My son's teacher's note.

[Kosmonaut]

This is from my son's 5th grade teacher:

Dear Parents,
Thursday the 21st of Jan. our class will be going on a field trip to Plimoth Plantation. Permission slips are required for all students who will attend, before debarking.

Your's truly,

Ms. xxxxxxx

My son doesn't bark.:rofl:

If I'm not mistaken.. isn't it spelled "Plymouth"?

---------- Post added at 05:53 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:50 AM ----------

If any teacher did this to my child...hehe..you can bet your C-14 optics I'd be wanting to see them...

 

[ThatGuy]

...that's a lot of toilets..

There's a lot of

In the schools I went to, most of the teachers knew what they were talking about and were pretty fair.

Though, there was this one teacher I had that was pretty bad my high school junior year Literature teacher. She had a number of teaching problems, including but not limited to not explaining anything properly, collecting homework that was not assigned, quizzes on thing we hadn't even touched on, ridiculous time constraints on projects, and you get the point. Also, she didn't seem to care about the students at all.

There was one thing in particular that I remember. She had this rule that if you didn't have your homework by the time class started that day, you could turn it in by the end of the day for half-credit. This particular day, I forgot my homework in my locker. After class, I checked to make sure that she would be there after school (the school day ended at 2:30). She specifically said that she would be in her classroom until 3:00. At 2:32, I arrived at her room. She wasn't in, but there was a note saying that if anyone needed to see her, be there first thing in the morning.

The next day, she didn't show up until a few minutes before I had her class (3 periods in), so before class started I tried to see if she would take the homework. If she had just said no, I would have accepted it and just sat down. But she didn't just say no. After I explained the situation, she said that if I wanted any credit, I should have come at the end of the day. Because she apparently didn't listen the first time, I told here that I did come and that she wasn't there. She the told me that she had to be at a volleyball game at 2:30 on the day in question (she was the coach). I felt like I was about to flip out on her for lying as she had specifically said that she would be there until 3:00. She must have sensed this too as she snatched up my homework and said "Calm down, I'll take it."

Looking back, this was really stupid on my part. But it was near the end of the year and so many people, including me, were sick dealing with her. Knowing my class, someone should have flipped out long before that point.

Just to give one more example of how terrible she was: She was essentially fired from the teaching staff at the end of that (her first) year. She was the first teacher in something like 25 years to only teach one year at my school.

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

Interesting thread!

In my personal experience, teachers are some of the worst people for making repeated spelling errors.

I once had a teacher who always spelled "recognise" as "reconise".

 

[Eccentrus]

Oh well, speaking of education, I was lucky enough to have a generous pair of parents who let me buy any book I want, so I mainly self-educate myself outside of school, but the schools here is horrible, the horrid curricula is made so that not only there's no-child-left-behind, but also no-child-thinks-at-all or something like that, it is very rare to see a student with a critical mind here. And because I think critically, sometimes it takes me longer to study a subject or two, especially in math (where you're supposed to just swallow it whole) but, after graduating from school, and going into universities (two for my case, because I re-assigned to another university in my second year) It's pretty clear that I'm one of the few who learned anything at all from the schools (well and the books of course), most of the other students are studying so that they can have good grades and go to work in a good company, not to exactly learn about the universe.

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

And because I think critically, sometimes it takes me longer to study a subject or two, especially in math (where you're supposed to just swallow it whole.

Exactly my thoughts regarding school.

I can usually understand most things, but only after I have figured out how & why it works by myself.

 

[agentgonzo]

That's actually printed out and pinned to my desk wall at work!

Well in the ideal system teachers shouldn't really be the teachers, they should be guides. You learn things much better when you have to teach yourself as opposed to having the information shoved down your throat.

My favorite classes were those with small enrollment and a discussion style, which encouraged you to think out loud.

Math and engineering can't be like that all the time, of course, but literature and history should be.

That's exactly what my A-Level maths teacher did. Admittedly there were only three of us in the further maths class, so it was easier to do it with a small group, but nearly every lesson she started from where we had left off in the previous lesson and asked us questions about it, guiding us as you say. She jotted things down on the overhead projector as we went along and by half way through the lesson we, the students, had figured out and derived the subject matter for that day with very little input from her apart from asking leading questions. As such, because we had figured it out, rather than just been told or reading it, it stuck in our minds very much more. Thank you Mrs. Norman! You were a fantastic teacher.

 

[Eccentrus]

Exactly my thoughts regarding school.

I can usually understand most things, but only after I have figured out how & why it works by myself.

Right, I don't know why, but I named this method of learning as, the Knowledge Accretion method of learning, after the accretion theory of the formation of star systems...

 

[Quick_Nick]

Exactly my thoughts regarding school.

I can usually understand most things, but only after I have figured out how & why it works by myself.

