the future of education?

[hrothgar]

People go into teaching because its a vocation rather than a career.

 

My parents were both teachers (and very successful ones. (My father was a university professor. My mother taught at both the high school and university level)

 

Neither of them considered this a "vocation". They both made informed decisions about where they wanted to work based on a tradeoff between $$$ and quality of life.

 

I had originally intended on being a university professor as well. One of the main reason why I switched over to the private sector was the destruction of the University of California system and the forseeable glut of academics fighting over tenure track positions. These days, the tech sector offers a much more enjoyable way of life.

 

I have any number of friends who graduated near the top of their class from good universities.

None of them have gone into teaching (despite the fact that many would consider aspects of the profession enjoyable)

 

I don't doubt that there are some people who go into teaching because they consider it a vocation.

I suspect that a hell of a lot more tell themselves that same thing...

[luke warm]

I suspect that a hell of a lot more tell themselves that same thing...

phenomenologically speaking, they'd be right

[Elianna]

(2) Teachers for America (TFA) has demonstrated conclusively that smarter teachers are better teachers on average. 75% of your teachers graduated in the bottom third of their cohort from university.

Funny enough, it hasn't. They become better teachers after working for three years, and then quit teaching. Coincidentally, others also become better teachers after teaching for three years.

 

I also question that being in TFA means that someone is smarter. But I also know that I have many different ideas of intelligence than the average person.

[phil_20686]

I like this article:

 

TIME MAGAZINE

 

not sure what qualifies as a "trusted outlet" for you, but there are so many studies that posting studies does not seem a fruitful way to argue the point.

[phil_20686]

But I also know that I have many different ideas of intelligence than the average person.

 

This is interesting: What camp are you in? Intelligence as a learned phenomenon? Intelligence as primarily genetic with flexibility based on environment? Intelligence as wholly genetic? The theory of multiple intelligences, or the concept of the "general intelligence" with specialisations.

 

Intelligence is well worth a discussion. Its so interesting :).

[kenberg]

This issue of how much teachers have to know is tricky. I am very skeptical of studies that show that it doesn't matter, but we have to accept that we cannot have Richard Feynman teaching all of our high school physics courses. The world has to keep turning with more or less ordinary people doing most of the spinning.

 

 

Adam, no I see that this was Richard above, but maybe Adam elsewhere, has mentioned that he comes from an academic family and went to good schools. The same could be said of my granddaughter who just finished her first year of college. I have no criticism at all to make of the education she received, all of it (until college) in public schools. That's not where the problem lies. I grew up in different circumstances and it is in this arena that I fear we may have moved backward in what we provide for children.

 

If I could time travel, one of my stops would be my eighth grade class at Randolph Heights Elementary in St. Paul. It is my recollection, and I would be delighted to check on my memory, that every one of us could add, subtract, multiply and divide. It may be that a few had trouble placing the decimal point properly when multiplying, say, 23.7 by 4.58 but most of us could. We could tell the nouns from the verbs and we were reasonably good at adverbs and adjectives. My father had finished eighth grade, typical for the kids in my class. I am not so sure that current eighth grade classes, serving kids with a similar background, can say the same today. Of course there are many reasons for this but still...

 

 

Now to get back to what teachers need to know. It was in late, or maybe not so late, elementary school that I began to understand that it was best to rely on myself rather than to trust what a teacher, or any adult, were to tell me. By high school, this was a settled matter with me. Still, there were teachers whom I thought I could largely rely on, and there were teachers whom I was quite sure I could not. Mrs Swann taught me freshman algebra and sophomore geometry, a real break for me. I doubt that Mrs. Swann was ready to take advanced calculus but she understood that geometry develops theorems from axioms via proofs, and she could tell a correct proof from an incorrect proof. Some of the kids got stuck with Mr. Wilson, who definitely had problems with such matters. My high school biology teacher, as near as I could tell, knew almost no biology. It matters, it really does, and I don't care how many studies show that it doesn't.

 

Here is a story. Some years back I was teaching an upper level college course in number theory. It was a good size class so they gave me a grader. He was a graduate student who had switched from mathematics to mathematics education which, I am sorry to say, was ominous. The homework consisted almost entirely of proofs. The grading was not going well. After speaking with him, I decided to try to help by writing out correct proofs of all of the exercises. This made it worse. There are often different possible correct proofs, and there are always different ways of putting in the details of any given approach. The kids who somehow managed to give my proof, written pretty much as I had written mine, got credit. Others did not. He could not tell whether minor variations were correct or not. As he phrased it "I'm not good at these proofy things". It really matters.

 

A closing remark, and I mean this fairly seriously. I believe that the best thing that I did during my adolescence to prepare me for college was to buy a car. A '47 Plymouth for $175. It often needed work, fairly often substantial work, to keep it running. I learned a lot about why you should read up on things and think things through before starting out.

[blackshoe]

Weingarten has repeatedly made statements to the effect that there is no such thing as a good teacher

 

Then Weingarten is either a liar or an idiot.

