Utter refusal to do homework
CountJade
I've been teaching junior and senior English for the last few
months, and I've come to notice a few things.
Firstly, the kids are geting to me with an almost astonishing lack
of even the most basic skills. I'm not talking about spelling, or
obtuse grammar problems, but an almost complete inability to work with
even basic writing and reading skills. Most of these kids can barely
do a summary style book report, which is all they've been used to
doing. Critical analysis? Hmmph. By the way, I get students from about
8 HS, since I'm at a magnet school.
Luckily, I've been able to push them kicking and screaming at
bayonet point into the world of basic thought, and I'm pleased to say
that they're starting to "get it". I knew they could, but it's obvious
they have never ever been challenged, so, I get to be the "hardest
teacher ever". That's OK, as long as they learn something.
Something else I've noticed is that they will go to ridiculous
lengths to not do homework. First off, let me assure you all I'm
hardly a "hours and hours "of hojework every night ogre. I put
together a very focused and extensive course book for my American and
British Lit classes. I told the students that my homework every night
was reading, approximately 8-15 pages,and that was it. If I got the
idea that no one was doing the reading, then I would have to assign
"homework" to make sure stuff was getting read, otherwise it would be
real hard to discuss anything, and I did not want this to be a
complete lecture based class.
Well, my seniors aren't too bad, the majority do the reading, but
the juniors....oof. The seniors have been at this school for a coupl
years, so they realize it's differnet from their home high schools.
The juniors, however, have mostly just gotten there from other
schools. Since we just opened two years ago, we just barely started a
freshman and sophomore class. Anyways, the juniors are horrible.
They will, with few exceptions, not do ANY reading at all, just sit
there blankly, and whine that they don't know how to do the weekly
essays. I tell them" It's because you haven't read anything the
essays are based on!"
I started off with short HW assignments, a short journal based
on the reading. No-one did it. I told them i was deducting points for
no HW...a few did it. I then decided to institute a new policy: No
homework 3 times meant that they "volunteered" to help the custodial
staff for an hour after school. After that, my HW rate went WAY up,
but I noticed they would do the HW based on the first paragraph of the
reading, if that...literally. So, I've had to up the ante to a
complete character list, a complete summary start to finish, and a
question and idea based on the reading. The detention rate went up.
They seem they would rather spend an hour scrubbing toilets than do a
lousy 8 pages reading. I don't get it.
They're not dumb kids...they have to test high just to get in
here, yet they will stop reading at the first unfamiliar word, and say
they couldn't understand the reading, so they didn't finish. I've had
"Honors" english students tell me they hate reading. I've found that
wholesale plagiarism off the net is endemic. In 9 weeks, I've
probably given out 50 zeros for plagiarism...sometimes to the same
students. One would think they would realize that I'm REALLY good at
spotting unoriginal work.
Talk about being discouraging to a first year teacher....
CountJade
pattierney
>
> Talk about being discouraging to a first year teacher....
I didn't know you were first year -- you've posted much longer.
Anyway, a few thoughts on some short sections:
> They're not dumb kids...they have to test high just to get in
> here, yet they will stop reading at the first unfamiliar word, and say
> they couldn't understand the reading, so they didn't finish.
Okay, maybe they aren't "dumb", but does that also mean that
they understand what they are reading? Do they have the
strategies that they need? They aren't getting them from their
prior schools, it seems. If you aren't doing this already (and
you may be for several things that I say), I'd read some of the
tougher sections in class to see what they are getting and not
getting, to have a clearer read on their skills. A written assignment
could be given on those days, reading on others, and it would
vary their assignments, which can help.
(Whenever I read Romeo and Juliet with the 9th grade, I
encounter some of these issues. They seem to think that if
they don't understand each and every word, they will be lost.
It takes time to dispel this notion, and lots of in-class reading.)
> They seem they would rather spend an hour scrubbing toilets than do a
> lousy 8 pages reading. I don't get it.
I don't favor even allowing such an option. It's a school.
That said, your policies have been revised a few times, so
they still may think that they get them revised to something
close to zero. It has happened. Once something comes around
that will stick, and they know it will stick, then slow changes
may come about. It's still early, and those strike me as being a
lot of homework policy changes so early in the year.
> The juniors, however, have mostly just gotten there from other
> schools.
This is part of the problem for several reasons. First, they
don't know your, or the school's, expectations. Second,
they come from eight different places which also each had
different expectations, leaving a lot of molding for you and
your school to do. Third, it seems that the first year is always
the rockiest, academically, for a student in a school. So, lots
of bumps in the road should be expected.
> I started off with short HW assignments, a short journal based
> on the reading. No-one did it. I told them I was deducting points for
> no HW...a few did it.
Do other junior teachers have similar problems? Also, do their
parents know what is expected of them, and what will happen if
they don't reach your expectations? For freshmen classes (mine),
that seems to matter a lot. I'm not sure about juniors.
> In 9 weeks, I've
> probably given out 50 zeros for plagiarism...sometimes to the same
> students. One would think they would realize that I'm REALLY good at
> spotting unoriginal work.
Tailoring assignments so that they can't be plagiarized, at least not
easily, helps. It's easy to do for an English teacher, having a wide
range of writing possibilities, and requiring certain prewriting steps
often helps subvert the copiers.
> Luckily, I've been able to push them kicking and screaming at
> bayonet point into the world of basic thought, and I'm pleased to say
> that they're starting to "get it". I knew they could, but it's obvious
> they have never ever been challenged, so, I get to be the "hardest
> teacher ever". That's OK, as long as they learn something.
So you are getting somewhere? You cover a lot of ground in
your post, and I'm not sure if this applies to your problem juniors.
Regardless, your experiences are not atypical, and I do think
that critical thinking and analysis will lead to some solutions.
Good luck.
P. Tierney
Mr_Xu
CountJade wrote in message
> Firstly, the kids are geting to me with an almost astonishing lack
> of even the most basic skills. I'm not talking about spelling, or
> obtuse grammar problems, but an almost complete inability to work with
> even basic writing and reading skills.
7th and 8th grade, ditto for me.
> Something else I've noticed is that they will go to ridiculous
> lengths to not do homework.
I have a similar experience. Typically, 60 to 75% of the students turn in
SOME semblance of the assignment I've given. I don't give huge assignments
either.
> I started off with short HW assignments,
Ditto. Most of what I assign is a 15-30 minute continuation of what we
began in class. It's hardly ever a matter of them not "getting" it, it's
about not doing anything at all.
After a lot of discussion with my team teachers, I've finally settled on
doing what they do. Give the assignments, explain multiple times that it's
a big part of their grade, then just note what's going on in the mid-terms
and report cards. Some of them didn't start doing homework until their
parents found out they were failing because of missing assignments.
Sorry I don't have any miracle suggestions. Best luck!
Xu
Magi D. Shepley
are for students with mild cognitive impairments. My 6th period class has 10
kids, and about 3 of them turn their homework in on a regular basis. I have
kids that have "signed" for not having their homework 6 times, and we didn't
start late buses until 10/1!
I've called home, I've assigned detention, I've dropped grades. Interims went
out last Friday, most of my kids have C's and D's in that class...
Its discouraging, because in my 7th period Civics class, which is my students
with mild cognitive impairment and the lower of the LD students who aren't in
my 6th period class (my 6th period class is mixed: I have 5 kids in that class
that could be in a team-taught regular ed class if they'd just DO THEIR WORK
and KEEP THEIR MOUTHS SHUT! and 5 kids who couldn't handle a regular ed class
with tons of support) and my 7th period class largely remembers to return their
homework. I don't give lots of homework either.
One page was 3 questions on the Declaration of Independence. They had to
rewrite it in their own words. We did the first question in class together.
Only one student bothered to write it down.
Magi
Martin Rowley
1) These kids are spoiled. Not just the kids that you are speaking of -
but the majority of the population here in America under the age of 20 are
spoiled or at least have the attitude of being spoiled. Most stuff is
either given to them or is there for the taking. There's usually no real
consequences for anything that they do or for any problems that they
cause. This generation has been babied to the point where they can't do
anything on their own. There are a few exceptions to this - but that end
of the bell curve is getting smaller every year.
2) Most of the kids today can't read. I'm not saying that they are
incapable of reading the individual words, but rather they are incapable
of sitting still long enough and being able to actually focus their
attention on the sentences / paragraphs that the words make up. Reading
for comprehension takes time and effort - most students can't do that on
their own and basically have no internal incentive to try and develop this
skill. Some how we have created a whole generation of kids with ADD - how
we did this I don't know, but the results of the condition is very
obvious. We are very reluctant to do anything about this condition - at
least anything that might actually work to reverse this inability.
3) You might want to check their vocabulary levels. I'm finding that many
of my students have little or no understanding of what I consider some of
the basic terms and definitions. I've actually had to explain to a high
school student one year what the word "typical" meant. Since this
generation of kids main source of "literary" input comes from watching
television - it's not surprising that their vocabulary is limited to what
the typical television program has in it. (Again this is not ALL of the
students, I do see one or two that do read, but it is becoming the
majority of what I typically see.) If their vocabulary is very limited -
it's not that surprising that they don't complete a reading homework
assignment. I know if someone handed me a medical textbook filled with
long medical terms that I had no clue as to what they meant, I would be
hard pressed to complete a reading assignment from it myself.
4) Most students place little or no actual value on what they are being
"taught" at school today. They don't need it now, so it's not important.
They see school as just a place to socialize with their peers. The act of
active learning is something that they just don't want or need to develop.
Even passive learning isn't working as they can't pay attention for a long
enough period for anything useful to soak in. I see our local school board
and administration attempting to make changes and adjust the way we do
things - but none of these efforts are going to ever work because they
don't require anything from the students themselves. I don't care what
efforts you make or what process you use - you can't make a chicken learn
to read without first changing the chicken into something that has the
capacity to learn to read. Same goes for our students.
Martin
CountJade wrote:
______________________________________________________________________________
Posted Via Binaries.net = SPEED+RETENTION+COMPLETION = http://www.binaries.net
Kleyle
>1) These kids are spoiled. Not just the kids that you are speaking of -
>but the majority of the population here in America under the age of 20 are
>spoiled or at least have the attitude of being spoiled. Most stuff is
>either given to them or is there for the taking.
Like my boys and girls in South Central? It's all there on a silver platter.
They have it easy! I'll tell them.
As ever,
Martin Rowley
school? All the students willingly do their homework/classroom assignments with
no threats of punishment or negative consequences or any other outside stimuli?
"As, ever," is right - you taken what I was attempting to say out of context.
I wasn't speaking of just material things. Yeah, I do think some of your
students have it easy. In my statement you attached I said "Not just the kids
that you are speaking of -but the majority of the population here in America
under the age of 20 are spoiled or at least have the attitude of being spoiled."
Even a lot of the economically disadvantaged students have this spoiled
attitude. Just what are the consequences for not doing well in your particular
class? For not doing well in your school in general? Take your worst case
student in your "South Central" teaching experience. How many of them actually
finish and graduate high school with little or no effort. How many leave at the
end with a diploma but no real knowledge or skills? How many are on the same
level as some of the students that dropped out of school?
Martin
Kleyle wrote:
______________________________________________________________________________
pattierney
"Martin Rowley" <kmro...@swbell.net> wrote:
> So you're saying that there are no instructional behavioral problems at
your
> school? All the students willingly do their homework/classroom assignments
with
> no threats of punishment or negative consequences or any other outside
stimuli?
If the answers to the latter are "No", then that doesn't necessarily
make them "spoiled". There are lots of other possible reasons for
not doing homework other than being spoiled.
P.
Tierney
Martin Rowley
have "valid" reasons for not doing their homework and how many have other (which
I'm putting under the catch all heading of "spoiled")? How many didn't do the
homework because there was something on television that they wanted to watch? Or
that they hung out with their friends instead of reading the chapter you
assigned? Played with their DreamCast? Or played on the internet downloading
MP3s? Just as an experiment one day ask your students how many MP3 files that
they have - then ask them what they think about intellectual property rights
(you'll get an ideal of how spoiled some of these kids are). There is going to
be a group of kids that don't do their homework because they are working the
late shift at the local grocery store till 2 am because they are the sole
provider of income for their family - but this is not going to be the typical
reason for a student to have not done their assigned homework. Keep the title of
this thread in mind in regard to my posts to this thread.
Martin
pattierney wrote:
______________________________________________________________________________
SumBuny4Me
"pattierney" <silvi...@home.com> wrote in message
news:BJ9y7.80230$P8.27...@news1.elmhst1.il.home.com...
> (Whenever I read Romeo and Juliet with the 9th grade, I
> encounter some of these issues. They seem to think that if
> they don't understand each and every word, they will be lost.
> It takes time to dispel this notion, and lots of in-class reading.)
Not that I think that movies should be usied in place of reading Shakespear,
but I also had major difficulties when I read his plays in class...I thought
the Bard was a drag until I saw the "play in action" as it were...some of
the funniest stuff I have ever seen was from "The Taming of the Shrew" (with
E. Taylor), and the relatively recent "Much Ado About Nothing"...
Reading Elizabethan English *can* be difficult, but if they ever have a
chance to at least see a scene or two acted out, it might help them
visualize the play a bit better. Granted, it always seems that the
tragedies are the ones that are read at this level...
Also, I do realise I am speaking from a student's POV, and not the
teacher's....
--
Buny
----"Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to
be normal." ~ Albert Camus
SumBuny4Me
papers of over a few paragrapsh...he was making mountains out of molehills,
and panicking. True, at the time he had low motor tone in his fingers to
his shoulders (which was being dealt with through OT), but his teachers
complained that he would refuse to do the work.
Until we allowed him to type it...he could handle that. Also helping to
teach him to break a "large" assignment into (to him) more manageable chunks
went far. This kid is now 11 and ADHD/gifted/aspergers-the same "manageable
chuck" concept is needed for his 14 year old "only" ADHD brother as well..
luigi pollio
mom and dad will back you up on anything is "spoiled". Kids today are spoiled.
I accept it and learn to work around it. When my students complain about
writing out notes instead of getting photocopies, I thank them very much for
their opinion and proceed to give them more notes. They learn quickly not to
complain. This is generation "Y" as in why do I have to do this? We need to
teach them hard lessons about life. It's our job and they will thank us for it
later. If they know you won't cower to them or their parents you're set. Your
integrity is worth much more than your job.
Luigi
pattierney
>
> Yes there are other possible reasons, but just how many in your actual
classes
> have "valid" reasons for not doing their homework and how many have other
(which
> I'm putting under the catch all heading of "spoiled")?
I'm not saying that they have "valid" reasons. I just wouldn't use
the catch all of "spoiled". "Lazy" works better for me. But some don't
have the skills to do homework, the discipline at home, an atmosphere
conducive to doing homework, or the role models and/or help to do it.
They are all different reasons, and valid or not, they fall under a
different category. If one must categorize.
> How many didn't do the
> homework because there was something on television that they wanted to
watch? Or
> that they hung out with their friends instead of reading the chapter you
> assigned? Played with their DreamCast? Or played on the internet
downloading
> MP3s? Just as an experiment one day ask your students how many MP3 files
that
> they have - then ask them what they think about intellectual property
rights
> (you'll get an ideal of how spoiled some of these kids are).
They probably think the same of it that I thought about it back
when I was making cassette tapes for friends.
> There is going to
> be a group of kids that don't do their homework because they are working
the
> late shift at the local grocery store till 2 am because they are the sole
> provider of income for their family - but this is not going to be the
typical
> reason for a student to have not done their assigned homework.
I agree that it isn't typical, but looking at the whole picture helps.
And keeping the past in mind helps instead of lumping it into a
"kids today" versus "kids in the past" (which is usually defined by
the poster and her/his small circle), which others have done on this
thread, also helps.
> Keep the title of
> this thread in mind in regard to my posts to this thread.
Will do.
P. Tierney
pattierney
Which is probably why it would be more accurate to use other
terminology.
P. Tierney
pattierney
I forgot to respond to this part:
"luigi pollio" <lou...@shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> No fear of consequence is "spoiled".
Children who are "neglected" have no consequences. Are they
"spoiled"? Among my 120 freshmen, I have far more who I'd label
"neglected" instead of "spoiled".
> Knowing
> mom and dad will back you up on anything is "spoiled". Kids today are
spoiled.
> I accept it and learn to work around it.
Not until it is defined more clearly and narrowly. So far,
it seems to be just another stereotype, and one that doesn't
apply to my students. Well, some of them, perhaps many of
them. But I still wouldn't generalize.
P.
Tierney
Martin Rowley
Thanks.
Martin
luigi pollio wrote:
______________________________________________________________________________
Martin Rowley
keeping the past in mind helps instead of lumping it into a "kids today" versus
"kids in the past" (which is usually defined by the poster and her/his small
circle), which others have done on this thread, also helps."