I regularly find myself going way too deep into specific topics in math. Researching information, reading unassigned sections of the book, thought experiments, and generally trying to figure out HOW things work, how I can get myself to think about a topic to make it simpler, and things like that. I also sometimes start getting too interested in the history book and read ahead or just read and forget to do the work, but I don't go nearly as deep as for math and science. I tend to spend a LOT of my time after school on the computer researching various math or science topics, so much that I hardly get homework done. (not good! lol) One of my biggest wishes is that I could be taught specifically what I want and at MY pace. It's a pain being kept from learning higher level math in school, and a pain to study a simple topic for long time so that everyone can get it. And, unfortunately, I'm not the best at teaching myself. I would learn MUCH quicker if taught the things I want in school.

 

[flytandem]

I remember a day in Grade 5 class in 1965. The science teacher was going to teach about why we have winter and summer.

She put a circle at the center of the chalk board and labeled it "sun". Then she made a circle left of it marking it as Earth. She showed the axis with a little north pole tilted toward the sun and the south pole tilted away. So far so good.

Then she made a circle right of the sun also calling it Earth and this time she tilted it with north pole to the left toward the sun instead of away from the sun. I'm sure my jaw had dropped by this time.

Next the teacher began to explain why those in the northerm hemisphere feel summer because "they are closer". By this time my hand was creeping up to be allowed to speak.

Teach then pointed to the Earth on the right side and started to get confused. She obviously was stuck. But the class was all silent and taking it in like good little soldiers.

My hand was now going straight up in order that I could speak to help her out. She saw my hand and allowed me to speak probably thinking I was going to ask to go to the bathroom or something. I said "I'm sorry but I think you have the Earth at right drawn at the wrong axis, it should be tilted right same as at left."

Holy hellraisers batman, she came unglued. I had tried to be polite but correcting a teacher was not something she allowed. I know now how much it must have embarrassed her.

I chose to not get into the directness of the sun angle to the surface, and distance from the sun as to how each contributes, or doesn't contribute, to the seasons. I did feel good about seeing an error and helping but given her reaction I didn't want to cause her a coronary. Plus I just wasn't old enough to realize that it's ok to feel good about an action and at the same time feel bad because of being yelled at by a teacher. Just a confused, proud and embarrassed kid.

 

[T.Neo]

Holy hellraisers batman, she came unglued. I had tried to be polite but correcting a teacher was not something she allowed. I know now how much it must have embarrassed her.

Yes yes, I have had that situation before (having to constantly correct a teacher on dinosaur names... she eventually got fed up and essentially told me to shut up).

Most of the time the "curriculum" I was forcefed at school was complete drivel anyway.

Anything useful I've ever learnt, I have learnt outside of school.

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

I also sometimes start getting too interested in the history book and read ahead or just read and forget to do the work.

Oh, I used to be guilty of that!

But a good teacher should encourage such an interest, not discourage it.

 

[T.Neo]

Oh, I used to be guilty of that!

As did I.

But a good teacher should encourage such an interest, not discourage it.

Indeed. It is really a pity that educators spend time enforcing what is essentially a useless system instead of educating.

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

Indeed. It is really a pity that educators spend time enforcing what is essentially a useless system instead of educating.

I think education is as much about educating the heart, as it is about educating the mind.
By that I mean that schools should put a lot more emphasis on inspiring kids, and less on making them memorise facts about things they are not interested in.
In the real world, everybody has their own areas of interest/expertise. But yet we expect kind to learn about, and be interested in everything - science, maths, English, history, geography, etc.
If you inspire a child about something, then they will teach it to themselves.

In short: Inspire, then educate. Not the other way round as is done in most schools - they "teach" you, then they try to inspire you as to what you can do in later life just a few months before you leave.
I must also say that my school completely failed to inspire me in anything. I have inspired myself through my own interests.

 

[Arrowstar]

I think education is as much about educating the heart, as it is about educating the mind.
By that I mean that schools should put a lot more emphasis on inspiring kids, and less on making them memorise facts about things they are not interested in.
In the real world, everybody has their own areas of interest/expertise. But yet we expect kind to learn about, and be interested in everything - science, maths, English, history, geography, etc.
If you inspire a child about something, then they will teach it to themselves.

I certainly agree that schools need to be doing significantly more to inspire their students. It's one of the major problems today with our youth, and I'd chalk it up to the comparative decline of performance of American students in the past few decades. (By which I mean, it seems to me that most American students have no drive towards their future, they lack this "inspiration.") As you said, I too ended up inspiring myself, but I also had a few good teachers who allowed me to take that inspiration and run with it in their classes. I suppose in that sense I am lucky.

That being said, students should really have an understanding of basic language, mathematics, history, and science. Looking at the curriculum at my high school, I don't really see a problem with it:

4 credits of English
3 credits of math
3 credits of sciences
3 credits of social sciences (history and the like)
...and less relevant others.