[PassedOut]

I recommend looking at the home page for "Encounter Books" (The crack publishing squad responsible for "Class Warfare")

 

http://www.encounterbooks.com/

 

These folks are pretty far out there...

I see what you mean. Thanks.

[hrothgar]

Then Weingarten is either a liar or an idiot.

 

Or that Phil (or the sources that he is using) is misrepresenting the actual statements

[blackshoe]

I wonder. When we get a new President, will Encounter Books' writers write new broadsides, or will they just change the name from "Obama" to whatever the new guy's name is?

[phil_20686]

I wonder. When we get a new President, will Encounter Books' writers write new broadsides, or will they just change the name from "Obama" to whatever the new guy's name is?

 

I know little about the publishing house, but Class Warfare is pro-Obama.

[blackshoe]

I was looking at their "broadsides", which mostly seem to have titles along the lines of "Obama screwed this up".

[kenberg]

Here is an article relating to Pam's original post:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/web-site-offering-free-online-math-lessons-catches-on-like-wildfire/2011/07/15/gIQAtL5KuI_story.html

 

I would not call it an in-depth look, barely a shallow look, but since it goes back to the original post I thought I would put it up.

[onoway]

Viewing Khan's program as the answer from heaven to all questions is likely a mistake as any program will speak to some kids' needs and not others. But I was bemused by one comment in the antiKhan blog post referred to by Elianna (I think) saying "Rather than instructing students with Khan’s videos, we should be inspiring them to figure things out on their own and learn how to create their own knowledge by working together."

 

Whatever happened to not reinventing the wheel? Kids who relate to math - and many more will if they feel they have a handle on it - would be free to then go on to exploring the world beyond Khan. I bet that most classical musicians don't start out with a grand creative flourish, they start out learning HOW to play the piano or whatever. Some may learn almost instinctively others not so much but they all need to learn what each instrument can and cannot do. How frustrating if you never learned that a piano was only one instrument of many and cannot make the sounds that a bassoon can so keeping on trying to make it do so ..what a waste of time!

 

It seems to me that Khan is teaching the mechanics of how things work in a way that many kids find easier to relate to; whether they are used to videos now rather than books or whatever the reason. I think one major advantage will be that the kids shouldn't be under pressure to keep up (or be held back). In my experience working with kids who were regularly booted or even banned from classrooms, often it was directly related to feelings of being inadequate in the requisite skills..once they had those skills, the behaviour largely disappeared. Kids, like everyone else, like to feel competent and resist situations where they feel incompetent. It's no fun to be the only one in the class who doesn't "get it".

 

In an earlier post Phil said: "I think that the secrets to a strong education system are not rocket science. You need to create a culture of high expectation in the classroom. That means creating a structure of discipline where children are punished not only for misbehaviour, but also for under performing. As soon as it becomes ok for bright kids to hand in adequate assignments, then one has lost the battle for expectations."

 

I STRONGLY disapprove of punishing kids for "not living up to their potential." All you will do is make the kids resentful and angry and distrustful. Punishment is fairly well recognised as being far from the optimum way to motivate people. If you must punish someone, punish the teacher for not making it worth while for the student to do so. Something else might be noted; in unfortunately too many classrooms, being smart and at the head of the class will not bring admiration and friendship from fellow students, esp if a lot of them are struggling...to punish a kid in such a situation for diminishing his/her apparent abilities is cruel. There are other much more productive ways to deal with it.

[kenberg]

When the whip goes down:

 

I have agrees to teach a class this fall for students who will not have a strong background. Putting theory to the test I looked at a couple of Khan's videos, thinking that maybe I could make good use of them. So far, no. I'll browse some more, but so far I see them as not bad, but not so good that I want to get students to spend time with them.

 

In the past there have been some handouts for this class written by others. I have looked at them. I won't be using them. Not every add-on is helpful.

 

When I was an undergrad I took a course in electricity and magnetism that used the world's most boring text. So I got another, I think better, text. BUT! I now had the lectures, the assigned text, and the new text I bought, and I had to somehow integrate all of this. Not for the fainthearted.

 

Maybe I'm just not with it, but I think the core will be my lectures, the text, and the homework problems. There will be office hours for questions, with me and with my assistants, and I answer questions by e-mail. I take questions in class. I hang around after class. I recommend that the students get with the program.

[babalu1997]

When the whip goes down:

 

I have agrees to teach a class this fall for students who will not have a strong background. Putting theory to the test I looked at a couple of Khan's videos, thinking that maybe I could make good use of them. So far, no. I'll browse some more, but so far I see them as not bad, but not so good that I want to get students to spend time with them.

 

In the past there have been some handouts for this class written by others. I have looked at them. I won't be using them. Not every add-on is helpful.

 

When I was an undergrad I took a course in electricity and magnetism that used the world's most boring text. So I got another, I think better, text. BUT! I now had the lectures, the assigned text, and the new text I bought, and I had to somehow integrate all of this. Not for the fainthearted.

