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Tigress
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1252
| Posted 9/19/2003 11:50 AM (GMT -6) |   | I just read an article in the latest Time magazine about the Bush "No Child Left Behind" educational plan and I was just wondering why anyone with half a brain can't seem to figure out that the only real reason why kids aren't doing well in school, is because they could give a flying fart about it. I mean, when I was in school during the 80's and early 90's, practically all the other kids would gripe and moan about how stupid school was, and talk bad about their teachers and just do only what they could to get by. They'd do their homework and study for tests at the last possible minute and just blow off anything academic if they didn't absolutely have to do it.
I went to college in Wisconsin, Illinois and here in Minnesota, and a good half or more than half of the students there, were only there because it was the cultural thing to do. Their parents wanted them there, and it delayed them having to go out into the real world for four years. My brother went to Northern Illinois University and he told me stories about all his pathetic drunken roommates and their buddies and how they just did what they had to do to get by, too. My brother has a high I.Q. so he actually applied himself and was a good student. It really irked him that all these other people who took their studies for granted were in college partying and goofing off when more studious people like himself were working their butts off and barely getting by in the tougher courses.
I honestly don't believe any amount of money is going to change many kids' attitudes about school and learning new things. The change has got to come from inside themselves to motivate them to have any desire to be there and do the work. They need more of an incentive than "because I said so" or "because we have to keep up with the rest of the world" or "you'll get a better, higher-paying job if you apply yourself to your studies." That last one is actually not true in most cases, by the way.
So, the real plan needs to be more about motivating the kids, than pouring money into academics and better teachers. Better teachers and academics isn't going to make these kids any more enthusiastic about doing the work. It certainly wasn't for me. I've found that I know more of the basics from school than a lot of people do, and I barely applied myself at all. I knew a girl in my Illinois high school who, when I said that the Wisconsin college I was going to was right on Lake Michigan, she said, "The one in Chicago?!"
She didn't even realize how big it was! Do you ever watch the Jaywalking segments on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Some of the most basic stuff that we learn in school wasn't retained in most of the people they interview on the street! It's so obvious that most people just don't care about academics. Somebody's gotta make them care before we start wasting more money.
Tigress 
"Name a shrub after me. Preferably one that's prickly and difficult to eradicate."
-Captain Jack Aubrey
"Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" | | Back to Top | | |
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Triskal
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 198
| Posted 9/19/2003 9:28 PM (GMT -6) | | I couldn't agree with you more! There is such a major problem in America with politicians throwing money at education and hoping all problems will be solved. Why does it seem like every time a problem arises the only solution is "More money! We need more money in schools! Don't you care about the future of our children?" I am so sick and tired of hearing that crap.
I work in an afterschool program through the YMCA. Every day I ask some of the kids what they learned in school that day, I can honestly say that 99% of the time the answer that comes back is "nothing." I agree with you Tigress that the problem is one of motivation. Kids don't understand WHY they are going to school every day. More time should be spent explaining to kids what a good education means for their future than simply forcing bits of knowledge down their throats.
Anyone who has recently watched "The O'Reilly Factor" on the Fox News Channel should know how messed up the public school system has gotten. The problem is not simply in High School anymore, it's made it's way down to middle school and elementary school as well. Teachers now have to put up with children as young as 8 years old calling them bitches and whores. School bus drivers have to deal with kids engaging in sexual acts while riding the bus. Gangs dominate most High Schools and make it hard for anyone seriously interested in education to focus on learning.
From ruthless high school beatings, to elementary school children engaging in sexual acts with one another on the bus; things have gotten out of hand. Serious changes need to be made in public education, and the answer is NOT spending more money. Politicians, principles, and teachers need to evaluate the situation in terms of social structure, not in terms of curriculum. When kids of the same age are put together they are going to form selective groups. What happens is that these tightly bound groups create chaos by warring against one another and working against the teacher to make learning anything impossible. It's gotten to the point that when kids come to school they don't EXPECT to learn anything. Their main priority is to find ways of working their way up the popularity chain.