I too fall under the umbrella of comparing "today's" students with those of the
past - but with the difference of comparing the students that I have today with
those I had just five years ago. Back when I first started teaching I was
guilty of trying to make the comparison of the school / students from my own
days attending high school (1974-1978) and those that I was teaching in my
classes. There is a big gap between the two time periods, and not all of it is
due to my personal perspective of my memories. But I also feel that there is
almost an equally large gap that divides the students from 1996 with those I'm
teaching now in 2001. And this belief is not clouded by long term memory, it's
based on the types of assignments that I'm currently challenging the students
with and the quality of work I'm getting from them. It's not the same as it was
in 1996. Now I can't be sure, but I don't think that this is just a local
problem that is effecting just the students in our district and attending our
campuses. It might be but I don't think so, we have been experiencing a hugh
economic growth period here in the central Texas area and our district has
experienced a huge influx of people moving into our area from all over the US,
so it might be that the demographics have just taken a downward swing. I guess
time will tell.
Martin
pattierney wrote:
______________________________________________________________________________
pattierney
"Martin Rowley" <kmro...@swbell.net> wrote:
> " I agree that it isn't typical, but looking at the whole picture
helps. And
> keeping the past in mind helps instead of lumping it into a "kids today"
versus
> "kids in the past" (which is usually defined by the poster and her/his
small
> circle), which others have done on this thread, also helps."
> I too fall under the umbrella of comparing "today's" students with those
of the
> past - but with the difference of comparing the students that I have today
with
> those I had just five years ago.
Well, I can't argue with your local experience. I wouldn't know.
Still, my quote above was more of an aside to the other points
being addressed. Namely...
> > > Yes there are other possible reasons, but just how many in your actual
> > classes
> > > have "valid" reasons for not doing their homework and how many have
other
> > (which
> > > I'm putting under the catch all heading of "spoiled")?
> >
> > I'm not saying that they have "valid" reasons. I just wouldn't use
> > the catch all of "spoiled". "Lazy" works better for me. But some don't
> > have the skills to do homework, the discipline at home, an atmosphere
> > conducive to doing homework, or the role models and/or help to do it.
> >
> > They are all different reasons, and valid or not, they fall under a
> > different category. If one must categorize.
>Back when I first started teaching I was
>guilty of trying to make the comparison of the school / students from my
own
>days attending high school (1974-1978) and those that I was teaching in my
>classes. There is a big gap between the two time periods, and not all of it
is
>due to my personal perspective of my memories.
I think criticizing kids for not understand "intellectual property
rights", when we were no better (just not to the level that they do
due to technology limitations), is evidence that you are holding
kids today to different standards than we held ourselves, when
we were 14, to.
P.
Tierney
Martin Rowley
that was mainly due to as you said the technological limitations back in the
70's. We didn't have anything that could make a exact digital copy of the source
material. If someone made a bootlegged recording of some music on to cassette
tape - it pretty much sounded like a bootlegged quality recording, no one would
probably confuse it with an original studio recording. We didn't have vcrs to
dub movies from rented tapes - heck we didn't even have rented tapes, I remember
buying really abridged 8mm movies. We didn't have the internet to download the
latest movie/software and the technology to rip that movie to a burned CD-R in a
mpeg format and pass copies off to our buddies. Would we done those things if we
had have the technology? Probably. Does having the technology to do these things
today make it right to do so? I don't think so. Is what they are doing going to
impact the way that the record and/ or movie/ software industries publishes
material - more than likely.
Goes back to my saying that these kids today are spoiled. Back in the 70's if I
wanted a "copy" of some album, I had the choice of either buying the LP album or
getting someone to tape it onto cassette. Since I was never satisfied with the
quality of a bootlegged tape I usually went out and purchased the album I
wanted. Albums usually cost $9-$15 dollars back then - so I had to have a job to
make the money to buy the album. I still have my album collection today - it's
worth something to me because I did earn the money to buy these records. I truly
feel (today) that I gained something from that experience of having to earn the
money to buy these albums. Now days, kids can pretty much go their entire school
lives without having to actually buy stuff like this. They can make unlimited
copies of music, movies, software - pretty much of anything. You don't think
that this isn't having a impact (big or small - your call) on the development of
ethics. Just how easy was it back in 1976 do you think it was to get a "canned"
term paper on some particular subject - it was probably possible but not real
easy. Now compare how easy it is to do that today with the internet and how
likely it is that a student will actually do that one time or another.
Just the other day I brought in a computer game for my repair class to load on
one of our machines. I had gone to the store and purchased this game for about
$20. One of my students said "Mr. Rowley why are you wasting your money?, I
could have burned you a copy off the internet for nothing." I tried to explain
that I like to support the companies who's products that I use buy actually
buying the product and paying for it. The student and the ones listening to the
conversation just couldn't grasp this concept.
I'm not saying this (being lazy or spoilt - what ever term you want to use) is
the fault of the student - it more the fault of our society today, but I am
saying that it is developing into a problem that we will either need to deal
with now or deal with later. I just think putting off dealing with it later will
be too late.
Martin
pattierney wrote:
> <snip>
>
> I think criticizing kids for not understand "intellectual property
> rights", when we were no better (just not to the level that they do
> due to technology limitations), is evidence that you are holding
> kids today to different standards than we held ourselves, when
> we were 14, to.
>
> P.
> Tierney
______________________________________________________________________________
pattierney
>
> Goes back to my saying that these kids today are spoiled. Back in the 70's
if I
> wanted a "copy" of some album, I had the choice of either buying the LP
album or
> getting someone to tape it onto cassette. Since I was never satisfied with
the
> quality of a bootlegged tape I usually went out and purchased the album I
> wanted.
But plenty of people were satisfied. They did make tapes of albums
purchased by others. They did buy and sell "bootleg" copies of concert
recordings. The fact that you didn't isn't relevant. One could just as
accurately say, using this criteria, that kids back then also didn't respect
inellectual property rights, and were therefore spoiled.
> I'm not saying this (being lazy or spoilt - what ever term you want to
use) is
> the fault of the student - it more the fault of our society today, but I
am
> saying that it is developing into a problem that we will either need to
deal
> with now or deal with later. I just think putting off dealing with it
later will
> be too late.
There isn't any way for "society" to deal with it, just as there wasn't
back then.
P.
Tierney
Martin Rowley
back then."
That seems to be the attitude most people are taking today for just about
everything. Even if there isn't anything we can do about it doesn't mean that
I'm (and hopefully a few others) are going to quit trying (or complaining). I'm
going to keep telling my students that it's wrong to bootleg software / music
and trying to explain why. I might not convince all, but I might plant the seed
that it's wrong in at least one of their heads. If we stop trying to teach kids
right from wrong, then who's fault is it that they don't know? Theirs or ours.
Martin
pattierney wrote:
______________________________________________________________________________
pattierney
"Martin Rowley" <kmro...@swbell.net> wrote in message
news:3BCA225F...@swbell.net...
> " There isn't any way for "society" to deal with it, just as there
wasn't
> back then."
>
> That seems to be the attitude most people are taking today for just about
> everything.
The point is, what actions did *our* society take when we were doing
the same thing, beyond shaking their fingers? And has it destroyed us?
You suggest the same course of action as far as how we should "deal"
with it. The results will be of equal effectiveness, I imagine.
P.
Tierney
Kleyle
either given to them or is there for the taking." Believe it if you need it.
Martin:
>So you're saying that there are no instructional behavioral problems at your
>school?
Where did I state that? I did not.
> All the students willingly do their homework/classroom assignments
>with
>no threats of punishment or negative consequences or any other outside
>stimuli?
When did I state that? I did not.
>"As, ever," is right - you taken what I was attempting to say out of context.
When have I ever done that with one of your posts? I thought we got along; I am
surprised to learn that you see a pattern. I took a portion of the first
paragraph to comment upon. Your post is still fresh and available to all of our
readers. I was commenting only upon the lines I quoted, not at all out of
context. I did not take it out of context, and I wonder that you are joining in
on this odd attempt to discredit me because of my archaic sig line. How very
odd! Do the readers prefer that I close with "sincerely?" I am open.
>I wasn't speaking of just material things.
"Most stuff is either given to them or is there for the taking," is what you
wrote. And, by my quoting, that is clearly what I commented upon. Lots of the
students in South Central don't have much "stuff" given to them (materially,
educationally, or spiritually), and it is not there for the taking." At my
daughter's public high school, she managed to take six AP/Honors courses in her
ninth grade year. At some schools in South Cenral, they don't have six
AP/Honors courses for the entire four years of high school. It's not there for
the taking. I have a friend who teachers Honors classes at a Middle School in
those parts. Honors there does not mean what it means at my daughter's public
school. You are in Honors if you are unarmed and not generally in serious
trouble, if your Stanford-9 scores are approaching the 40th or 50th percentile,
and if you might be able to read a little. Is an education there for the
taking? The pressure there is from students who want to punch out your lights
if you do bring in homework because that makes the others look bad, as if they
really care. Those are bad conditions and bad attitudes, but are they "spoiled"
attitudes?
Sometimes my fifth grade kids would never get out of the neighborhood except on
the yellow school bus to even know that there was something else in the city
beyond the prostitution, dope, and gangsterism that passes for commerce and
culture in that neighborhood. Very little is ever given to them. And, what's
more, there are many such children in our nation.
>Yeah, I do think some of your students have it easy.
That's nice. How many? Some probably do--it is not monolithic, but I invite you
to trade places with them. Do you have children or grandchildren, neices or
nephews? Would you like to send them to the school where I taught for eleven
years? Would you like them to live there? Not very much is given to them. I
didn't want it for my kids, even though I knew that the teachers were
dedicated, talented, and very capable.
> In my statement you attached
The only portion upon which I commented.
> I said "Not just the kids
>that you are speaking of -but the majority of the population here in America
>under the age of 20 are spoiled or at least have the attitude of being
>spoiled."
I included that in my quote, so I'm not sure what you are clarifying by
repeating it. I am saying that a large portion of our children are poor and
that they are a large enough group to have an effect upon your numbers. Are
they the majority? I hope not. But they are not spoiled. I don't know if the
majority of students in this country under 20 are spoiled. That's going to
depend upon a definition and then it's going to be interpreted on a case by
case basis. I'm not interested in that, but I did challenge your first
assumption that "most stuff is either given to them or is there for the
taking." It's just not the case with at least one group, so I wondered if it
was the case with all the other groups that would be included in your majority.
Or, was your comment a bit too simle?
>Even a lot of the economically disadvantaged students have this spoiled
attitude.
Terms like "a lot" are easy to toss around, but, to be fair, I have seen such
students every year. It wasn't a majority, but they were spoiled by their
families. No question in my mind about that.
> Just what are the consequences for not doing well in your particular class?
I rely on parents. That means that I communicate regularly (every week at
least) on every student. There are minor consequences at school, but the thrust
is toward the home. It also affects grades, but that may not always impress my
students.
> For not doing well in your school in general?
Similar.
> Take your worst case student in your "South Central" teaching experience.
I'm not sure what you are asking. A worst case student is one that disappears,
goes to jail, or dies. Pretty serious consequences.
> How many of them actually finish and graduate high school with little or no
effort.
Very few, I believe. It is a major effort to finish school. 50% of our students
drop out before graduating, and many of them are of the socio-economic group to
which I refer. There is always a good deal of effort for my students to be
successful because they are trying to clear the same difficult hurdles that all
youngsters must clear, but they have lead weights on their ankles in the
bargain.
>How many leave at the end with a diploma but no real knowledge or skills?
Of the ones who started or of the ones who stayed until the end? Of the ones
who stay until the end of high school, I can't tell you. You might could look
up test scores if you think that would help. What I have seen on a personal
level is that many of those who graduate are highly motivated students who,
against many obstacles, managed to pull themselves up. They may not have the
beans for USC or UCLA, but I see them at the two year colleges, working their
way up, and picking up the skills that the system couldn't give them. Others
probably graduated by dint of showing up.
>How many are on the same level as some of the students that dropped out of
school?
Children drop out of school for many reasons, so that is a difficult question
especially as a quantity. I knew a very bright girl who was doing quite well
and who dropped out because of her baby. She can probably outperform some of
those who did graduate. On the other hand, I knew some who did struggle through
and who were accepted to some good colleges---though some of them couldn't
afford to follow through. Contrary to popular belief, not that much is given.
Your question is difficult.
>Martin
>
>Kleyle wrote:
>
>> Martin Rowley writes:
>>
>> >1) These kids are spoiled. Not just the kids that you are speaking of -
>> >but the majority of the population here in America under the age of 20 are
>> >spoiled or at least have the attitude of being spoiled. Most stuff is
>> >either given to them or is there for the taking.
>>
>> Like my boys and girls in South Central? It's all there on a silver
>platter.
>> They have it easy! I'll tell them.
>>
>> As ever,
>
As ever,
Martin Rowley
that "We did *this* when we were kids". I know of several teachers that tell
kids this and regale them with stories of exactly what they did as teenagers.
The fact is they were teenagers at the time- which in no way excuses them from
the fact what they were doing was wrong. No, it didn't really make much of
impact back in the day when you were making bootlegged copies from LP for your
friends - but today the amount of material being bootlegged is a lot more than
what was when you did it. You don't have to go farther than the news articles
about Napster to see that it is having an effect. Having teachers / parents
tell today students "Back in the day when I was your age I did..... and look at
me today", whether it was drugs, bootlegging, drinking, drag racing, or sex -
it doesn't matter - the kids take such statements as positive reinforcement of
their own activities of this kind. It's my opinion that in saying these things
and telling these stories you make the job of convincing them that it's not OK
to do these things a lot harder.
Martin
pattierney wrote:
______________________________________________________________________________
luigi pollio
way" then yes even the best kids in my classes are spoiled. The word is not
important it's the attitude that comes with it. Boundaries are pushed
further by kids than ever before. Realizing it and dealing with it
appropriately is the key.
Luigi
pattierney
"luigi pollio" <lou...@shaw.ca> wrote:
> If you use the tired old phrase "when I was in school kids didn't act this
> way" then yes even the best kids in my classes are spoiled.
I have heard it. I don't think it's accurate.
> The word is not important it's the attitude that comes with it.
The words used are *very* important.
> Boundaries are pushed further by kids than ever before.
There isn't any non-anecdotal evidence for this. The
boundaries, in some ways, are *different*, but they are
being pushed as they've always been pushed.
> Realizing it and dealing with it appropriately is the key.
IMO, realizing the commonalties between current and past
generations is important. It helps prevent overreaction.
But hey, I'll bite. How do you *effectively* deal with it?
If the circumstances are different, then so must be the response.
How so?
P. Tierney
Magi D. Shepley
allow the students to use those computers. There are only 2 in the classroom
where I teach 7th period, but I only have 2 groups (3 students each) in that
class, and they share... one student had an AlphaSmart but he, uh, lost it.
Yea.
Magi
pattierney
"Martin Rowley" <kmro...@swbell.net> wrote:
>
> Well I agree, with one exception. You seem to want to go out of your way
to say
> that "We did *this* when we were kids". I know of several teachers that
tell
> kids this and regale them with stories of exactly what they did as
teenagers.
> The fact is they were teenagers at the time- which in no way excuses them
from
> the fact what they were doing was wrong.
No, it doesn't. But they generally turn out okay, which is why we
don't have to greatly fear the future, IMO.
> No, it didn't really make much of
> impact back in the day when you were making bootlegged copies from LP for
your
> friends - but today the amount of material being bootlegged is a lot more
than
> what was when you did it.
First, there are different "amounts" for different kids. Most of mine,
btw,
don't even have computers. Second, I can't exactly take the moral high
ground by saying that they are worse than I because a stole, but not as
much as they did. It's all the same, morally speaking.
> You don't have to go farther than the news articles
> about Napster to see that it is having an effect. Having teachers /
parents
> tell today students "Back in the day when I was your age I did..... and
look at
> me today", whether it was drugs, bootlegging, drinking, drag racing, or
sex -
> it doesn't matter - the kids take such statements as positive
reinforcement of
> their own activities of this kind. It's my opinion that in saying these
things
> and telling these stories you make the job of convincing them that it's
not OK
> to do these things a lot harder.
I don't say those things. But I don't favor the negative reinforcement
of making them and their generation think that they are so much worse
than mine was when it simply does not seem to be the case.
P.
Tierney
Martin Rowley
meaning by my use of the term "spoiled" in my original post.
My orignial post was:
"1) These kids are spoiled. Not just the kids that you are speaking of - but the
majority of the population here in America under the age of 20 are spoiled or at
least have the attitude of being spoiled. Most stuff is either given to them or is
there for the taking. There's usually no real consequences for anything that they
do or for any problems that they cause. This generation has been babied to the
point where they can't do anything on their own. There are a few exceptions to this
- but that end of the bell curve is getting smaller every year.
Martin"
Luigi Pollio post stated:
"Spoiled" can mean many things. No fear of consequence is "spoiled". Knowing
mom and dad will back you up on anything is "spoiled". Kids today are spoiled. I
accept it and learn to work around it. When my students complain about writing out
notes instead of getting photocopies, I thank them very much for their opinion and
proceed to give them more notes. They learn quickly not to complain. This is
generation "Y" as in why do I have to do this? We need to
teach them hard lessons about life. It's our job and they will thank us for it
later. If they know you won't cower to them or their parents you're set. Your
integrity is worth much more than your job.
