right now. :)

[judith-s.livejournal.com]

This is one of my big subjects too. I quite agree that American culture as a whole does not value education. "Egg heads" are looked down on even in our culture, and it's much worse in the culture of those who did not get an education. I remember an African friend of mine being called an "Oreo" for getting good grades. Apparently it's a sign of being white. It's frightening. Teachers in Hungary (where I spent part of my childhood) were not paid all that well, but they were respected by the school structure, by the parents, and therefore by the kids. It's that lack of respect that makes teaching such a difficult job today. I was a mouthy kid and challenged teachers occasionally, but I would've been in big trouble if I had physically challenged them, or not listened to them.

FWIW, my ESL class communicated not at all with my parents. But then, I'm lucky, my parents both have graduate degrees and there was no doubt that I would go to university, and probably get a graduate degree as well. We didn't quite live in a bubble, but we did try to maintain our own culture. For the better, in my rather biased opinion. I just hope that I can impart that expectation of learning and teaching in my kids.