What's worse is that most parents know this and don't really give a damn. They are so caught up in their careers that they see schools as nothing more than a form of free daycare while they are at work. Teachers become babysitters, classrooms become playgrounds, and school is turned into nothing more than a "place to hang out while your parents are working." And the fact that kids are forced to go to school doesn't help matters any. All it does is create a mindset that one is a prisoner.
For many kids, school is a life-scarring, emotionally overwhelming experience. The myth that the only way to properly teach your child to socialize is in public school couldn't be any less true. If you call being sent into an environment where you are mocked, ridiculed, pushed around, and isolated socializing, then I guess I could agree. But otherwise, I see school as a source of isolation rather than socialization. It's hard to learn how to socialize when you're being beat up and shoved into a locker. (Not speaking from experience here, just from observation.)
You may think i'm overreacting here, if so then it's obviously been a LONG time since you've been in school. Things have changed, even from when I was growing up in elementary school. You probably had no idea that kids as young as 6 listen to eminem regularly. I bet you'd be shocked to see girls 7, 8, or 9 dressed in clothes that look 4 sizes too small. You might not have the slightest idea that the latest insults these days are no longer "poopy head" or "stupid face," but have now become "you f*cking b*tch" and "eat sh*t and die." Cigarettes are not the drug to worry about anymore, now it's cocaine, heroine, and marijuana. No longer do school fights result in a few bumps and bruises; now the standard result is broken noses, black eyes, bloody lips, and sometimes much worse.
Yes, people... it's time to wake up. Things are a lot worse than you think they are. And believe me, it's only going further downhill.
"In Him we live and move and have our being" - Acts 17:28
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Edmund Burke | | Back to Top | | |
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Tigress
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1252
| Posted 9/22/2003 4:46 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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fyodor
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 179
| Posted 9/24/2003 11:12 AM (GMT -6) | | On that last note, every professor should have to go through some Education training as well. How many crappy professors did I have back in college who knew their material with almost no idea how to allow students to learn it....
As far as this argument is concerned, there are a load of things wrong with the education system some that money will help and some that it won't. The biggest problem though as was eluded to above, has little to do with education itself, it has to do with parents. Educators are expected to raise kids these days, but their is little replacement for having parents who respect, challenge, love, feed, spend time with, and care for their children.
My wife has been a teacher for six years in North Minneapolis and it is almost a given that her "higher scoring" students have stable parents who are involved in their child's education. And the reciprocal is true as well.
Of course she can be an amazing teacher, even getting a Master's in Literacy and still the district with budget shortfalls can freeze her contracted and scheduled pay raise and the "performance pay" increase for earning a master's degree and throw out the "22 student class size reduction levy" and lay off 400 teachers because there isn't any money....Why should the good teachers stay and be lied to and have their real world wages lowered for working harder and face the threat of layoffs every year.....? It's been fun.
†††"One rarely finds an exposition of which it holds true that the exposition is that which is expounded." – S. Kierkegaard | | Back to Top | | |
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Triskal
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 198
| Posted 9/25/2003 8:50 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by fyodor
The biggest problem though as was eluded to above, has little to do with education itself, it has to do with parents. Educators are expected to raise kids these days, but their is little replacement for having parents who respect, challenge, love, feed, spend time with, and care for their children.
I completely agree with you there. This summer I was working with the YMCA at an afterschool program located in the inner city. The kids I worked with were primarily from broken homes. While I was there I had the most frustrating time of my life trying to get kids to follow directions and behave. I'm not talking about things as simple as not talking in line or keeping hands to one's self, I had trouble getting them to refrain from using four-letter words and from punching other kids.
Now during the school year I am back helping with the programs at the local schools. Most of the kids at these schools have both of their parents still together. The difference in behavior among these kids is phenominal. They are ten times as focussed and have very little trouble following directions.
It's amazing how much difference a stable home makes in a child's life.
In His Grip,
- Matt -
"In Him we live and move and have our being" - Acts 17:28
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Edmund Burke | | Back to Top | | |
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