U.S. Education: Doing It on the Cheap!
Reading, Writing, Retailing
By DAVE EGGERS, NINIVE CALEGARI and DANIEL MOULTHROP
Most teachers love teaching, but teaching is often not so
easy to love.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/27/opinion/27eggers.html?th&emc=th
..................
By chance I happened to start teaching in a woman's college (Vassar, now co-ed) just as the women's revolution was getting launched. I actually met a good number of its leaders at an annual holiday party hosted by Carolyn Bird (Born Female) in her Gramercy Park apartment in 1968.
What distinguished the before and after of those years was that intelligent women suddenly could aspire to solid professional careers in law, medicine, and business, whereas previously they had been confined (as was my own mother in her early years before Depression protocols barred married women from having a second family job) to secondary roles as nurses, secretaries, or teachers for which they were routinely paid low wages as captives in an overcrowded women's job market.
We watched with considerable enthusiasm as my Vassar students suddenly began to apply to professional schools and, I assume, that the then largest Vassar program in the college -- Child Studies -- began to dwindle -- one of its superstars moved to Brooklyn College. One of my students from my first year of teaching there, who went on to law school, is now a respected NYC judge; another is a fellow philosopher. Two taught my own children at the Bank St. School for Children where I learned what early childhood education could really accomplish. Others are variously scattered through the professions.
The bottom line here is that our politicians still think they can get away with treating teachers as second class citizens and awarding them pitifully inadequate salaries. Sorry, it it not going to work. Some of my ablest students do still enter teaching, but sadly a good number of these leave it in disgust with the disrespectful treatment that they are accorded there. Teaching to a test is not very challenging. One simply drills students from one's received course outline. However, anyone with any smarts knows that this sort of teaching does not get the job done of educating students so that they can educate themselves. It merely bores everyone to death -- students as well as teachers. I receive the products of such teaching in my classrooms and have to struggle to persuade my students that learning can be interesting and enjoyable and not simply a route to making big bucks out there! I would hate to detail all the misdirection that students have received in their earlier learning experiences, particularly how to cheat, just as their schools are doing:
--
False Data on Student Performance
Many states are cooking the books on high school graduation
rates to provide overly optimistic appraisals of their
schools.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/27/opinion/27mon4.html?th&emc=th
--
With the way we are starving American education, N-Ph.D., I will not be surprised soon to see ads along the lines of those inviting Americans to package medical deals in South East Asia (for major surgical procedures with travel expenses and vacations thrown in for 1/3 the cost in the U.S.) inviting American parents to send their kids to, say, India for a real education -- that seems to be where the jobs are going anyway.
One way or another we shall be seeing the bursting of our American doing-it-on-the-cheap education bubble. Perhaps the draft will not be necessary after all?
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.legendgames.net/blognews.asp
By DAVE EGGERS, NINIVE CALEGARI and DANIEL MOULTHROP
Most teachers love teaching, but teaching is often not so
easy to love.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/27/opinion/27eggers.html?th&emc=th
..................
By chance I happened to start teaching in a woman's college (Vassar, now co-ed) just as the women's revolution was getting launched. I actually met a good number of its leaders at an annual holiday party hosted by Carolyn Bird (Born Female) in her Gramercy Park apartment in 1968.
What distinguished the before and after of those years was that intelligent women suddenly could aspire to solid professional careers in law, medicine, and business, whereas previously they had been confined (as was my own mother in her early years before Depression protocols barred married women from having a second family job) to secondary roles as nurses, secretaries, or teachers for which they were routinely paid low wages as captives in an overcrowded women's job market.
We watched with considerable enthusiasm as my Vassar students suddenly began to apply to professional schools and, I assume, that the then largest Vassar program in the college -- Child Studies -- began to dwindle -- one of its superstars moved to Brooklyn College. One of my students from my first year of teaching there, who went on to law school, is now a respected NYC judge; another is a fellow philosopher. Two taught my own children at the Bank St. School for Children where I learned what early childhood education could really accomplish. Others are variously scattered through the professions.
The bottom line here is that our politicians still think they can get away with treating teachers as second class citizens and awarding them pitifully inadequate salaries. Sorry, it it not going to work. Some of my ablest students do still enter teaching, but sadly a good number of these leave it in disgust with the disrespectful treatment that they are accorded there. Teaching to a test is not very challenging. One simply drills students from one's received course outline. However, anyone with any smarts knows that this sort of teaching does not get the job done of educating students so that they can educate themselves. It merely bores everyone to death -- students as well as teachers. I receive the products of such teaching in my classrooms and have to struggle to persuade my students that learning can be interesting and enjoyable and not simply a route to making big bucks out there! I would hate to detail all the misdirection that students have received in their earlier learning experiences, particularly how to cheat, just as their schools are doing:
--
False Data on Student Performance
Many states are cooking the books on high school graduation
rates to provide overly optimistic appraisals of their
schools.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/27/opinion/27mon4.html?th&emc=th
--
With the way we are starving American education, N-Ph.D., I will not be surprised soon to see ads along the lines of those inviting Americans to package medical deals in South East Asia (for major surgical procedures with travel expenses and vacations thrown in for 1/3 the cost in the U.S.) inviting American parents to send their kids to, say, India for a real education -- that seems to be where the jobs are going anyway.
One way or another we shall be seeing the bursting of our American doing-it-on-the-cheap education bubble. Perhaps the draft will not be necessary after all?
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.legendgames.net/blognews.asp
posted by Ed Kent at 6:16 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home