 

Maybe I'm just not with it, but I think the core will be my lectures, the text, and the homework problems. There will be office hours for questions, with me and with my assistants, and I answer questions by e-mail. I take questions in class. I hang around after class. I recommend that the students get with the program.

 

 

That is so true, not every add-on is helpful.

 

I have often looked at materials such as khan's, sometimes videos on utube and so on. I find them really tedious, some blackboard and a ghost talking about them quadratic equations, i cant ask questions, if i were a student, i would consider that punishment.

 

It is rare to see some school curriculum or program that actually tells students: hey kid, you are free to think and figure things out for yourself. Go to wikipeadia and bring questions to me instead of goging to mr. khan. But some teachers think it is too hard to be exposed to random questions.

 

I was bemused when ken said he received class notes from a previous teacher who taught a class. I once received not only a set of notes, the previous teacher had composed a manual from several textbooks, surely violating some copyright stuff, which he copied and sold to students. He presented me with 30 copies of the manuals, for me to sell to the students and then send him the money, and also instructed me not produce more manuals and sell once those were finished unless i could send him the money. I refused to do it and was called upon to do it because "I must do it for the good of the students". In other words, i the teacher cannot think for myself either.

[y66]

I enjoyed re-reading the posts on this thread this morning. I love it when I stumble on gems like this one which still happens frequently on this site, even though many legendary posters have moved on:

 

A closing remark, and I mean this fairly seriously. I believe that the best thing that I did during my adolescence to prepare me for college was to buy a car. A '47 Plymouth for $175. It often needed work, fairly often substantial work, to keep it running. I learned a lot about why you should read up on things and think things through before starting out.

 

Having something of your own to play around with, work on, stick with and talk about with other people who share your interests is pretty cool stuff.

[kenberg]

You must have really liked it, you posted it three times!

 

I often reflect on the changing nature of being young. There is always a danger of letting nostalgia trump judgment of course.

 

One item: It's now thought to be a good thing to have all day Kindergarten. Maybe so. But there are some odd features. My birthday is January 1. In 1940s St. Paul this meant I could start school when I was 4. So I had half day kindergarten when I was 4, and all day first grade when I was 5. A grandchild is 4 and will turn 5 on September 11 a few days past the beginning of school. He will be tested to see if he can start Kindergarten this year and there is no guarantee of success. If he is not accepted then he will start all day Kindergarten next year at about the same age that I was when I started all day first grade. It's not so clear that this is progress. And more and more, mothers are holding some children, especially boys, back a year even if they are eligible for school.

 

My life was simple: I played when I was 3, started half day Kindergarten when I was 4, and full day first grade when I was 5. Worked for me.

 

And while I don't particularly want to knock my high school teachers (although some were in serious need of knocking) I am fairly serious with my claim that owning and caring for my car was preparation for college and for adult life that ranks right up there with Trigonometry and easily beats out the poets of the romantic era.

[y66]

I did indeed. I intend to pass this on along with some of the other ideas in this thread to a family member who is starting out as a teacher in Brooklyn. Will give you full credit.

[kenberg]

I did indeed. I intend to pass this on along with some of the other ideas in this thread to a family member who is starting out as a teacher in Brooklyn. Will give you full credit.

 

Far more important than credit, pass on my best wishes. The plain fact is: I think life as a child or adolescent was easier, perhaps a lot easier, some sixty years ago. It was easier for teachers also. I think that teachers who can recall that they were once a child have a good start on how to go about their job. Best wishes to him or her.

[kenberg]

bbf seems to be duplicating today

[barmar]

bbf seems to be duplicating today

There's some kind of problem that we can't figure out. When you get Gateway Timeout, DO NOT retry. The posts practically always go through, the timeout is happening when it tries to display the updated thread. Just reopen the forum.

[kenberg]

There's some kind of problem that we can't figure out. When you get Gateway Timeout, DO NOT retry. The posts practically always go through, the timeout is happening when it tries to display the updated thread. Just reopen the forum.

 

Right, I had discovered this. Even before the time-out it sometimes seems to have posted. I had clicked on post, it was a long time in going through, and since I had learned not to click again I just signed off. Later i looked and it had actually posted.

 

So it seems to "semi-post", it begins the posting process and in fact will successfully post even if you sign off, but it is still acting as if it has not done so.

 

Edit: With this post, I let it time-out. So I would assume that it had not posted. But it had. No further posting action was needed, despite the fact it claimed it had timed out.

 

Good luck with this.

[ggwhiz]

JUMP Math (Junior undiscovered math prodigies) is a charity running out of Toronto started by John Mighton, a mathematician and playwright. http://www.jumpmath.org/cms/

 

I know very little about the field but their approach and reach are intriguing.

 

edit: Mighton as Ken points out below. There is no cure for dyslexia.

[kenberg]

JUMP Math (Junior undiscovered math prodigies) is a charity running out of Toronto started by John Milton, a mathematician and playwright. http://www.jumpmath.org/cms/

 

I know very little about the field but their approach and reach are intriguing.

 

John Mighton, I think, not John Milton.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mighton

 

I didn't know about this, I'll look it over, thanks