Luigi"
I still feel that you took my original statement out of context and confused it
with being spoilt with material things - which I think is true also, but that was
not what I was attempting to say in my original post, but I did attempt to say in
my reply to yours. It's my fault that I went off on a tangent like I did and
confused things even more.
Now for a return question - just how representative do you think the "South
Central" school district is to the other districts in the United States? If there
was a bell chart showing the most economically challenged schools at one side and
the most affluent schools at the other - where would your school fall? Somewhere in
the middle or closer to the far edge. Are the conditions that you describe the
"average" for those through-out the United States? My point is there is always
going to be the exception (one way or the other) - I would imagine that there has
to some district somewhere that would look at the one you are discribing and say
"Look how well off those people are". Yes, I was painting with a rather large brush
with my orginal statement - but I still feel that it's a vaild observation for most
of the people under the age of 20.
As for trading places with your students - I guess because I just couldn't relate
to the conditions that they live with - I think I can relate a bit. Just before
summer started this year I had to return home to attend my mother's funeral. While
I was down visiting I stayed awhile at one of my relatives homes. The front yard
was completely overgrown (can't really say much about that as that's the condition
of my own yard) with several rusting junk cars and assorted other junk in the front
yard. The "house", and I use the term loosely has pretty nearly lost most of the
roof and any of it's ability of keeping water out. The inside - well I wouldn't
even try to describe that - but needless to say it was not nice. While I was
sitting in the living room I saw this thing run along the back of the far wall and
asked one of the kids about it. "Oh don't worry that was just a rat" was the reply.
So I think I do have a little bit of insight into some of the conditions that your
students may live under. Oh, and just in case you ask - yes I think my relative
kids are "spoiled". Despite the conditions of their house and the area where they
live - they have cable tv / vcr - the one child has nintendo games and they have a
computer (ok - yes I did buy them the computer).
We just "lost" several kids just this last week here. One died in a single car, car
wreck with four other students in the car who are now in critical condition.
Another was shot (off campus late at night), by an ex-student from our district. I
just lost two students this last week from drop out. I bet with very little looking
I could find much of the same conditions here where I'm am and some that you don't
have. Being a rural area nearby a major city such as Austin Texas poses some
problems that you probably don't have. I quit getting the local paper because of
most of the headlines usually dealt with some local incest case or the other.
Martin
Kleyle wrote:
______________________________________________________________________________
luigi pollio
Second, I agree the boundaries are different than before. I disagree that the
kids don't push harder now. They do so because they don't fear consequences as
before. Anecdotal evidence is sufficient for me in this issue as my experience
as well as more experienced colleagues opinions carry enough weight to make it
so.
Not over-reacting is a key in dealing with this. My goal is to make students
self-sufficient. This is usually achieved in one term. I ask them at the
beginning of the year what percent they which to attain. I promise them I'll
leave them alone until they drop below this grade. Some smarty-pants will put
49.5% as their goal. That only promises to backfire if mom and dad expect
80's. It puts them to deal with each other instead of me. Same with homework.
If work is not done I send a homework slip with the kid. They are supposed to
get it signed and brought back the next day. I make a copy for myself. If it
comes back or not is inconsequential to myself. At the end of the term when we
have interviews, parents with concerns ask why the mark was low. I show them my
documentation and ask if they had seen the originals. If yes, then they should
know why the mark was low and if not then they have bigger issues to deal with.
I then put the onus on parents to keep track of their child's achievement
through agenda's, e-mail and phone calls. I coach volleyball, badminton and
help run student council. I don't have time to chase after kids to do their
work. The students quickly figure out they're accountable for their education as
do parents.
I am pro-active in class. I see a kid not doing work, I don't force them but I
remind them that judgment day is coming and they will be need to deal with mom
and dad as I am prepared.
Don't get the impression I am a hard ass, I am the opposite. I run a loose
ship, with the opportunity for students to make choices as to how much education
they wish to receive. I can sleep well at night knowing that I presented the
information as best I could and that it's up to them to want to learn it. I
don't know if the response is different than in the past. I almost think after
reading this it's the parents that are spoiled as well.
Luigi
pattierney
"Martin Rowley" <kmro...@swbell.net> wrote:
>
> I still feel that you took my original statement out of context and
confused it
> with being spoilt with material things - which I think is true also, but
that was
> not what I was attempting to say in my original post, but I did attempt to
say in
> my reply to yours. It's my fault that I went off on a tangent like I did
and
> confused things even more.
Well, the definition issue still troubles me. In the dictionary,
"spoil"
means, among other things, "to impair the disposition of character of
by overindulgance or excessive praise" and "to pamper excessively". \
When using "spoil", then, the common definition for this situation is
to give a kid too much of something, either praise/attention or material
goods. To give a kid too much freedom isn't spoiling the kid, but
neglecting
him/her.
> My point is there is always
> going to be the exception (one way or the other) - I would imagine that
there has
> to some district somewhere that would look at the one you are discribing
and say
> "Look how well off those people are". Yes, I was painting with a rather
large brush
> with my orginal statement - but I still feel that it's a vaild observation
for most
> of the people under the age of 20.
And my observation is that there are so many exceptions that the
observation isn't worth making to begin with. It is further so if people
are going to define the word in so many different ways.
P.
Tierney
pattierney
Because thoughtful usage of words choices is the only way to
have a logical discussion. It's impossible to determine if kids are
"spoiled" if the participants in the discussion are all defining the
word differently.
> Second, I agree the boundaries are different than before. I disagree
that the
> kids don't push harder now.
I obviously disagree.
> They do so because they don't fear consequences as
> before. Anecdotal evidence is sufficient for me in this issue as my
experience
> as well as more experienced colleagues opinions carry enough weight to
make it
> so.
Well, that's fine for you, but your anecdotal evidence doesn't
mean a thing to me. I trust a broad observation of the nation's use
based upon the local subjective anecdotes of one (or 10, 100, 1000)
person. I'm sure that you understand.
Your classroom sounds very nice, but it isn't really what I'm
responding to.
P. Tierney
luigi pollio
spoiled kids:)
Luigi
pattierney
"luigi pollio" <lou...@shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> Sorry, I thought you wanted to know how I effectively deal with these
> spoiled kids:)
Umm, not quite.
P. Tierney
Kleyle
To begin, I left my school in South Central three years ago. It made a big
impression on my life indeed, but I am gone from there and generally glad of
it.
I appreciate this most recent post of yours. I was commenting very narrowly. I
thought that spoiled was probably not the best way to express your idea. I
thought about your post before responding, and, you will observe, I really
didn't go into the big picture part of it. That's because I don't know what to
do with it. It's a big idea. I just thought we should stop and take a look at
that part of the language, and I probably didn't do it very well. My short
response was flip and wise-guyish, and I apologize. I sometimes do that in an
attempt to hit an idea quickly, but I probably should have taken the time to
express my reaction. I would have made the same point, but not in such a poor
manner. I am sorry about that.
As to your experiences, it's not necessary. I didn't mean to play
I'll-show-you-my-pain-if-you-show-me-yours. I was trying to demonstrate that
there are many many factors that go into the lives of these children and that a
simple one word description for the majority of our children, rich or poor,
just won't express enough. It wasn't a question of whether or not you could
personally relate. I assumed that you knew what you were talking about. My
point was, and I said it in my post, that I wouldn't send my kids to that
school and I don't think you would either. If we wouldn't, then it's hard to
suggest that the kids at the school are so very spoiled.
I'm not sure about Luigi's definitions either. There are really only two
descriptors, and I think there are many more circumstances out there. "No fear
of consequences" stems from many things. It may be they don't fear the
consequences because the consequences are never as severe as the consequences
they get just for being born and doing nothing wrong. His other descriptor, "My
parents will back me up no matter..." also fits only a handful. Does he have a
lot more of them to get to the majority you were speaking of? Probably so. But,
if so, then the word "spoiled" gets lost.
As to where the South Central School falls in terms of a national picture is
probably not as difficult to determine as one might think. Using percentile
scores, our school fared very poorly, seldom rising above 30% in any indicator.
The problem is that it is just one of literally hundreds of schools in the
District, the way-majority of which are quite similar. Whether an L.A. poor
urban school compares well to one in New York or in St. Louis, I don't know. My
belief is that there are many many students all over this nation in the same
bind. But, to answer you question, if I had to guess, the school would be on
your left toward the bottom of the bell if Beverly Hills was on the right
toward the bottom. That said, I don't think it is enough of an exception. I
wish that it were. I'm not really sure that Bell curve works in this case. I
see an incline. I see a triangle. The base of the triangle is very wide, and
that is where most of the schools are falling. There are a few up at the top.
Martin Rowley <kmro...@swbell.net> writes:
As ever,
Martin Rowley
responsible for their own work. And I try to work to help the students in my class
become self-sufficient. It somewhat baffles me that more teachers don't push for
this with their own students.
Martin
luigi pollio wrote:
______________________________________________________________________________
pattierney
"Martin Rowley" <kmro...@swbell.net> wrote
> A lot of this is very similar to how I run my classes. I fully expect
student to be
> responsible for their own work. And I try to work to help the students in
my class
> become self-sufficient. It somewhat baffles me that more teachers don't
push for
> this with their own students.
Well, I do too. And I don't even consider my students spoiled. ;-)
P. Tierney
Martin Rowley
by the standards of the area that they live in, their condition isn't that strange
or unusual. They have live there for just about forever and are really resistant to
the ideal of moving somewhere else. There are probably lots of little out of the
way towns in both that part of Texas / Louisiana where the same is true for many
people. I have other relatives that currently occupy the other end of the
socioeconomic spectrum - and to be honest they are no more happy / sad than the
first bunch I mentioned. The way I look at it they both made the decisions that
have put them where they are today - and personally I am ok with respecting the
life's that each has chosen to live. I expect the same respect from them about my
own life choices. Both think I was crazy leaving my previous career and going back
to school to become a teacher at half the pay.
Maybe spoiled was the wrong word - pampered maybe, coddled? I thought Luigi's
definition totally nailed on the head what I was trying to say. You pick the term
that you think is the best for describing students who can't or won't put forth the
minimum amount of effort to do just about anything - students who seem to expect
everything just handed to them or done for them. While it may be your personal
experience not to encounter many students with this attitude - I assure you that I
have and from what I'm hearing from other educators I'm not alone.
Martin
Kleyle wrote:
______________________________________________________________________________
pattierney
"Martin Rowley" <kmro...@swbell.net> wrote:
>
> While it may be your personal
> experience not to encounter many students with this attitude -
I have. But not totally, which is why I can't say that "Kids are
spoiled" or that "Most kids are spoiled", or that "Kids are more
spoiled today compared to my day". Those aren't fair statements,
but they were made loosely.
P.
Tierney
Martin Rowley
rest I do. There's nothing "lose" in how I meant the statement. I say all
three of your examples are fair and true. You're entitled to your opinion and
I am to mine and until I experience different in my classroom with the student
I have - I'm going to stick with my assessment.
Martin
pattierney wrote:
______________________________________________________________________________
SumBuny4Me
"pattierney" <silvi...@home.com> wrote in message
news:cOoy7.81710$P8.28...@news1.elmhst1.il.home.com...
>
> "luigi pollio" <lou...@shaw.ca> wrote:
> > The word is not important it's the attitude that comes with it.
>
> The words used are *very* important.
I agree that the words used and the attitudes are both important, for the
wording often displays the attitude, and affects others' attitudes....
SumBuny4Me
"pattierney" <silvi...@home.com> wrote in message
news:fXqy7.81871$P8.28...@news1.elmhst1.il.home.com...
>
> "luigi pollio" <lou...@shaw.ca> wrote:
> >
> > First, why are the words used *very* important?
>
> Because thoughtful usage of words choices is the only way to
> have a logical discussion. It's impossible to determine if kids are
> "spoiled" if the participants in the discussion are all defining the
> word differently.
Exactly...also the wording displays the users own attitudes, and affect
others' attitudes...
Some even said that they thought the student(s) in question were
"lazy"....in that perspective, try skimming through the book _You Mean I Am
Not lazy, Crazy, or Stupid?_ by Ramundo..... It deals with people who had
similar probelsm, that were called these names, and when their disability
was actually dealt with (in this case, it was severe ADD), then "all of a
sudden", they were able to achieve more, and to actually do/complete
assignments...
Yes, attitude is important--and it is often betrayed by wording...
Kleyle
majority. As you say, it's your experience---and it is backed up by the
experience of other educators. I think that "pampered" and/or "coddled" says
the same thing as "spoiled" so there's no reason to back off from the word you
chose from the outset. As opposed to using the word spoiled or the short
definitions that don't apply generally that luigi used, I like yours in this
post. It says what you want to say. We don't have to reduce it to a single
word, if no word is apt. Your definition is in two parts. "Students who can't
or won't put forth the minimum effort to do anything" is a fairly broad topic.
You include those who can't and those who won't. Surely, that is not the same
student. The reasons why a student can't are many. Similarly, those who won't
come from a variety of backgrounds, and not all of them are spoiled, though all
of them won't. Then you go on to the second part of your definition, "students
who seem to expect to have everything just handed to them or done for them."
This is the part that I'm not so sure about. Can there be students who
//don't// seem to expect to have everything just handed to them or done for
them but who also can't or won't put forth the minimum effort to do anything?
I'm only suggesting that this is a much deeper topic than the definitions so
far suggest.
Martin writes:
>Maybe spoiled was the wrong word - pampered maybe, coddled? I thought Luigi's
>definition totally nailed on the head what I was trying to say. You pick the
>term
>that you think is the best for describing students who can't or won't put
>forth the
>minimum amount of effort to do just about anything - students who seem to
>expect
>everything just handed to them or done for them. While it may be your
>personal
>experience not to encounter many students with this attitude - I assure you
>that I
>have and from what I'm hearing from other educators I'm not alone.
As ever,
Martin Rowley
students that don't take notes, students that don't take their textbooks home with
them when you assign a chapter reading assignment, students who don't bring paper /
pencils to class to take notes on or to do assignments. I've gotten really tired of
having students ask me "Do you have a pencil I can borrow?" and then ask for some
paper to write on. I've also gotten tired of having to resort to giving a "grade"
for just about everything - just as a motivating force to get the students to do
just the minimum amount of work. I can't really say what the actual cause of this
apathetic behavior toward school in general - so I say "can't or won't". What do
you want for documentation that I do have these problems? It sounds like it's just
a problem that I and a few other teachers / districts are having and that the rest
of the public school district don't have anything remotely similar going on. maybe
it's as a few of the teachers with more experience keep saying, that is just a
phase of students and in a few years things will / might swing back the other way.
One of my students in not who I'm am complaining about. There is one girl that is
in two of my classes that completely out shines all the others. She takes very
detailed notes. She has pretty much already read the textbooks in both of my
classes from cover to cover - she asks questions about the material. She does each
and every assignment to the "T", and her work / handwriting is very readable. In my
one digital graphics course where she is a student on one of our "free design"
projects where the students develop their own projects - she developed an animation
graphic that was over 400 frames in length and it was a extremely creative concept.
The next best student's work was only 30 frames in length and took him nearly twice
as long to create and develop. From the other teachers I talked to that have this
student in their class I pretty much get the same story. Now what makes this one
student so much better than the others? Well for one thing she's not from around
here. She's an exchange student from Mexico. Well, of course most of you are
probably saying - she probably some kind of genius or wonderkind - totally not like
the average Joe student in these classes. Not really, she smart yes - but in
talking to her I asked her if she was one of the top students in the schools in her
homeland, "Not really she said, mainly on the level of A, B and a few C's". How can
that be I asked you're doing so well here - "Well", she replied "the other students
are very different at her old school - more serious compared to here".
Now is it really too much to wish that more of my students were like this exchange
student from Mexico? If it is then, I'm sorry as that's really a wish of mine.
Martin
Kleyle wrote:
______________________________________________________________________________
Michael Connor
These sound like terribly draining situations. I have some general comments,
but no silver bullets either.
1) This is a curriculum problem, not a problem in your teaching. The
curriculum must be relevant and interesting to students. R.I.P.: Relevant,
Interesting Program.
As an example: I construct surveys of students before beginning a lesson. One
of the questions: How would you like to learn about X, Y, or Z (the causes of
the Civil War, or whatever). I use student suggestions in my planning.
An example: I DEMONSTRATE that next year's teachers expect them to be able to
do X, Y, or Z. I present letters from teachers down the line listing their
expectations; I invite former students to talk about how they use what they
learned in future classes; I send students down the line to observe and report
back what students are doing in the next grade or two. And so on. What we do
is relevant and interesting, from the perspective of students.
2) Power won't solve this problem. Hectoring kids about the "importance" of
homework, with implied threats about their grades, won't solve much. You'll
get some short-term changes, but nothing significant; no learning, by which we
mean relatively permanent changes in behavior. So the next teacher will
assign homework, it won't get done, and unless that teacher uses power to get
compliance, nothing will get done. UNTIL, and this is big, your students get
far enough down the line that teachers will just say screw it and fail them;
the damage will be undoable.