There's still plenty of room in that schedule for a driven student to take electives that s/he finds interesting, or co-op at the end of the day, or independent study with a teacher, or something else. Students need to be able to relate to other aspects of the world they live in besides what they end up being interested in. If they couldn't, not only would the world be a more boring place, but as they say (and I will paraphrase), "those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it."

 

[Donamy]

If I'm not mistaken.. isn't it spelled "Plymouth"?

No, this spelling is actually correct. It is AFAIK, the old spelling. There is even an old road in Plymouth, MA. called "Plimoth Highway".

 

[Bj]

That's actually printed out and pinned to my desk wall at work!

I am going to send it to my bosses too, see how much they like it... and maybe they will catch on. :lol:

I have a couple strips like that at work too, just to remind me it can be much worse...

 

[insanity]

I used to be a student-teacher (it is actually how I met my girlfriend as I used to work in her class) and as such I've seen both sides of public education.

Part of the problem is the demand for teachers vs. the supply of good ones. Teacher education programs are a joke and they just try to pump out qualified teachers to put bodies in the classroom. This is especially true for math and science. Then there is the issue of teacher specialization. Declining budgets often mean that teachers teach many subjects a day. My girlfriend for example has to teach economics, World War I, and the agraian revolution- to students who are college bound and students who are teen mothers- despite having a B.A. in history with her thesis focusing on education in Kazakhstan. That is a real challenge for her, and on many occasisions I've had to teach her econ before she taught it to the class.

Then you have students who are generally demotivated or don't want to be there. In many respects school is an assault on critical thinking and independent thought because it is also where we enforce the norms of socialization. I think most of us here can recognize that it is hard to be smart and in public school. A lot of students simply check-out mentally because they are at school.

There is also the issue of being mandated to teach to tests. Or that there is no fair and quantifiable way to assess teachers. There is also the teacher's union which is both evil and necessary.

Basically, our education system is underfunded and over mandated and its hard to get talented and educated people to stay in the job when they can make good money somewhere else. People with master's degrees should not be babysitting, but they are not allowed to teach good curriculum. You end up with people who want to be glorified babysitters who can't accept challenges to authority.

There are exceptions and teachers who want to do the best job educating their students possible. There really are good teachers out there who care. Sadly, the system is trying to force all of them out.

 

[ThatGuy]

Oh, I used to be guilty of that!

As was I. Then I would do the work and keep going.

 

[Fizyk]

I don't remember having ever met a teacher that would be angry when they were corrected. Usually they would just thank the student that corrected them for spotting the mistake, some were even rewarding the students with pluses for activity or things like that.

I guess there are still teachers that consider pointing their mistakes out an outrage, but most of them are happy when someone corrects them. To them it means that someone actually listens to them and understands what they are talking about. I even know some teachers that were making mistakes intentionally, to see if people would spot them and correct them

 

[Krys]

Speaking from experience of many sides of the schooling system, I went to both public and private schools and now work in a university.

Public School
I did not enjoy public school at all, due mostly to the read and repeat "teaching method" used by overworked teachers. Discussion was discouraged as this would take too much effort and research.

Private School
The private schools I went to had a three tiered system: Advanced, Intermediate and Assisted. In the assisted classes students were taught at a lower level and given more attention by teachers, these students were the ones who would fail without help. Intermediate - students capable but struggling. Advanced - taught at each students individual pace, given extra work when necessary and a lot of "Independant Learning". Whilst the independant learning was available, we were restricted to certain things to research. E.g. subject of ancient rome we were given specific topics to cover - manner of dress, timeline of the rulers/ruling bodies, food, imports and exports. Whilst some people would have prefered to read about Centurians, at least we got to choose how we learnt. The teachers were always welcoming of discussions, and in our English literature classes every Friday morning was devoted to group discussion.

University
I was given the job of clearing out one of the old archive cupboards (c. 1960's) and noted that most students could spell and write in structured sentences. However, they were not expected to know the level of detail students today are required to know. Universities, in general, do not test the academic ability of the applicants as they rely on the governing body of the school system.

Challenging a Teacher
At one private school we had an absolutely useless teacher (yes just one), who wrote things on the board and expected us to read and repeat. Given that this was an Advanced Science class, you can imagine the uproar. This teacher ignored my raised hand for 4 weeks (believe me, after a double lesson -1.5hrs- my arm was killing me).The students rebelled against his teaching style, we were sitting important examinations within 5 months, and the teacher was fired. This teacher would have been very acceptable to the public schooling system, and in fact got a job at one of the local public schools the next year.

Summation
Whilst I believe the public schooling system, worldwide, needs a good restructuring, the private sector seems to be getting it right. Students these days do not know how to spell, but when it comes to how much information they now have to store - I can understand why some standards are slipping. Perhaps primary/elementary schools need some stricter guidelines on acceptable English language skills.

Where would I send my kids? Private, of course, after thoroughly checking the teaching methods out.