"Importance" has to do with the student, not the teacher. If the student
wants to understand something, then the student will seek out activities which
help the student learn. When they find that you're good at designing such
activities, they will trust you as a teacher. The challenge is to construct a
curriculum where the students organize themselves to meet the targets set by
your school; your job becomes giving them the tools and resources they need to
learn what they need to know.
3) What does the homework do for me as a student? That is, if I DO the
homework, what will I be able to do that someone else won't be able to do?
What will I be able to understand, or complete, or begin, or analyze, or list,
or create, that the slackers cannot? And if the answer is, not much, then why
do it?
Example: I invite students to use homework on quizzes and tests, or sometimes
portions of their homework, or outlines of learning based on their homework.
And so on. A little goes a long way. "Using student-created resources, 80%
of the class will get a score of 70% or better on the end-of-unit exam."
Example: I quick check homework during a reading segment. [Quick-check
meaning a glance, to see if you did it or not.] Then I have the folks who did
it pair up for an interactive activity, where they compare answers, or create
a third document between them, or whatever; for the folks who didn't do it, I
give an alternative non-social activity. I let folks know about the activity
in advance: "Here's a blank Venn Diagram form for comparing the SETTING of
our last two stories, X & Y. Notice you need three items, minimum, in each
segment. Tomorrow, you will team up with a partner and create a poster
comparing the two pieces. I will collect the homework first thing tomorrow,
and you won't be able to work on the poster if you don't have it, so be sure
to bring it." And so on.
Again, no silver bullets. I wish you luck, and report back about progress,
set-backs, etc.
Best,
Michael
Michael Connor
luigi pollio wrote:
> Kids today are spoiled.
> I accept it and learn to work around it. When my students complain about
> writing out notes instead of getting photocopies, I thank them very much for
> their opinion and proceed to give them more notes. They learn quickly not to
> complain.
They quickly learn that authority is vindictive, that grievances will be scoffed
at, that learning is mostly about compliance, and so on, with predictable results
-- school comes to be seen as largely irrelevant to a great many kids, one more
place where adults will trash them; why go? Or if you go, why care?
In contrast, a healthy classroom will have mechanisms to communicate about such
things. Complaints are opportunities for teachers to engage students, not
opportunities for pettiness. Why "thank them for their opinion" if their opinion
is worthless? What are you teaching here? When you complain that they are
throwing papers, or putting fellow students, will you expect them to "thank you
for your opinion" in like manner?
> This is generation "Y" as in why do I have to do this? We need to
> teach them hard lessons about life.
We need to help them learn, grow, develop. We need to help them become citizens,
democrats (small 'd'), responsible empathetic adults. The hardness of life will
always be there. Dealing with it through communication, exchange of views,
cooperation, give and take, hard work -- that's what we teach.
> It's our job and they will thank us for it
> later.
Not really. I had many vindictive, petty teachers. Hated them then, can't say
much nice about them now. The teachers I admired didn't confuse teaching
discipline with arbitrary exercise of power.
Best,
Michael
Michael Connor
Actually nothing contrary to intellectual property rights by making a copy for
personal use. Or inellectual -- either way. <g>
-- Michael
pattierney wrote:
> "Martin Rowley" <kmro...@swbell.net> wrote:
> >
> > Goes back to my saying that these kids today are spoiled. Back in the 70's
> if I
> > wanted a "copy" of some album, I had the choice of either buying the LP
> album or
> > getting someone to tape it onto cassette. Since I was never satisfied with
> the
> > quality of a bootlegged tape I usually went out and purchased the album I
> > wanted.
>
> But plenty of people were satisfied. They did make tapes of albums
> purchased by others. They did buy and sell "bootleg" copies of concert
> recordings. The fact that you didn't isn't relevant. One could just as
> accurately say, using this criteria, that kids back then also didn't respect
> inellectual property rights, and were therefore spoiled.
>
> > I'm not saying this (being lazy or spoilt - what ever term you want to
> use) is
> > the fault of the student - it more the fault of our society today, but I
> am
> > saying that it is developing into a problem that we will either need to
> deal
> > with now or deal with later. I just think putting off dealing with it
> later will
> > be too late.
>
> There isn't any way for "society" to deal with it, just as there wasn't
> back then.
>
> P.
> Tierney
Joni J Rathbun
On Mon, 15 Oct 2001, Michael Connor wrote:
> P,
>
> Actually nothing contrary to intellectual property rights by making a copy for
> personal use. Or inellectual -- either way. <g>
>
If you make the copy yourself from an album you own, there's nothing
contrary. If, however, you have someone put a copy of their album onto to
tape for you, as I believe Pat is saying, it's a different ballgame.
Kleyle
>I mainly say "can't or won't" simply because all I "see" it the end result -
So all you need to do is describe the end result.
>students that don't take notes, ... - so I say "can't or won't".
But do you agree that "can't" and "won't" are very different cases, not in
result, but in cause. And the cause was previously determined to be "spoiled."
I'm still working on the question of whether or not the majority of people
under 20 are "spoiled." I don't think they all have the same problem, though
they may all (the majority) have problems.
>What do you want for documentation that I do have these problems?
You don't owe me anything in terms of documentation. Your observations are
valid for your purpose. I was discussing the topic that you brought up. I
wondered if "spoiled" applied to everybody in the majority of people under 20
whom you mentioned or if maybe there were other ways to describe some of these
students.
> It sounds like it's just a problem that I and a few other teachers /
districts are
> having and that the rest of the public school district don't have anything
remotely
> similar going on.
I didn't get that impression.
>maybe
>it's as a few of the teachers with more experience keep saying, that is just
>a
>phase of students and in a few years things will / might swing back the other
>way.
No. I think you'll want to get to the root cause. I don't think things tend to
just right themselves, especially if you're talking about a majority of people
under 20.
>One of my students in not who I'm am complaining about......"...more serious
compared to here".
>Now is it really too much to wish that more of my students were like this
>exchange
>student from Mexico? If it is then, I'm sorry as that's really a wish of
>mine.
Who suggests that you are wishing for too much? It may not be a realistic
expectation in your school, but it's nice to wish for. I am sure, too, that you
work with the students who you do have even while wishing for others. My
daughter is pretty much as you describe in your latter paragraph, and she plays
a little piano besides. Let me assure you that she has some fairly stiff
academic competition. Indeed we pulled her from the competitive public school
environment. There are many students like the girl you described who are out
there. But, that said, they are not run of the mill.
As ever,
sf
than pampered.
It doesn't matter if they have a middle class (no rich kids in my
school) lifestyle or live on welfare. Dysfunctional families are very
apparent because when parents don't express interest in their
children's education or offer no support, it shows in their children's
behavior at school.
I have children who fall asleep on the bus and/or are sleepy all day
long (if they make it to the bus), children who don't complete
homework or lie to their parents about ever even getting it because
they know their parents won't check up on them (yes I call home),
children who give up trying to problem solve way too easily for their
ability level because no one at home cares if they succeed or fail
anyway. I can't open up their skulls and pour information inside if
they come to school unwilling to learn, nor can I teach an empty
chair. I can do my best to encourage them to absorb the information I
make available to them, but you know what they say about horses and
water.....
Happily, most of my students are not like that.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
luigi pollio
Michael Connor wrote:
>
> They quickly learn that authority is vindictive, that grievances will be scoffed
> at, that learning is mostly about compliance, and so on, with predictable results
> -- school comes to be seen as largely irrelevant to a great many kids, one more
> place where adults will trash them; why go? Or if you go, why care?
>
The students at school enjoy my classes because I provide a fun atmosphere. It's
when I expect them to work that I brush off their whiny comments. I know their
whining, they know they're whining, we call a spade a spade and move on. Honestly
though, the kids love it when I trash them. I don't think they get enough of it at
home. :)
>
> In contrast, a healthy classroom will have mechanisms to communicate about such
> things. Complaints are opportunities for teachers to engage students, not
> opportunities for pettiness. Why "thank them for their opinion" if their opinion
> is worthless? What are you teaching here? When you complain that they are
> throwing papers, or putting fellow students, will you expect them to "thank you
> for your opinion" in like manner?
When I was going through my practicum, one of the comments made by my prof was I
needed to work on "trivial politeness". It beats telling them to "shut the @#$# up
and get to work you lazy piece of spoon-fed, momma's still gotta wipe your butt, rich
kid."
I don't complain if they throw paper or put other students???(I 'm not sure if you
meant putting students down, or putting them upside down in a garbage can), I get
even. I'll throw paper too. What they don't do in class goes home. They choose.
>
>
> > This is generation "Y" as in why do I have to do this? We need to
> > teach them hard lessons about life.
>
> We need to help them learn, grow, develop. We need to help them become citizens,
> democrats (small 'd'), responsible empathetic adults. The hardness of life will
> always be there. Dealing with it through communication, exchange of views,
> cooperation, give and take, hard work -- that's what we teach.
>
Kids at my school need to learn that life is hard before they learn to deal with it.
I wouldn't trade the kids at my school with anyone, but believe me when I tell you
they are "spoiled" (let's not rehash the word debate).
>
> > It's our job and they will thank us for it
> > later.
>
> Not really. I had many vindictive, petty teachers. Hated them then, can't say
> much nice about them now. The teachers I admired didn't confuse teaching
> discipline with arbitrary exercise of power.
>
As have I. I'm not one of them. If/then statements work wonders for intelligent
minds. In a class full of kids, I am the biggest kid there. "IF you goof around and
make me give you more work, THEN I will have to take it home and mark it." They know
I punish myself when I decide to pile it on.
--
Luigi
SAKU #11
Michael Connor
Joni J Rathbun
On Tue, 16 Oct 2001, Michael Connor wrote:
> Fair use is fair use.
Sometimes. There are no fair use "laws" cast in stone. Each case is
considered and determined individually tho certain precedents have,
of course, been set. The use described, however, doesn't fall under the
Fair Use Guidelines.
JZAH
<kmro...@swbell.net> wrote:
>She's an exchange student from Mexico. Well, of course most of you are
>probably saying - she probably some kind of genius or wonderkind - totally not like
>the average Joe student in these classes. Not really, she smart yes - but in
>talking to her I asked her if she was one of the top students in the schools in her
>homeland, "Not really she said, mainly on the level of A, B and a few C's". How can
>that be I asked you're doing so well here - "Well", she replied "the other students
>are very different at her old school - more serious compared to here".
>
>Now is it really too much to wish that more of my students were like this exchange
>student from Mexico? If it is then, I'm sorry as that's really a wish of mine.
I think you have it there. There is a difference in attitude--
an ENORMOUS difference. Let's not forget that lots of immigrant
kids manage to get a good education in our horrible schools with
their mean and unreasonable teachers. So do they have different
brains? Receive different textbooks? I don't think so. I think
they have a different attitude.
The Chinese say "The teacher opens the door, but the student
enters on his own". I think that is true. You can't make
people-- children or adults-- want something they don't want.
And in a culture where-- unlike most of the world-- school
failure HAS NO CONSEQUENCES, what the hell else can you expect?
J. Z. Al-Huriyeh
============================
"Everyone asks for peace,
but no one asks for justice."
Peter Tosh
Ali Abunimah on seizing the moment for peace.
http://www.electronicintifada.net/features/articles/20011001ali.html
Report anti-Arab/ anti-Muslim harrassment and
hate crimes to the U.S. Commission on
Civil Rights (UCCR) hotline 800-552-6843
Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee
Special Fund for September 11 Terrorism Victims
www.adc.org
JZAH
<mco...@teleport.com> wrote:
>
>
>luigi pollio wrote:
>
>> Kids today are spoiled.
>> I accept it and learn to work around it. When my students complain about
>> writing out notes instead of getting photocopies, I thank them very much for
>> their opinion and proceed to give them more notes. They learn quickly not to
>> complain.
>
>They quickly learn that authority is vindictive, that grievances will be scoffed
>at, that learning is mostly about compliance, and so on, with predictable results
>-- school comes to be seen as largely irrelevant to a great many kids, one more
>place where adults will trash them; why go? Or if you go, why care?
I don't agree with you at all. Dislike of taking notes is not
what I would classify as a grievance-- it is a school routine
students will have to cope with. Many of us are so tired of
being expected to negotiate for the most minimal cooperation--
e.g. students being quiet while the teacher gives instructions to
the class-- that we no longer care to entertain dreams of
classroom democracy.
And do not think you can blame teachers for kids thinking school
is irrelevant. Relevance is a matter of personal attitude,
outlook, and culture. Our influence over those things is
necessarily limited, no matter what we do.
>In contrast, a healthy classroom will have mechanisms to communicate about such
>things. Complaints are opportunities for teachers to engage students, not
>opportunities for pettiness. Why "thank them for their opinion" if their opinion
>is worthless? What are you teaching here? When you complain that they are
>throwing papers, or putting fellow students, will you expect them to "thank you
>for your opinion" in like manner?
I work in a very unhealthy classroom, and a very unhealthy
school, because all I get are complaints about everything from
not allowing food and drinks to assigning kids seats to turning
children in for tardies in accordance with the tardy policies.
>> This is generation "Y" as in why do I have to do this? We need to
>> teach them hard lessons about life.
>
>We need to help them learn, grow, develop. We need to help them become citizens,
>democrats (small 'd'), responsible empathetic adults. The hardness of life will
>always be there. Dealing with it through communication, exchange of views,
>cooperation, give and take, hard work -- that's what we teach.
>
>> It's our job and they will thank us for it
>> later.
>
>Not really. I had many vindictive, petty teachers. Hated them then, can't say
>much nice about them now. The teachers I admired didn't confuse teaching
>discipline with arbitrary exercise of power.
I don't care if kids think I'm petty, vindictive or mean. Let
them think it. I know what my responsibilities are. I care very
very much about their learning and their success. I understand
what their problems are. I tell it to them straight-- you are
struggling here, and this is something we need to work on. I
call their parents and discuss their test scores. I refer them
for services. I'm not their mama. I'm just a teacher.
Martin Rowley
I think this is the crux to all (ok, maybe just many) of our problems - finding some way
of making education / school "wanted". We as educated adults know that it's needed - but
how to make the typical 14-18 year olds in my classes realize this too? It's not till
they leave school and usually enter the work force or start their first year of college
that they begin to figure out just how important some of this school stuff was.
Martin
JZAH wrote:
______________________________________________________________________________
Kleyle
> "You can't make people-- children or adults-- want something they don't
>want."
>
>I think this is the crux to all (ok, maybe just many)
Thank you!
As ever,
Bob LeChevalier
>luigi pollio wrote:
>> Kids today are spoiled.
>> I accept it and learn to work around it. When my students complain about
>> writing out notes instead of getting photocopies, I thank them very much for
>> their opinion and proceed to give them more notes. They learn quickly not to
>> complain.
>
>They quickly learn that authority is vindictive, that grievances will be scoffed
>at, that learning is mostly about compliance, and so on, with predictable results
>-- school comes to be seen as largely irrelevant to a great many kids, one more
>place where adults will trash them; why go? Or if you go, why care?
Because it teaches them to deal with the adult workplace, where authority is
vindictive, that grievances will be scoffed at, that learning is mostly about
compliance, and so on.
>We need to help them learn, grow, develop. We need to help them become citizens,
>democrats (small 'd'), responsible empathetic adults. The hardness of life will
>always be there. Dealing with it through communication, exchange of views,
>cooperation, give and take, hard work -- that's what we teach.
Your job is to teach them the state-approved curriculum. Their parents have
the right to decide and the responsibility to teach responsibility and
empathy.
lojbab
--
lojbab loj...@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier
>Fair use is fair use.
Sounds like you know and respect less about international (and American)
copyright law than other forms of international law.
"Fair use" is an extremely limited right. Only rarely is there a bona fide
"fair use" of the entirety of a copyrighted piece, like an entire song.
Bob LeChevalier
>I mainly say "can't or won't" simply because all I "see" it the end result -
>students that don't take notes, students that don't take their textbooks home with
>them when you assign a chapter reading assignment, students who don't bring paper /
>pencils to class to take notes on or to do assignments.
Of these, only the textbooks going home is even an example of not doing
homework. In my daughter's case, I know why - rarely does she get anything
out of the textbook. She can read fine, but factual text is a blur of data
to her - she has proven incapable of determining the key information in a
textbook paragraph (which often is not the topic sentence - modern textbooks
seem to be abysmally written according to the standards we teach the kids to
follow in writing). A reading assignment that does not include questions is
a waste of time for her; at least with questions, she gets a clue as to what
she is supposed to get out of the readings.
My daughter has taken notes in high school. She finds the notes worthless
for studying from and that distract from her paying attention to what is
being said (she also reports that she falls asleep when the teacher lectures
- it wears her out mentally to figure out what to write down, which might
help explain why her notes are so poor). But her method of studying for a
test has traditionally been to read the chapter over (which per the above
isn't that useful to her).
>I've gotten really tired of
>having students ask me "Do you have a pencil I can borrow?" and then ask for some
>paper to write on.
This is not a "can't or won't do the work". This is a "can't or won't come
to class prepared". I daresay that part of this is the overflowing school
schedule. Leaving for school at 6:30 in the morning when they are still
asleep, going from class to class with 4 minute breaks that don't even allow
time for a locker visit unless the locker is on the way and very well
organized, a 30 minute lunch break of which they will spend 15 minutes
waiting in the cafeteria line. When do they have TIME to stop and think
about whether they have what they need for the next class?
>I've also gotten tired of having to resort to giving a "grade"
>for just about everything - just as a motivating force to get the students to do
>just the minimum amount of work. I can't really say what the actual cause of this
>apathetic behavior toward school in general - so I say "can't or won't".
But apathy is neither "can't or won't". The kid who asks you for pencil IS
going to take notes, or they wouldn't ask. They ARE doing the work.
They are apathetic on the other hand because they seldom see any reason to do
what you tell them EXCEPT for the "grade". They don't notice that they've
learned anything, and in many cases they haven't, so they won't do it for
"love of learning".
Meanwhile, especially at he high school level, kids often have jobs. They
know that when work is valued, the worker gets paid. Your grade is a most
miniscule form of payment, compared even to burger-flipping wages. maybe if
we paid kids for their primary job: to learn, rather than for flipping
burgers, they would tackle the job more responsibly.
>What do
>you want for documentation that I do have these problems? It sounds like it's just
>a problem that I and a few other teachers / districts are having and that the rest
>of the public school district don't have anything remotely similar going on. maybe
>it's as a few of the teachers with more experience keep saying, that is just a
>phase of students and in a few years things will / might swing back the other way.
As a parent, I know you have those problems.
>One of my students in not who I'm am complaining about. There is one girl that is
>in two of my classes that completely out shines all the others. She takes very
>detailed notes. She has pretty much already read the textbooks in both of my
>classes from cover to cover - she asks questions about the material. She does each
>and every assignment to the "T", and her work / handwriting is very readable. In my
>one digital graphics course where she is a student on one of our "free design"
>projects where the students develop their own projects - she developed an animation
>graphic that was over 400 frames in length and it was a extremely creative concept.
>The next best student's work was only 30 frames in length and took him nearly twice
>as long to create and develop. From the other teachers I talked to that have this
>student in their class I pretty much get the same story. Now what makes this one
>student so much better than the others? Well for one thing she's not from around
>here. She's an exchange student from Mexico. Well, of course most of you are
>probably saying - she probably some kind of genius or wonderkind - totally not like
>the average Joe student in these classes. Not really, she smart yes - but in
>talking to her I asked her if she was one of the top students in the schools in her
>homeland, "Not really she said, mainly on the level of A, B and a few C's". How can
>that be I asked you're doing so well here - "Well", she replied "the other students
>are very different at her old school - more serious compared to here".
That is partly a culture that treats kids as more adultlike at younger ages,
as well as being less permissive in general. We are raising kids to be
"Americans" with "freedom", and kids therefore have to be as close to adult
freedom as possible; yet because they are "kids" we feel it improper to
saddle them with real responsibility for themselves.
Martin Rowley
Martin
Bob LeChevalier wrote:
> Martin Rowley <kmro...@swbell.net> wrote:
> >I mainly say "can't or won't" simply because all I "see" it the end result -
> >students that don't take notes, students that don't take their textbooks home with
> >them when you assign a chapter reading assignment, students who don't bring paper /
> >pencils to class to take notes on or to do assignments.
>
> Of these, only the textbooks going home is even an example of not doing
> homework. In my daughter's case, I know why - rarely does she get anything
> out of the textbook. She can read fine, but factual text is a blur of data
> to her - she has proven incapable of determining the key information in a
> textbook paragraph (which often is not the topic sentence - modern textbooks
> seem to be abysmally written according to the standards we teach the kids to
> follow in writing). A reading assignment that does not include questions is
> a waste of time for her; at least with questions, she gets a clue as to what
> she is supposed to get out of the readings.
>
> My daughter has taken notes in high school. She finds the notes worthless
> for studying from and that distract from her paying attention to what is
> being said (she also reports that she falls asleep when the teacher lectures
> - it wears her out mentally to figure out what to write down, which might
> help explain why her notes are so poor). But her method of studying for a
> test has traditionally been to read the chapter over (which per the above
> isn't that useful to her).
Most of this is true for my students too. Just yesterday I started my Digital Graphics &
Animation classes (high school 10th, 11th, 12th graders) on new software. This software
is for the creation of 3D images and animation. It's an extremely complex an difficult
program to learn to use. I'm getting them started by having them work through two sets
of hand-on tutorials that basically walks them through creating two types of short
animations. The tutorials are designed to expose the students to nearly all facets of
the software and help them learn where the majority of the controls are and how they
function. The first two chapters of the tutorials is mainly text based documentation of
what the controls keys are, where the function bars / buttons are located (and what they
look like) and an overview of the basic fundamental concepts of using the program. Of
the three classes of twenty something students per class - only one student actually
read over the assigned material. Most jump ahead right into chapter three where the
actual animation tutorial process starts. Students doing this were very easily
identified as all of them were asking questions like - "What's a viewport?", or "Where's
the text button?". I said most jumped ahead - others simply didn't even bother to look
at the packet and just started playing around with the software in a totally unguided
way. Given this situation, my job of teaching these students how to use this software
and to try a develop some skills at applying it is going to be greatly less than with
students that do read over the information. And I can tell you from experience that the
students that fail to do the tutorials altogether will ultimately become frustrated and
then resistant to even trying to use the program and then will usually fail the class
altogether.
Students today (most that I see and usually hear about - there are some exceptions)
can't read. It's not that they can't read the words, but rather they can't read the
sentences or the paragraphs - much less a typical textbook chapter. And even if they do
work their way through a chapter it's usually like you said about your daughter - they
don't get any actual comprehension of the information presented.
I have a big problem with this situation - and I will explain why I do. I am not a
career academic teacher, I did not go to college to become a teacher. I'm what's now
called a Career & Technology Education teacher (what was formerly called "vocational").
I originally went to college and got two degrees one in drafting and one in electronics.
I worked in industry from around 1982- to 1996 at a variety of different jobs ranging
from technician to engineer. I left a very good engineering position in 1996 to take a
position as a drafting / computer-aided drafting teacher at the local high school, and
spent the first three summers going back to school to get my teaching certificate. In
all phases of my career I've had to read textbooks, read reference manuals, compile &
interpret data, read & write reports, write technical manuals and a lot of other
information based activities. Reading, and I'm talking about reading for comprehension,
has been a very important part of my career. If I had not been able to to this, I really
doubt that I could have been as successful in my former career as I was. I know that
most of our students are not going on to technical careers like I did - but today in our
information based economy just about any decent career requires a good amount of
reading. Seeing the majority of kids in my current classrooms who can't read to any
significant level bothers me - and it's bothering the people in my former occupation
area too. I get lots of comments from my former coworkers that "we", the public school
system, are not teaching these kids to read. That the young people that they are hiring
today, can't read - can't do math, and they really can not write at all. This bothers
me, and I would hope that it bothered other people in the educational field.
> >I've gotten really tired of
> >having students ask me "Do you have a pencil I can borrow?" and then ask for some
> >paper to write on.
>
> This is not a "can't or won't do the work". This is a "can't or won't come
> to class prepared". I daresay that part of this is the overflowing school
> schedule. Leaving for school at 6:30 in the morning when they are still
> asleep, going from class to class with 4 minute breaks that don't even allow
> time for a locker visit unless the locker is on the way and very well
> organized, a 30 minute lunch break of which they will spend 15 minutes
> waiting in the cafeteria line. When do they have TIME to stop and think
> about whether they have what they need for the next class?
I get kids in my first period class every day that don't have a pen or pencil, not paper
or notebook - and most times have left their textbook in their locker. Many beg and
whine trying to get out of my first period class to run to the cafeteria to buy a snack
as they hadn't had any breakfast (our cafeteria serves breakfasts in the morning before
school starts). Now my question is "Why is this?", what exactly are these students doing
in the morning that prevents them from getting their stuff together, taking time to get
something to eat before the tardy bell for their first period class? In the mornings I
usually get up early so that I have time to check my email, have time to take a shower,
have time to eat breakfast, get my papers together, get my stuff out to my truck and
generally get set to get to school and get my classes started on time. This isn't
something new, back in high school and in college I had to do similar things and was
rarely late to class. Back when I was in industry I was expected to do the same too. I
remember one day back when I first started working as a technician, I was working out on
a job site and I had forgotten my one screwdriver at home (I had taken it out of my tool
belt to use and forgot to put it back). I made the mistake of asking the crew boss if he
had one that I could borrow for the day. He looked at me of a long pause and then said
"Yeah, I've got one, I come to work with all my tools." and then he continued "And I
expect all of my people to do the same." "Pack up your stuff and head on home", he then
told me. "Come back tomorrow if you can show up with ALL your tools.". I was sent home
and docked that day's pay - and you can bet that I made sure to have all my tools every
day after that. I truly feel that it IS part of the students "homework" to get prepared
to come to school / class prepared to work and having the tools needed to do that work.
I may be old fashion in my beliefs, but that's what they are. And exactly how hard is it
to "remember" to bring a pen / pencil with you? I carry a pen with me at all time -
mainly because I also carry a checkbook. Once you get in the habit, it's not that hard
and I really believe that by at least 10th grade the typical student would be in the
habit of bringing a writing instrument to class.
> >I've also gotten tired of having to resort to giving a "grade"
> >for just about everything - just as a motivating force to get the students to do
> >just the minimum amount of work. I can't really say what the actual cause of this
> >apathetic behavior toward school in general - so I say "can't or won't".
>
> But apathy is neither "can't or won't". The kid who asks you for pencil IS
> going to take notes, or they wouldn't ask. They ARE doing the work.
No they are not asking for a pencil to take notes, it's usually to do whatever the day's
written assignment is or test. Hardly any students I have take notes.
> They are apathetic on the other hand because they seldom see any reason to do
> what you tell them EXCEPT for the "grade". They don't notice that they've
> learned anything, and in many cases they haven't, so they won't do it for
> "love of learning".
And why is it that the only reason they are motivated to do anything is because of the
"grade"? Why is this the situation and exactly who's fault is it? The student's, the
system's?
> Meanwhile, especially at he high school level, kids often have jobs. They
> know that when work is valued, the worker gets paid. Your grade is a most
> miniscule form of payment, compared even to burger-flipping wages. maybe if
> we paid kids for their primary job: to learn, rather than for flipping
> burgers, they would tackle the job more responsibly.
Talk with the owners / operators of the local fast food places in you're area. Find out
just how responsible the typical teenage employee is. Most of my students have had /
have jobs at the local restaurants - and most have been fired or are in the process of
being fired from those jobs. I work across the hall from the three co-op teachers here
at our high school. Most of the 100+ students in these programs can't keep a job more
than two weeks, if they can hold one for that long. Why is that?
Why are we treating them more adult like today? Most of the kids I see lately and
especially this latest batch of 10th graders are way more immature than they should be.
I would peg their maturity somewhere around what I would expect to see from a 7-8 year
old. Why is that - if we're treating them more adult like or is that a result from it?
Why was it wrong for my parents back when I was young to "saddle me with real
responsibilities"? Shouldn't we be striving to try to develop traits like responsibly
andmaturity within the children of today? I think we should.
> lojbab
> --
> lojbab loj...@lojban.org
> Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
> 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
> Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org
______________________________________________________________________________
Kleyle
>Students today (most that I see and usually hear about - there are some
>exceptions)
>can't read.
Going back to your post, if the student "today" can't read, then the student
can't do the work. That isn't about being spoiled; that's about not being able
to read. A very different question.
If most students that we "see and usually hear about" can't read, then these
exit exams are a joke as are the SATs. Acccording to your experience, students
can't read. Why are we testing them using these tests that they have to read if
they can't read? The tests aren't telling us anything. Why do you assign
chapter one and two to the students if you know that they can't read them?
Isn't that planned failure?
Since we know that they can't read, shouldn't we stop them at the door in their
freshman year and test that they can or can't read and stop pretending that
they can? How (in the name of all or some of that which may be holy) do they
have time to take a class in computer animation if they haven't learned to
read? What sort of school are you running?
How do they have time for a literature course if they haven't learned to read?
The math in my fourth grade book requires considerable reading fluency, too
much for my kids (I think), so I don't even want to contemplate what your high
school students must encounter.
But most (just a few exceptions) simply can't read and we go on along as if all
is well and all manner of thing shall be well. There is something wrong.
As ever,
Martin Rowley
for unstructured and unguided play before they get started on their subject?
Personally, I believe that letting students do this kind of thing is probably one of the
reasons that they are in the sad shape (reading wise / comprehension wise) that they are.
Just when is anyone going to hold them responsible for actually doing things the way that was
set up for them to do it?
One of the things that I did to prepare for this class was to take a one-day course (6 hours)
for Photoshop. Now, I've played with that program and others like it for several years now -
but I'll tell you I learned more in that one day course than I ever learned playing around
with the software. Yes, you can learn some things by playing - but you can learn so much more
by actually "learning" the software and then practicing what you've learned.
Martin
toto wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Oct 2001 07:06:32 -0700, Martin Rowley
> <kmro...@swbell.net> wrote:
>
> >Most jump ahead right into chapter three where the
> >actual animation tutorial process starts. Students doing this were very easily
> >identified as all of them were asking questions like - "What's a viewport?", or "Where's
> >the text button?". I said most jumped ahead - others simply didn't even bother to look
> >at the packet and just started playing around with the software in a totally unguided
> >way.
>
> I know this is a strange question, but with a lot of computer
> programs, I find that I learn by playing around with it first. I
> may have to go back and read and go through the tutorial in more
> detail later, but playing around gives me a feel for the program.
>
> Perhaps some time is needed for unstructured and unguided play
> *before* they start the tutorial.
>
> What would happen if you simply set them loose with the program
> and allowed the kids who wanted the structured tutorial to do that
> and to help the others?
>
> Dorothy
>
> There is no sound, no cry in all the world
> that can be heard unless someone listens ..
> source unknown
Martin Rowley
toto wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Oct 2001 07:06:32 -0700, Martin Rowley
> <kmro...@swbell.net> wrote:
>
> >> They are apathetic on the other hand because they seldom see any reason to do
> >> what you tell them EXCEPT for the "grade". They don't notice that they've
> >> learned anything, and in many cases they haven't, so they won't do it for
> >> "love of learning".
> >
> >And why is it that the only reason they are motivated to do anything is because of the
> >"grade"? Why is this the situation and exactly who's fault is it? The student's, the
> >system's?
>
> This is definitely the fault of our system, it seems to me. We
> emphasize grades and competition over everything.
>
> We in this culture believe in behaviorism, in punishment and rewards
> and grades are a reward.
>
> Children start out excited by learning. They come to school ready
> and eager as 3, 4 and 5 year olds. They want to learn their letters
> and their numbers and how to read because it's *grown up,* because
> mom and dad can do it. But as we push them into a mold where they
> must move in lock step with all the other kids, they lose that love
> somewhere. We need to use their interests in whatever *things*
> interest them to spark their reading, just as we do with their
> learning to speak, to walk, to run.
>
> We need to stop *comparing* children to each other and build on each
> child's individual strengths. This has to start in preschool and
> elementary school, though. It's a lot harder to do when kids have
> learned to be helpless and are already teenagers.
I try my best to do this in my classrooms. I tell individual students that they are not
competing against anyone but themselves and that everybody has their own pace of learning.
Some will catch on faster than others and that they shouldn't compare themselves to anyone
else in the class.
Martin
>
>
> I highly recommend the kind of discipline that promotes
> responsibility. We have to allow children to take responsibility
> for much of their learning and we have to build classrooms where
> they are expected to do so.
>
> There are several good books about how we can do this.
> http://www.marvinmarshall.com/
>
> Parents need to help though. Schools and teachers can't do
> everything. It helps if parents can understand that they must
> give children some responsibility for things and expect them to
> fail sometimes. There are a lot of good books on this and workshops
> too, but it's hard for parents to attend them or to read if they are
> stressed out and tired from demanding jobs.
>
> http://www.fabermazlish.com/
>
> Dorothy
>
> There is no sound, no cry in all the world
> that can be heard unless someone listens ..
> source unknown
______________________________________________________________________________
pattierney
"Martin Rowley" <kmro...@swbell.net> wrote:
> Say I was an english teacher or math teacher - just how many of these
teachers allow for time
> for unstructured and unguided play before they get started on their
subject?
If that means "self-directed" reading or writing, then plenty do.
Using "play" as the operative word isn't applicable to English, but
allowing free writing or reading is somewhat parallel.
> Personally, I believe that letting students do this kind of thing is
probably one of the
> reasons that they are in the sad shape (reading wise / comprehension wise)
that they are.
Research shows that teachers still, by and large, do not teach this way.
Thus, if there is a mass problem, then looking at the way in which the
masses
teach is needed. And the majority still take a traditional approach.
> Just when is anyone going to hold them responsible for actually doing
things the way that was
> set up for them to do it?
This seems to presume just one way to do it.
P.
Tierney
sf
teach responsibility and empathy because those skills are nonexistant
in so many homes. Without those skills, our classrooms would be
filled with pure chaos.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Wed, 17 Oct 2001 01:57:59 -0400, Bob LeChevalier
<loj...@lojban.org> wrote:
JZAH
<kmro...@swbell.net> wrote:
>One of the things that I did to prepare for this class was to take a one-day course (6 hours)
>for Photoshop. Now, I've played with that program and others like it for several years now -
>but I'll tell you I learned more in that one day course than I ever learned playing around
>with the software. Yes, you can learn some things by playing - but you can learn so much more
>by actually "learning" the software and then practicing what you've learned.
I agree with you. You must have some sort of structure to the
lesson, or how will you assess the students? How will THEY know
they're learning if you don't set clear goals for them to meet?
The average student is unlikely to learn much useful by playing
around, especially with a program like PhotoShop, which has a
steep learning curve.
J. Z. Al-Huriyeh
============================
"Everyone asks for peace,
but no one asks for justice."
Peter Tosh
For the Palestinians, the terrorism crisis
has two faces
http://www.electronicintifada.net/features/articles/20011015alihussein.html
JZAH
<kmro...@swbell.net> wrote:
>Students today (most that I see and usually hear about - there are some exceptions)
>can't read. It's not that they can't read the words, but rather they can't read the
>sentences or the paragraphs - much less a typical textbook chapter. And even if they do
>work their way through a chapter it's usually like you said about your daughter - they
>don't get any actual comprehension of the information presented.
Absolutely true.
If you want to see how poorly children understand what they read,
have them rephrase a sentence or paragraph in their own words.
If they can't, they probably don't understand it, even if they
can pronounce, spell and define every word perfectly.
Last week, I tried that with this sentence:
"The city's political problems were rooted in the economic
troubles of the past."
I asked seven children to explain what this meant, expecting
eventually someone might mention details from the text, eg. the
Great Depression. It wasn't POLITICAL or ECONOMIC that threw
them. They knew what "political problems" and "economic
troubles" meant and proved it by giving dead-on examples both
from the text and beyond it. It soon became clear that they
didn't understand the figurative language in the sentence.
I went to the board and drew a picture of trees growing in a
field. I labelled each tree "political problem". Then I drew
their roots going into the ground which I labelled "past economic
trouble". Then I repeated my question. OH, MS. H, YOU MEAN THEY
HAD MONEY PROBLEMS BEFORE AND THAT CAUSED THIS OTHER STUFF TO
HAPPEN. WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST SAY SO. Sheesh.
They don't think abstractly, and because most of the text they
must read includes abstract thinking, they are lost. Then,
because they don't read on their own, they are trapped in a cycle
where the less they read, the harder it is to read.
Martin Rowley
> On Wed, 17 Oct 2001 19:58:43 -0700, Martin Rowley
> <kmro...@swbell.net> wrote:
>
> >Say I was an english teacher or math teacher - just how many of these teachers allow for time
> >for unstructured and unguided play before they get started on their subject?
> >
> Depends on the grade level and what the lesson involves.
>
> If you are introducing a concept with some manipulative in a math
> classroom, it is often productive to allow for some unstructured
> play time with the manipulative so that the kids have a chance to
> see what it is about before you begin to use if for your structured
> purpose.
Ok, instead of being a math or english class, say it was biology - and the assignment was a hands
on one like dissecting a frog. I would assume that the instructor would have gone over information
on both the procedure of doing the dissection and on the individual organs that were going to be
removed and examined (at least that's the way the class I was in was taught, but that was years
ago). Would it be best to first allow the students some unstructured and unguided play using some
other creature before actually beginning to dissect the frog? Or how about just letting the kids
do the dissection of the frog first with no instuction and then cover the information on the
organs afterwards? What you suggest might be appropriate when teaching a concept in a math
classroom with younger children - but I really don't believe that the same method is appropriate
for high school age students studying something on the level of digital graphics and animation.
I'm still a firm believer of having to actually "study" the information before it can be
assimilated - at least assimilated to the degree that it needs to be. There are many aspects of
the field of graphics design and animation that just can not be learned by "playing" with the
software. File formats for one, just how is a student going to learn what the difference between
the JPEG file format and the GIF file format? Or the advantages of using the TIFF file format?
Just exactly how is a student going to determine what an Alpha Channel is and what's it's used for
without doing some studying? Sure I can stand up in front of the class and lecture on these topics
and concepts - but as most of you know today students don't receive information very well via the
lecture format. Just because I use a textbook that is around 70 pages in length for this class
(and it has a lot of pictures and illustrations), that does not mean that this subject is not that
informational based. The graphics program I use at home is very similar to the one we are using to
teach with. The four manuals / tutorial books that go with that package are on average 2 - 3
inches thick each. Plus aside from teaching the students "how" to use the software, we are also
attempting to teach many of the same elements as the typical art course covers. There is lot of
information to be covered, and most of it can not be covered by just doing hands-on projects and
letting the students use the computer "free-range" style.
Martin
>
>
> >Personally, I believe that letting students do this kind of thing is probably one of the
> >reasons that they are in the sad shape (reading wise / comprehension wise) that they are.
> >Just when is anyone going to hold them responsible for actually doing things the way that was
> >set up for them to do it?
> >
> I don't think that all students learn in the same way. So in some
> ways, we have to structure the learning differently for different
> students. Now, that doesn't mean that activities should not be
> structured in some way, simply that there needs to be both
> unstructured time and structured time built in to the curricula.
There is both built into this course. However, the students for the most part are totally ignoring
the structured part - which is my complaint. Just how much of a typical high school academic
course could a student successfully learn if all they did was unstructured / unfocused study. How
difficult would it be for the teacher of these students to keep the class together and at the same
level? Just how many administrators would allow for a class to be run this way?
>
>
> >One of the things that I did to prepare for this class was to take a one-day course (6 hours)
> >for Photoshop. Now, I've played with that program and others like it for several years now -
> >but I'll tell you I learned more in that one day course than I ever learned playing around
> >with the software. Yes, you can learn some things by playing - but you can learn so much more
> >by actually "learning" the software and then practicing what you've learned.
> >
> >Martin
> >
>
> I don't disagree with that, but again, the important thing is that
> you wanted to learn and had a purpose in mind when you were taking
> that course. It seems that your own students do not have that
> purpose in mind.
>
> Perhaps a clear statement of the goals of the lesson and why you
> structured it in the way you did would help them understand? Teens
> often have no sense of why teachers want them to do something or
> what they will learn from the exercise. Sometimes, just letting
> them in on this helps a bit.
I do this - in fact I do it a lot, but as usual they don't pay any attention to it. I covered a
great deal of "why" just this monday - and it wasn't five minutes later several of the students
asked "Why are we doing this?".
Martin Rowley
that's somewhere 200%++ steeper, and that's probably being conservative.
If anyone wants to check out some tutorials for a animation program that is similar to the one
we're attempting to teach, go to: http://www.3dcafe.com/asp/tut3ds.asp
Martin
JZAH wrote:
______________________________________________________________________________
JZAH
<kmro...@swbell.net> wrote:
> "You can't make people-- children or adults-- want something they don't want."
>
>I think this is the crux to all (ok, maybe just many) of our problems - finding some way
>of making education / school "wanted". We as educated adults know that it's needed - but
>how to make the typical 14-18 year olds in my classes realize this too? It's not till
>they leave school and usually enter the work force or start their first year of college
>that they begin to figure out just how important some of this school stuff was.
This is a cultural and a personal issue, and depends a great deal
on what the child has learned at home. We don't have this degree
of influence on children, nor should we-- it's not within our
realm of responsibility.
I was raised in a well-educated family and even as a small child
was blessed with opportunities to travel that most people never
have. Such environments teach us to EXPECT we will achieve
academically. Knowledge is not a static, irrelevant collection
of facts but something as dynamic and real as a person.
But for those who have never enjoyed these advantages, and whose
families do not share this belief for whatever reason, it is
sometimes difficult to imagine becoming someone significantly
different than those you love. Because education-- if it is
successful-- changes you as a person.
J. Z. Al-Huriyeh
============================
"Everyone asks for peace,
but no one asks for justice."
Peter Tosh
For the Palestinians, the terrorism crisis
Report anti-Arab/ anti-Muslim harrassment and
sf
commented that they often have to provide basic education skills along
with the actual "training" of their workforce.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Wed, 17 Oct 2001 07:06:32 -0700, Martin Rowley
<kmro...@swbell.net> wrote:
>Comments below.
>Martin
>
>
>Reading, and I'm talking about reading for comprehension,
>has been a very important part of my career. If I had not been able to to this, I really
>doubt that I could have been as successful in my former career as I was. I know that
>most of our students are not going on to technical careers like I did - but today in our
>information based economy just about any decent career requires a good amount of
>reading. Seeing the majority of kids in my current classrooms who can't read to any
>significant level bothers me - and it's bothering the people in my former occupation
>area too. I get lots of comments from my former coworkers that "we", the public school
>system, are not teaching these kids to read. That the young people that they are hiring
>today, can't read - can't do math, and they really can not write at all. This bothers
>me, and I would hope that it bothered other people in the educational field.
>
<snip>
> Back when I was in industry I was expected to do the same too. I
>remember one day back when I first started working as a technician, I was working out on
>a job site and I had forgotten my one screwdriver at home (I had taken it out of my tool
>belt to use and forgot to put it back). I made the mistake of asking the crew boss if he
>had one that I could borrow for the day. He looked at me of a long pause and then said
>"Yeah, I've got one, I come to work with all my tools." and then he continued "And I
>expect all of my people to do the same." "Pack up your stuff and head on home", he then
>told me. "Come back tomorrow if you can show up with ALL your tools.". I was sent home
>and docked that day's pay - and you can bet that I made sure to have all my tools every
>day after that. I truly feel that it IS part of the students "homework" to get prepared
>to come to school / class prepared to work and having the tools needed to do that work.
Ahhh, the grim reality of the workplace... they should get that "wake
up call" sooner or later. My DIL is a counter manager for a well
known cosmetic company based in a nationally known high class chain
store. She has trouble finding employees who have any sort of work
ethic and she is a 24 year old person using that old fashioned
terminology! She finds that her employees live at home (with or
without having children or their own - husbands optional) and are
still being pampered by their parents. This is an area that has seen
a huge drop in the economy, so you'd think that she'd either be
getting a higher quality applicant or applicants with a more serious
attitude toward working.
>I may be old fashion in my beliefs, but that's what they are. And exactly how hard is it
>to "remember" to bring a pen / pencil with you? I carry a pen with me at all time -
>mainly because I also carry a checkbook. Once you get in the habit, it's not that hard
>and I really believe that by at least 10th grade the typical student would be in the
>habit of bringing a writing instrument to class.
>
I think you missed the mark by at least 9 years.
>
>> >I've also gotten tired of having to resort to giving a "grade"
>> >for just about everything - just as a motivating force to get the students to do
>> >just the minimum amount of work.
That's because they are "trained" that way. If we elementary teachers
don't get that sort of responsibility from our students, we're told to
"motivate" them with rewards. <bah, humbug> If we don't do that on a
consistant basis (no such thing as
Kleyle
motivation. It doesn't have to be a long time, but, as you point out, what you
are presently doing isn't working. Maybe if they had a moment to mess around,
they might start to come up with some questions. They are still learning to
learn. You may have too much information, and you can't spare the time. But, it
sounds like they are not learning much anyway.
martin:
>One of the things that I did to prepare for this class was to take a one-day
>course (6 hours)
>for Photoshop. Now, I've played with that program and others like it for
>several years now -
>but I'll tell you I learned more in that one day course than I ever learned
>playing around
>with the software. Yes, you can learn some things by playing - but you can
>learn so much more
>by actually "learning" the software and then practicing what you've learned.
As ever,
Martin Rowley
really think that by the 10th, 11th, and 12th grade they might have already
developed the basic skills to do this and were starting to move on to more
intermediate and advanced learning skills.
And, btw - I do activities that are meant to develop interest and motivation. The
problem is that's all that interest them. There has to be a cut off point where the
motivational activities stop and learning starts. Then again maybe school is
suppose to be nothing more than another form of entertainment.
Martin
Bob LeChevalier
>> >I've gotten really tired of
>> >having students ask me "Do you have a pencil I can borrow?" and then ask for some
>> >paper to write on.
>>
>> This is not a "can't or won't do the work". This is a "can't or won't come
>> to class prepared". I daresay that part of this is the overflowing school
>> schedule. Leaving for school at 6:30 in the morning when they are still
>> asleep, going from class to class with 4 minute breaks that don't even allow
>> time for a locker visit unless the locker is on the way and very well
>> organized, a 30 minute lunch break of which they will spend 15 minutes
>> waiting in the cafeteria line. When do they have TIME to stop and think
>> about whether they have what they need for the next class?
>
>I get kids in my first period class every day that don't have a pen or pencil, not paper
>or notebook - and most times have left their textbook in their locker. Many beg and
>whine trying to get out of my first period class to run to the cafeteria to buy a snack
>as they hadn't had any breakfast (our cafeteria serves breakfasts in the morning before
>school starts). Now my question is "Why is this?", what exactly are these students doing
>in the morning that prevents them from getting their stuff together, taking time to get
>something to eat before the tardy bell for their first period class?
Sleeping. There seem to be a lot of recent studies suggesting that the
diurnal rhythms for teenagers are not very compatible with being awake and
alert at 6AM. My daughter can go to sleep at 830PM or 11PM and she is no
more alert in the morning - she gets up extremely slowly, breezes mindlessly
through a morning routine that doesn't include breakfast, seldom leaves her
room until it is within 5 minutes of time to leave, then dashes to the bus.
Even when she shows a little perkiness, she isn't there mentally.
>In the mornings I usually get up early so that I have time to check my email, have time to take a shower,
>have time to eat breakfast, get my papers together, get my stuff out to my truck and
>generally get set to get to school and get my classes started on time.
You aren't a teenager, and when you were, I suspect that school wasn't
starting so ridiculously early (the first class starts at 7:15 here). They
cannot count on time at school before class, since they don't control the bus
schedule. The busses here have long routes in rush hour traffic. I don't
know about her current school, but at her middle school there were half a
dozen busses that regularly arrived at school late.
>This isn't
>something new, back in high school and in college I had to do similar things and was
>rarely late to class.
I remember 8AM classes in college as being something kids avoided like the
plague if they could. If they couldn't, most were asleep. Many people
arranged their first college class for 9am or even 10am.
>I truly feel that it IS part of the students "homework" to get prepared
>to come to school / class prepared to work and having the tools needed to do that work.
I understand, but the logistics at school sometimes do not cooperate.
>I may be old fashion in my beliefs, but that's what they are. And exactly how hard is it
>to "remember" to bring a pen / pencil with you? I carry a pen with me at all time -
>mainly because I also carry a checkbook.
Typical teenage garb does not have a place to carry either. (Girls may have
purses, in which case they may also have pens. Guys wear t-shirts.) Now you
could argue that they should dress differently, but that won't happen.
>Once you get in the habit,
"Habit" and "teenager" are mutually incompatible concepts, in my experience.
(I'm no longer a teenager, and I still find habits difficult to develop,
unless they are bad ones).
>> >I've also gotten tired of having to resort to giving a "grade"
>> >for just about everything - just as a motivating force to get the students to do
>> >just the minimum amount of work. I can't really say what the actual cause of this
>> >apathetic behavior toward school in general - so I say "can't or won't".
>>
>> But apathy is neither "can't or won't". The kid who asks you for pencil IS
>> going to take notes, or they wouldn't ask. They ARE doing the work.
>
>No they are not asking for a pencil to take notes, it's usually to do whatever the day's
>written assignment is or test. Hardly any students I have take notes.
But either way, they are clearly indicating some willingness to do work in
your class, just not showing willingness to so much as think about the
existence of your class when they are NOT in it. (And I think it really
amounts to that - teenagers do not even think about their classes unless
explicitly reminded - their minds are on their social life for the most part,
and always on the here and now).
>> They are apathetic on the other hand because they seldom see any reason to do
>> what you tell them EXCEPT for the "grade". They don't notice that they've
>> learned anything, and in many cases they haven't, so they won't do it for
>> "love of learning".
>
>And why is it that the only reason they are motivated to do anything is because of the
>"grade"?
What other reason do they have to be motivated. Most people work only
because they will get paid. Your class is work, and the only payment they
get is that grade. They aren't thinking about long term rewards, because for
most kids, long term is this weekend.
>Why is this the situation and exactly who's fault is it? The student's, the
>system's?
I think it is the culture. Things happen so fast and change so fast that
people get used to living in a "reaction" mode. Kids have no planning skills
to start with, and no one teaches them (and planning skills are less
effective than they used to be unless you are VERY disciplined).
>> Meanwhile, especially at he high school level, kids often have jobs. They
>> know that when work is valued, the worker gets paid. Your grade is a most
>> miniscule form of payment, compared even to burger-flipping wages. maybe if
>> we paid kids for their primary job: to learn, rather than for flipping
>> burgers, they would tackle the job more responsibly.
>
>Talk with the owners / operators of the local fast food places in you're area. Find out
>just how responsible the typical teenage employee is. Most of my students have had /
>have jobs at the local restaurants - and most have been fired or are in the process of
>being fired from those jobs. I work across the hall from the three co-op teachers here
>at our high school. Most of the 100+ students in these programs can't keep a job more
>than two weeks, if they can hold one for that long. Why is that?
Because the pay isn't enough for them to care. For my daughter to have a
bare minimal social life these days, she needs $20-30 a week, which is
probably about the take home from a 10 hour a week minimum wage job. If they
drive, the insurance alone runs $1000 a year, which is another $20/wk if the
kids are expected to pay for it, with gas costing even more. Kids have grown
up with their parents, and are used to doing more without thinking about the
costs.
My daughter is in school play and marching band, both of which end after late
busses. I have to either pick her up or rely on her getting a ride from
another student. She seldom gets home before 6:30, and lunch is at 1030AM,
so she has generally had to raid the vending machines or go eat fast food
herself merely to make it through the day (remember that she leaves at
630AM). So even with no social life (I consider these to be educational
rather than social activities, especially since marching band is mandatory
for her music class), she burns money like water.
>> That is partly a culture that treats kids as more adultlike at younger ages,
>> as well as being less permissive in general. We are raising kids to be
>> "Americans" with "freedom", and kids therefore have to be as close to adult
>> freedom as possible; yet because they are "kids" we feel it improper to
>> saddle them with real responsibility for themselves.
>
>Why are we treating them more adult like today?
Because we have the idea that treating them like "children", i.e. without
"rights" is demeaning and unAmerican. We feel culturally that rights are
innate and inalienable, which means that one has them even when one is not
responsible.
On the other hand, we still realize they are children, and thus incapable of
living up to adult responsibility. So we give them as many of the benefits
of adulthood as possible, without the consequences.
>Most of the kids I see lately and
>especially this latest batch of 10th graders are way more immature than they should be.
"Should" implies a standard, obviously one that is a bit different than the
ones that the kids use.
>I would peg their maturity somewhere around what I would expect to see from a 7-8 year
>old.
I expect no maturity at all from an 8 year old.
>Why is that - if we're treating them more adult like or is that a result from it?
>Why was it wrong for my parents back when I was young to "saddle me with real
>responsibilities"?
It wasn't, but they didn't really. The world did not stop if you failed to
fulfill them. You may have been punished; heck I punish my kids when they
don't fill their responsibilities. But they are largely immune to that
punishment. I grounded my daughter for a few months from all social
activities and she showed less effort to comply than when I gave her the
privileges back.
>Shouldn't we be striving to try to develop traits like responsibly
>andmaturity within the children of today? I think we should.
I don't think we know how. The ways that my parents used with me have no
prayer of working with my kids.
Martin Rowley
engineers that they hire directly out of college to the local community college for a
technical writing class - and one of the other engineers monitors their progress in the
class. The new engineer is also given a mentor who tutors them in depth in the math that is
needed to do their job. I when I worked there, I usually gave them a few weeks of lessons in
using the computer-aided drafting software and instructed them in the company's drafting
policies. Basically they are pro-active when it comes to a new hire directly out of college
and assume that they do need this basic training to get them up to speed with the skills
necessary to do their job. Sad thing is that after all this training, some of them leave
after about a year and go to other companies.
Martin
sf wrote:
> So true. My husband works closely with private industry and he has
> commented that they often have to provide basic education skills along
> with the actual "training" of their workforce.
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
______________________________________________________________________________
Kleyle
>That's exactly what I see the problem is
OK. I can appreciate that. I thought the problem was that the vast majority of
the people under 20 were spoiled and couldn't or wouldn't do the work. The
exact problem, we come to learn, is that they are learning to learn. I think
that's a step up. Still, you have a good point. They need to begin moving into
some more serious content areas.
> - they are still learning to learn,
>but I
>really think that by the 10th, 11th, and 12th grade they might have already
>developed the basic skills to do this and were starting to move on to more
>intermediate and advanced learning skills.
I think back on my impressions of literature in those years. What I thought
made a good paper in English Literature was fairly primitive---and I was
interested (if lazy, as you decsribe). Granted, there are many students who
wrote better than what I was producing in those days and there are, of course,
students today who are certainly writing better than what I was writing. But,
the point is that high school is still very much about learning to learn.
>And, btw - I do activities that are meant to develop interest and motivation.
>The
>problem is that's all that interest them. There has to be a cut off point
>where the
>motivational activities stop and learning starts.
Agreed.
>Then again maybe school is
>suppose to be nothing more than another form of entertainment.
Do you think so? I don't think so.
As ever,
sf
a living. I've seen contracts he has to rewrite. They look like
third grade writing skills (at best) and a sorry product for supposed
college grads.
However, my original comment was about the actual grunt work workforce
and was about basic reading skills. As far as I'm concerned, if an
employer offers ESL, they are smart! The more proficient they make
their workforce in English, the better assimilated they will become
and the more likely they are to stay and contribute to the company's
bottom ($) line - if the employer pays a fair wage for additional
skills.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Andrei Kulakov
I don't know about others, but for me, personally, it's almost impossible
to start doing a tutorial immediately. It's kind of like this - imagine
that you're a land architect who has to design a parking complex out of 5
hectares of land. Starting with a tutorial is sort of like taking a shovel
and beginning to dig, and instead I'd really have to walk around first,
get the feel for what this area is like, etc.
In case of 3d modeler, I'd start by creating some text, some simple model,
rendering them, and then going into nitty gritty details. Many books do
this sort of thing, first give readers a "bird's eye view" and then
descend into the mud of every-day operation.
--
Cymbaline: intelligent learning mp3 player - python, linux, console.
get it at: cy.silmarill.org
sf
I guess you are the "big picture" type.
Others prefer getting their information in small doses, mastering each
part and then complete their picture by putting all the pieces
together.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Fri, 19 Oct 2001 12:33:00 GMT, Andrei Kulakov <si...@optonline.net>
wrote:
Michael Connor
Best,
Michael
Michael Connor
Bob LeChevalier wrote:
> Because it teaches them to deal with the adult workplace, where authority is
> vindictive, that grievances will be scoffed at, that learning is mostly about
> compliance, and so on.
By this logic, we should place a huge section of our class behind bars, since some
will go to prison, and school should prepare them for that.
School should prepare students for citizenship, servitude. We should cultivate the
democratic values -- respect, responsibility, critical thinking, compassion, etc.
Teaching blind obedience may suit corporate masters, but it has little use to free
human beings.
> >We need to help them learn, grow, develop. We need to help them become citizens,
> >democrats (small 'd'), responsible empathetic adults. The hardness of life will
> >always be there. Dealing with it through communication, exchange of views,
> >cooperation, give and take, hard work -- that's what we teach.
>
> Your job is to teach them the state-approved curriculum. Their parents have
> the right to decide and the responsibility to teach responsibility and
> empathy.
Have we no curriculum of citizenship, of civics?
* Understands ideas about civic life, politics, and government.
http://www.mcrel.org/compendium/outputForStandardSQL.asp?Subject=14&Standard=1
* Understands the importance of Americans sharing and supporting certain values,
beliefs,
and principles of American constitutional democracy.
http://www.mcrel.org/compendium/Benchmark.asp?SubjectID=14&StandardID=11
Empathy is at the heart of liberal inquiry, whether in art, literature, or history;
it is required for real interpersonal problem-solving.
In Oregon the curriculm most definitely includes teaching empathy and
responsibility. Does it not in your state?
Best,
Michael
Michael Connor
Michael Connor wrote:
> School should prepare students for citizenship, servitude.
LOL. That's supposed to be 'NOT servitude.'
Martin Rowley
responsibility. Does it not in your state?"
I'm pretty sure these values are included in the 12 different character traits that the
teachers here in Texas are suppose to include in their curriculum. However, I also
fairly sure that even though the concepts are "taught", that there are many students
that don't "learn" them - at least to the point of actually incorporating these social
values into their personal code of ethics. I'm curious on how a teacher is expected to
evaluate whether or not a particular student has "learned" these "taught" values. What
kind of tests do you and the other teachers in Oregon use to check and see if the
students have assimilated the material?
Martin
Michael Connor wrote:
______________________________________________________________________________
Bob LeChevalier
>The company that I worked for before becoming a teacher has a policy of sending any new
>engineers that they hire directly out of college to the local community college for a
>technical writing class - and one of the other engineers monitors their progress in the
>class. The new engineer is also given a mentor who tutors them in depth in the math that is
>needed to do their job. I when I worked there, I usually gave them a few weeks of lessons in
>using the computer-aided drafting software and instructed them in the company's drafting
>policies. Basically they are pro-active when it comes to a new hire directly out of college
>and assume that they do need this basic training to get them up to speed with the skills
>necessary to do their job. Sad thing is that after all this training, some of them leave
>after about a year and go to other companies.
The obvious question is:
Knowing that your company had to do this with kids who had completed 4 or
more additional years of presumably more sophisticated education beyond the
level of your current course, why are you so surprised that these kids are so
incapable at basic skills. Your new hires are after all being PAID to go to
school; these kids aren't.
Bob LeChevalier
>Bob LeChevalier wrote:
>> Because it teaches them to deal with the adult workplace, where authority is
>> vindictive, that grievances will be scoffed at, that learning is mostly about
>> compliance, and so on.
>
>By this logic, we should place a huge section of our class behind bars, since some
>will go to prison, and school should prepare them for that.
You use the keyword "some". My statement about the adult workplace is pretty
much universal: if you go to work for another person, you are going to work
for a dictator, who expects orders to be followed and who doesn't really care
about his employees, should such caring affect the bottom line.
There are exceptions, but the person with only a lower education level
shouldn't expect to find them except by good luck, and it is rare for someone
without some type of privileged status due to parent money and influence not
to have to spend some time in a work environment that you would consider
abusive.
To be specific, how many teachers could honestly say that their job does not
fit the above description. Anger the authorities, and your job will be hell.
Teachers, all of whose grievances are attended to, seem to not post on this
group, and "learning" is of course defined as compliance with the state
testing standards.
>School should prepare students for citizenship, servitude.
Yes. Both of these. But servitude is what brings home a paycheck.
>We should cultivate the
>democratic values -- respect, responsibility, critical thinking, compassion, etc.
>Teaching blind obedience may suit corporate masters, but it has little use to free
>human beings.
As I said, it brings home a paycheck, and survival is the first requirement
for a "free human being".
>> Your job is to teach them the state-approved curriculum. Their parents have
>> the right to decide and the responsibility to teach responsibility and
>> empathy.
>
>Have we no curriculum of citizenship, of civics?
The primary requirement of a citizen is fulfillment of legal
responsibilities, and civics, to know how the system works if it is working
as it is supposed to.
Moral responsibility is not something that should be taught in the public
schools, because there is no universal standards of morality that we can
agree should be taught.
>* Understands ideas about civic life, politics, and government.
> http://www.mcrel.org/compendium/outputForStandardSQL.asp?Subject=14&Standard=1
>
>* Understands the importance of Americans sharing and supporting certain values,
>beliefs, and principles of American constitutional democracy.
> http://www.mcrel.org/compendium/Benchmark.asp?SubjectID=14&StandardID=11
I note that you selected the standard pertaining to "diversity", and suspect
that appreciation for diversity is NOT a shared value of all Americans, and
not necessarily even MOST Americans, given the sorts of post that we often
see. I daresay that if that standard was put to a vote by the people of
Oregon, it would not pass as worded.
>Empathy is at the heart of liberal inquiry,
But a large segment of our electorate does not appreciate any value that
might be preceded by the "l" word, so that is NOT a shared value of our
society.
>whether in art, literature, or history;
>it is required for real interpersonal problem-solving.
Take it to court! That is the "real" American way to solve an interpersonal
dispute. Surely you know this! May the most expensive lawyer win!
>In Oregon the curriculm most definitely includes teaching empathy and
>responsibility. Does it not in your state?
I am sure that it includes civic responsibility, which is probably not what
you mean by the term. "Empathy" cannot be taught; it is a personality trait
that can be developed and encouraged, but the public schools are not the
place for such.
Bob LeChevalier
>Sounds like you can infer quite a bit from one sentence.
>Best,
> Michael
>
>Bob LeChevalier wrote:
>> Michael Connor <mco...@teleport.com> wrote:
>> >Fair use is fair use.
>>
>> Sounds like you know and respect less about international (and American)
>> copyright law than other forms of international law.
>>
>> "Fair use" is an extremely limited right. Only rarely is there a bona fide
>> "fair use" of the entirety of a copyrighted piece, like an entire song.
In the context it seemed relatively clear that you thought "fair use" applied
to the situation. It does not come close to applying to the case of
bootlegging copies of music.
Michael Connor
Bob LeChevalier wrote:
> >By this logic, we should place a huge section of our class behind bars, since some
> >will go to prison, and school should prepare them for that.
>
> You use the keyword "some". My statement about the adult workplace is pretty
> much universal: if you go to work for another person, you are going to work
> for a dictator, who expects orders to be followed and who doesn't really care
> about his employees, should such caring affect the bottom line.
This may be true. But education is not just preparation for servitude; indeed,
quality education ill-prepares one for such a life. I see no justification for acting
arbitrarily with adolescents in order to teach them some ill-conceived lesson. It may
be that preparation for democratic life contradicts the needs of bosses. I never
cared much for bosses, though. Schooling children to accept arbitrary authority has
no justification outside of teacher laziness.
> >Have we no curriculum of citizenship, of civics?
>
> The primary requirement of a citizen is fulfillment of legal
> responsibilities,
This is a deformed understanding of citizenship, which is about making community and
justice, not following rules. Non-citizens must fulfill legal responsibilities, no?
Citizenship means taking responsibility for society.
> and civics, to know how the system works if it is working
> as it is supposed to.
Know your place, eh? Hardly a robust notion of civics. What do you teach, anyway,
Bob?
> Moral responsibility is not something that should be taught in the public
> schools, because there is no universal standards of morality that we can
> agree should be taught.
We continue to disagree on this point; lack of agreement does not invalidate inquiry.
By this standard, we would have no classes in literature, art, history, etc.
> >* Understands ideas about civic life, politics, and government.
> > http://www.mcrel.org/compendium/outputForStandardSQL.asp?Subject=14&Standard=1
> >
> >* Understands the importance of Americans sharing and supporting certain values,
> >beliefs, and principles of American constitutional democracy.
> > http://www.mcrel.org/compendium/Benchmark.asp?SubjectID=14&StandardID=11
>
> I note that you selected the standard pertaining to "diversity", and suspect
> that appreciation for diversity is NOT a shared value of all Americans, and
> not necessarily even MOST Americans, given the sorts of post that we often
> see. I daresay that if that standard was put to a vote by the people of
> Oregon, it would not pass as worded.
This is a different from your previous objection: Michael, teach required curriculum,
not values. Now when I show the standards which require teaching values, you claim
the standards are unpopular.
> >Empathy is at the heart of liberal inquiry,
>
> But a large segment of our electorate does not appreciate any value that
> might be preceded by the "l" word, so that is NOT a shared value of our
> society.
This is a non-sequiter, and a trivialization. Do you dispute the notion that empathy
is an important part of understanding literatue, art, history?
> >whether in art, literature, or history;
> >it is required for real interpersonal problem-solving.
>
> Take it to court! That is the "real" American way to solve an interpersonal
> dispute.
The mythology expressed here, largely the creation of insurance companies, does not
bear scrutiny. The vast majority of personal disputes are solved outside of court:
>99%. How many "personal disputes" have you been involved in? 10,000? How many
ended up in court?
Likewise, the bulk of lawsuits are BETWEEN corporations. Only one in twenty civil
suits are tort cases.
http://www.cochems.com/news/podium.html
http://www.citizen.org/congress/civjus/prod_liability/general/articles.cfm?ID=920
http://www.stateaction.org/issues/governance/tortreform/index.cfm
> >In Oregon the curriculm most definitely includes teaching empathy and
> >responsibility. Does it not in your state?
>
> I am sure that it includes civic responsibility, which is probably not what
> you mean by the term.
Nah. I mean teaching young people how to solve problems, which requires empathy.
Teaching how to appreciate art, literature. How to understand multiple perspectives
in history. These are empathetic skills.
* Describe how social concepts such as cooperation, communication, self-esteem, risk
taking, sympathy and empathy apply in art and daily life.
http://www.open.k12.or.us/start/visual/standards/v-stand4.html
Indeed, much of historical analysis requires empathy for others -- understanding their
perspective, being able to appreciate a point of view which is foriegn, or even
hostile, to your own. "Consider multiple perspectives in the records of human
experience by demonstrating how their differing motives, beliefs, interests, hopes,
and fears influenced individual and group behaviors.
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/nchs/standards/thinkingk-4-3.html
> "Empathy" cannot be taught; it is a personality trait
> that can be developed and encouraged, but the public schools are not the
> place for such.
Undoubtedly musical aptitude is in part in-born, along with spatial reasoning, social
smarts, etc. I know of no human behavior that is not tied to personality, genetics,
nature. Yet historical thinking, musical abilities, poetic style -- do we not
"develop and encourage them?" What is teaching, but the taking of what students have
and helping to develop and encourage it? No one is born with the ability to write
haiku, or contrast the Port Huron Statement with the Declaration of Independence, or
appreciate the meaning(s) of the story of Midas. What skills we have when we enter
the classroom are developed and encouraged by the teacher.
We live in a democratic society. This implies certain things about schools -- hardly
a radical proposition. That the democratic values are threatened by others, or not
respected by bosses, or not valued by all does not alter the imperative to teach them,
if democratic schooling be different from other sorts.
Best,
Michael
sf
<loj...@lojban.org> wrote:
>
>Empathy" cannot be taught; it is a personality trait
>that can be developed and encouraged,
Thank goodness. Our playgrounds would be a big mess if students in
elementary school didn't at least fake some empathy.
>but the public schools are not the
>place for such.
I disagree. I can't count how many times I've said, "How would you
feel if.... happened to you?"
Bob LeChevalier
>Bob LeChevalier wrote:
>> >By this logic, we should place a huge section of our class behind bars, since some
>> >will go to prison, and school should prepare them for that.
>>
>> You use the keyword "some". My statement about the adult workplace is pretty
>> much universal: if you go to work for another person, you are going to work
>> for a dictator, who expects orders to be followed and who doesn't really care
>> about his employees, should such caring affect the bottom line.
>
>This may be true. But education is not just preparation for servitude; indeed,
>quality education ill-prepares one for such a life.
Public education is about teaching kids what the public as dictated by their
elected representatives *tells you* to teach.
>I see no justification for acting
>arbitrarily with adolescents in order to teach them some ill-conceived lesson.
Your bosses tell you to do so, and their taxes pay your paycheck.
>It may
>be that preparation for democratic life contradicts the needs of bosses. I never
>cared much for bosses, though. Schooling children to accept arbitrary authority has
>no justification outside of teacher laziness.
Of course it does. You are the one who thinks that everything should be
democratically determined. Well if a majority of the voting populace wants
their kids to learn servitude, then I guess that is what you should be
teaching, assuming you have intellectual integrity.
>> >Have we no curriculum of citizenship, of civics?
>>
>> The primary requirement of a citizen is fulfillment of legal
>> responsibilities,
>
>This is a deformed understanding of citizenship, which is about making community and
>justice, not following rules.
There is a difference between fulfillment of the legal responsibility for
citizens and "following rules". There are in fact few written rules for what
a citizen is supposed to do that might differ from the random person in this
country. Most of the distinctive attributes of a citizen are part of the
unwritten common law.
And no I don't think that there is a particular responsibility for a citizen
to "make justice". It may be a moral responsibility, in which case it
applies equally to non-citizens, and indeed random human beings.
I daresay that libertarians would disagree about the responsibility to make a
community, though I personally agree that one is relevant to citizens.
>Non-citizens must fulfill legal responsibilities, no?
Not the same ones that citizens do.
>Citizenship means taking responsibility for society.
Yes. That is a legal responsibility of a citizen.
>> and civics, to know how the system works if it is working
>> as it is supposed to.
>
>Know your place, eh?
I can't help it if you intentionally misunderstand English. I did not use
those words and resent your putting them in my mouth.
>Hardly a robust notion of civics. What do you teach, anyway, Bob?
Presuming that is a question about my job, I am a parent.
>> Moral responsibility is not something that should be taught in the public
>> schools, because there is no universal standards of morality that we can
>> agree should be taught.
>
>We continue to disagree on this point; lack of agreement does not invalidate inquiry.
But you aren't inquiring. You are dictating to other what their morality
should be. And I as a parent would object strenuously if you were teaching
my kids what you post on this group. Indeed, if my kids know their teachers'
political opinions without asking them, the teacher is probably abusing the
"bully pulpit".
>By this standard, we would have no classes in literature, art, history, etc.
We have such classes, and what is taught is the standards of the "experts" in
these fields, as is true for the standards of the sciences and English, and
to some extent math (recognizing that the math experts actually want more
mathematical rigor than is politically acceptable).
>> >* Understands ideas about civic life, politics, and government.
>> > http://www.mcrel.org/compendium/outputForStandardSQL.asp?Subject=14&Standard=1
>> >
>> >* Understands the importance of Americans sharing and supporting certain values,
>> >beliefs, and principles of American constitutional democracy.
>> > http://www.mcrel.org/compendium/Benchmark.asp?SubjectID=14&StandardID=11
>>
>> I note that you selected the standard pertaining to "diversity", and suspect
>> that appreciation for diversity is NOT a shared value of all Americans, and
>> not necessarily even MOST Americans, given the sorts of post that we often
>> see. I daresay that if that standard was put to a vote by the people of
>> Oregon, it would not pass as worded.
>
>This is a different from your previous objection: Michael, teach required curriculum,
>not values. Now when I show the standards which require teaching values, you claim
>the standards are unpopular.
Oh, I am not saying that you shouldn't teach this curriculum. It is your
orders from on high, O public servant (assuming you teach civics in Oregon).
I was merely observing that you chose ONE standard from many for civic, and
probably one of the more controversial ones if it should actually be put to a
vote. I found this ironic in that elsewhere in the last couple of days you
said that foreign policy, and indeed EVERYTHING done by government in this
country should be decided democratically.
>> >Empathy is at the heart of liberal inquiry,
>>
>> But a large segment of our electorate does not appreciate any value that
>> might be preceded by the "l" word, so that is NOT a shared value of our
>> society.
>
>This is a non-sequiter, and a trivialization. Do you dispute the notion that empathy
>is an important part of understanding literatue, art, history?
Yes. At least what >I< mean by empathy.
>> >whether in art, literature, or history;
>> >it is required for real interpersonal problem-solving.
>>
>> Take it to court! That is the "real" American way to solve an interpersonal
>> dispute.
>
>The mythology expressed here, largely the creation of insurance companies, does not
>bear scrutiny. The vast majority of personal disputes are solved outside of court:
>>99%. How many "personal disputes" have you been involved in? 10,000? How many
>ended up in court?
I personally am not prone to go to court. There are some who will go to
court on any slight. Usually they have more money for lawyers. Often they
win the dispute by intimidation because the other side doesn't have the
money.
>> >In Oregon the curriculm most definitely includes teaching empathy and
>> >responsibility. Does it not in your state?
>>
>> I am sure that it includes civic responsibility, which is probably not what
>> you mean by the term.
>
>Nah. I mean teaching young people how to solve problems, which requires empathy.
Not usually.
>Teaching how to appreciate art, literature. How to understand multiple perspectives
>in history. These are empathetic skills.
We clearly have different definitions of empathy. I call understanding
multiple perspectives an analytical skill. Empathy is about sharing (which
means feeling) emotions. Good art and literature is that which is skillfully
done - whether it appeals to the emotions depends on the culture of the
emoter. I don't have to share or feel the emotions of a member of another
culture in order to analyze the effect of art and literature on the typical
such person.
>* Describe how social concepts such as cooperation, communication, self-esteem, risk
>taking, sympathy and empathy apply in art and daily life.
> http://www.open.k12.or.us/start/visual/standards/v-stand4.html
That is ANALYZING how those concepts apply. One can do this quite
dispassionately.
>Indeed, much of historical analysis requires empathy for others -- understanding their
>perspective, being able to appreciate a point of view which is foriegn, or even
>hostile, to your own.
The word is being used sloppily. I can understand a perspective without
appreciating it. I have no empathy at all for the terrorists and I really
don't want to, even while having per jzah's comments some inkling as to the
ends that they may wish to achieve, and perhaps even why they chose
reprehensible means to try to achieve those ends.
>We live in a democratic society. This implies certain things about schools -- hardly
>a radical proposition. That the democratic values are threatened by others, or not
>respected by bosses, or not valued by all does not alter the imperative to teach them,
>if democratic schooling be different from other sorts.
What if the majority of the democrats don't want you to teach your baloney to
their kids? Are you respecting democratic values to defy them?
Michael Connor
Apparently every person, who is not a teacher, is an expert on how teachers should teach.
Perhaps a newsgroup without "teacher" as the focus would be more appropriate for you?
Best,
Michael
Lee
>Apparently every person, who is not a teacher, is an expert
>on how teachers should teach.
>Perhaps a newsgroup without "teacher" as the focus would be
>more appropriate for you?
It's a slippery slope.
If you start listening to what parents think about education,
the next thing you know, you'll be hearing what Australian
mechanics think about US foreign policy.
CountJade
<mco...@teleport.com> wrote:
>Bob,
>
>Apparently every person, who is not a teacher, is an expert on how teachers should teach.
>Perhaps a newsgroup without "teacher" as the focus would be more appropriate for you?
>
>Best,
> Michael
Yessiree, that's the way to do it. Don't agree with someone? Change
the issue to whether or not they happen to be EMPLOYED as a teacher.
That's about as brilliant as you criticizing someone for their misuse
of an apostrophe. After all, a citizen should not have the right to
question what his children are being taught and how. Personally, I've
heard more than enough of the drivel spewing from you to decide that
you are about the LAST person I'd ever want teaching anyone about
ethics or morality. Stick to subject matter. You do not have the
right to decide for anyone what kind of "morality" or system of
ethics, or "empathy" they should have. the schools are not the place
for social engineering.
CountJade
Michael Connor
Here's what I mean, in part, by morality:
* "It's not okay to take his coat. It belongs to him."
* "If you say you're going to turn your paper in one day late, it's not okay to turn it in
four days late. Your promise means something to me, and when you break it, it creates
problems for me."
* "It's not okay to make fun of people because they talk different, or look different, or act
different."
If that's social engineering, I'm all for it.
Here's what I mean by teaching empathy:
* When you clobbered him with your elephant, how do you think he felt? Have you ever felt
like that?
* What was it like for Boo Radley to step up like that? Have you ever done something where
you suprised even yourself, because it was different, or courageous, or unusual? How did you
feel then?
* Put yourself in the place of Southerners. How would you feel if folks from another state
invaded your state? How do you think they felt? How could we find out how they felt?
If that's social engineering...
Best,
Michael
Joe Hill
"CountJade" <coun...@nobloodyspamhotmail.com>, descending to ad hominem
attack, wrote in message news:aanhttsdn0c3eor7p...@4ax.com...
> Personally, I've
> heard more than enough of the drivel spewing from you to decide that
> you are about the LAST person I'd ever want teaching anyone about
> ethics or morality. Stick to subject matter. You do not have the
> right to decide for anyone what kind of "morality" or system of
> ethics, or "empathy" they should have. the schools are not the place
> for social engineering.
>
This is a rather surprising statement. Public schools exist now and have
existed in the past precisely for their capacity to do "social engineering."
References to this abound. Don't make me cite the bibliography.
Joe Hill
Bob LeChevalier
>Apparently every person, who is not a teacher, is an expert on how teachers should teach.
>Perhaps a newsgroup without "teacher" as the focus would be more appropriate for you?
The discussion seems to be about WHAT teachers should teach, not how. That
decision is up to the voters and their representatives, and not the teachers.
The newsgroup is open to non-teachers. See the official charter which I
posted elsewhere in the group in response to you. In any case, more teachers
seem to welcome my inputs than object to them.
jz...@jzah.com
<loj...@lojban.org> wrote:
>Michael Connor <mco...@teleport.com> wrote:
>>Apparently every person, who is not a teacher, is an expert on how teachers should teach.
>>Perhaps a newsgroup without "teacher" as the focus would be more appropriate for you?
>
>The discussion seems to be about WHAT teachers should teach, not how. That
>decision is up to the voters and their representatives, and not the teachers.
>
>The newsgroup is open to non-teachers. See the official charter which I
>posted elsewhere in the group in response to you. In any case, more teachers
>seem to welcome my inputs than object to them.
Please don't use my words as a means of objecting to another
person's expression of views. The charter I wrote was a
description, not a prescription.
J. Z. Al-Huriyeh
============================
"Everyone asks for peace,
but no one asks for justice."
Peter Tosh
FBI regrets illegality of torturing Arab suspects
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27748-2001Oct20.html
Campaign to end torture of Palestinian child
prisoners by the Occupier
http://www.dci-pal.org/english/prisonweb/childprisoners.html
The media as a weapon
http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/margolis.html
Report anti-Arab/ anti-Muslim harrassment and
hate crimes to the U.S. Commission on
Civil Rights (UCCR) hotline 800-552-6843
Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee
Special Fund for September 11 Terrorism Victims
www.adc.org
CountJade
wrote:
>
>This is a rather surprising statement. Public schools exist now and have
>existed in the past precisely for their capacity to do "social engineering."
>References to this abound. Don't make me cite the bibliography.
>
>Joe Hill
>
What schools have done in the past, and what should be done are not
necessarily two of the same. Your citing of "bibliography" will not
change that. One of the many reasons schools are in some of the
messes they are in is because of foolish progressives who took it upon
themselves to decide for everyone else that schools should teach their
brand of social "awareness" and academics be damned.
Countjade
Kleyle
can hang on these events just so we can get a sense of what it is that you are
actually saying, if anything?
CountJade writes:
>One of the many reasons
To what degree is the progressivism a reason? And what are these other reasons?
> schools are in some of the messes they are in
What messes are they in, and how do we know that they are in messes? Which
messes are related to the progresive agenda, whatever that may be? What are the
reasons for the other messes? What are other reasons for the same messes that
the progressive agenda brought on?
> is because of foolish progressives
What about intelligent progressives? How did they affect the schools? In what
way did foolishness affect the progressives?
> who took it upon themselves to decide for everyone else
Sorry. I was under the apparently mistaken impression that schools were
controlled at the local level by locally elected boards of education made up of
the citizens of the communities they serve. Are these the foolish progressives
you are talking about? The local electorate, as it were? Schools are still
largely controlled by the local boards. That is less true today than in
previous decades, but still true to a large degree.
> that schools should teach their brand of social "awareness"
Whose brand? The brands of the local citizens who elected the local boards who
oversee and oversaw the local schools?
> and academics be damned.
And I missed that tidbit, too. Schools are graduating more students than ever
before. More people are attending public schools than ever before. The
standards have not gone down.
As ever,
CountJade
>That was quite a sentence you cooked up there.
Nice to see you stick to your usual pompous modus operandi...followed
closely by nit-picking a subject to death until it's lost in a sea of
minutae. Maybe my "cooking" will unstick whatever is up your butt.
>Do you have some dates
Sure...do I feel like digging them up for you? No..I have better
things to do than write you an essay. Approximate dates for when
various educational movements gained steam are readily available.
>
>To what degree is the progressivism a reason? And what are these other reasons?
The reason I said progressivism being among many reasons is that I
hardly blame any one factor for anything. No issue is that simple,
especially not education.
>> schools are in some of the messes they are in
>
>What messes are they in, and how do we know that they are in messes?
Let's see....drop out rates have increased, non-adjusted scores have
fallen, school discipline has just about gone out the window, the
middle schools have to a large extent beome holding pens...take your
pick. Again, I never said progressive movements were the sole factor,
but in my opinion were and are one of the important factors.
>Which
>messes are related to the progresive agenda, whatever that may be? What are the
>reasons for the other messes? What are other reasons for the same messes that
>the progressive agenda brought on?
Just as you do not, I also do not feel the need to explain in detail
every possible tangential angle of an issue. I made an observation of
an issue based on my knowledge of certain issues and how my
experiences have related. I do not feel the need to rehash arguments
which have been repeated ad infinitum on this board concerning the
progressive/conservative debate. You've been here long enough...you've
heard them. I'm fairly sure you have no memory problems. I'm not
expecting anyone to agree/disagree with me. I was merely weighing in
witth my own humble opinion. I also did not feel the need to sate
"other causes" since I was never speaking on anything but one facet of
a multifaceted issue.
>What about intelligent progressives? How did they affect the schools? In what
>way did foolishness affect the progressives?
Again, I never said the various progressive modes of thought were
either responsible for every negative thing going on in education, or
that they were utterly worthless.
>Sorry. I was under the apparently mistaken impression that schools were
>controlled at the local level by locally elected boards of education made up of
>the citizens of the communities they serve. Are these the foolish progressives
>you are talking about? The local electorate, as it were? Schools are still
>largely controlled by the local boards. That is less true today than in
>previous decades, but still true to a large degree.
Sorry...I can't agree with you fully there. Legally, yes that is
true. However, my study of the history of American Education leads me
to believe that quite often (broadly painted) "progressive movement",
led largely by cadres from a relative few colleges of Ed have quite
often ignored the wishes of the citizenry and forced what they thought
was best for the people and students...be that whole language,
phonics, new math, multicultural, child centered, etc. etc. Some ideas
have been good, a lot bad in my opinion.
>
>Whose brand? The brands of the local citizens who elected the local boards who
>oversee and oversaw the local schools?
see above
>> and academics be damned.
>
>And I missed that tidbit, too. Schools are graduating more students than ever
>before. More people are attending public schools than ever before. The
>standards have not gone down.
Yep...graduating students that can barely read or do math, that can't
write a decent paragraph or perform the most basic
textual/mathematical analysis. I've seen the standards decline within
my own short lifetime.
CountJade