Teachers Are Cashing In On Your Education

Your job as a teacher is to deliver the best lesson you can. Of course you have to know how to plan a lesson.

If teachers had to write all their own lesson plans why do schools use course books? Why do speakers at teachers' conferences give copies of their activities? Why are photocopiable resource books a mainstay of a teachers' library?

Martin

I see, so you know what a techer's job is, then? Are you a teacher, or ever been one?

It's tough enough teaching a bunch of kids who don't want to be taught. Then setting them homework they don't want to do. And then marking that same homework.

Now, keep in mind, some teachers teach more than one class in each subject: that's around 25 kids each class x 3= 75 kids.

Then there's other classes to the same numbers of kids, doing the same amount of work.

And you have a teacher who gets paid a fraction of what he or she should be getting paid.

And don't forget, the teacher's work isn't finished in school. Once home, there's more to be done. Much more.

How do I know? I used to be a teacher.

So, please, unless you've done all of that, stop being a judgemental know-it-all.

I forgot to mention: I taught four subects to four different classes.

I know this too well. I had to fight just to get the materials I needed to teach my lessons.

I can't speak about YOU. I don't know you. SOME, however, do not deserve one PENNY! THINK about it! They waste maybe 30+ people's time with nonsense or stuff they don't know and/or can't teach.

And there was one teacher I knew that worked at approving teachers. There was a teacher that was OK at teaching classes, but I guess not the best at explaining. ANOTHER was one everyone liked, was a good tutor etc..., but not the best in front of a class. They WANTED to keep BOTH, but were AFRAID to keep the second guy! They were DEBATING it! WHY!?!!? Because this was their LAST year before he would have tenure. If they kept him on, and later lost funds, they would have to fire the BETTER teacher, because she WOULDN'T have tenure!

Sometimes things that SEEM good can BITE YOU!

HEY, they have more they SHOULD teach now, but don't, things are going downhill, and Obama is claiming the students should waste MORE of their time! INCREDIBLE!

Steve

I said a LOT are, certainly NOT all. I can't speak about your sister. If her husband is a homebuilder, he is out in the sun, doing hard work, and a lot may rest on his shoulders. If he has a good record, $40 may not be a bad amount. There is a lot more than simply formal training. Besides, the expertise in home building varies from something practically any monkey could do to things where a good person can do it neat, solid and safe, and a bad person may not even know where to start.

Steve

Sure they can sell to anyone, but why would a district purchase plans that didn't meet their instructional objectives. Not all of these companies sell directly to teachers. Some districts buy these plans to help their teachers rather than paying textbook companies three times as much for crappy lesson plans. I don't really object to this arrangement. I do object to some clown selling his junk on ebay.

Sounds a lot like reinventing the wheel. As one of the thousands of homeschooling parents in the world, I've no problems at all with teachers selling their plans. It would save me a ton of time, and I'm off to see if any Aussie teachers are doing the same thing. Drwhogoesthere, if you have any relevant Aussie links, I'd very much appreciate you pm'ing them to me.

Government really has no place in the education business.

The crux of your argument really boils down to expectations. Unfortunately, public schools have become a giant crap catcher for society's shortcomings. Expectations have been historically dropping for decades. At this pace we'll be lucky if our grandchildren are capable of much beyond a fistbump at graduation.

No tests will fix that.

Okay, I'm sorry but this really got me going: LONG RANT AHEAD:

This type of anti-creative, anti-individual, authoritarian rigid thinking is causing all kinds of unnecessary pain for children that don't fit the mold and aren't suited to the universal schedule adults arrogantly force upon them.

A minority, like possibly yourself, do well with it, but even those that do are often the worse for wear, as regimentation's meta-lesson is that learning is about working for a grade, rather than to satisfy your innate curiosity, or for the natural joy of discovery that regimentation has crushed out of your mind.

The far greater natural rewards of learning: the wonderful expansion of mind, the awesome discovery of once distant horizons, the satisfaction of curiosity, and the development and refinement of new skills, is forcibly traded for far more meager ones: the good report card, the gold star, and the pat on the head.

A disaster strikes: learning goes from internally to externally driven. Students learn to pass tests in order to please authority figures. Learning from the heart is a foggy memory at best.

The internal drive to grow and expand that is built into every young mind, largely shrivels from disuse. Learning goes from a joyful natural process that the person's whole being is eagerly and energetically thrown into, to a chore they must be forced to do.

One of the biggest tasks of teaching becomes trying to bend the will of the child. If successful, the child internalizes the lesson so well, his will merges with the will of the school, and he no longer knows what he would want to learn if nobody was telling him what he must, for a good score.

Perhaps the meta-meta lesson is that the child's purpose is not to pursue her own interests, but to obey; to do what she "should" and to perform tests that prove her worthy to the people that have more power than herself. It's an effective lesson if the purpose is to produce docile workers; not so good if the purpose is to empower the individual to think for herself, find her greatest purpose, and make the most of her life.

Some can succeed quite well, and even thrive in the regimented system, but they are in the minority. When it comes to the mind and learning, try as we might to force it to, one size doesn't fit all!

Even those whose grades show success, are often left with psychological barriors to lifelong learning (and other issues) from this very unnatural model. There are college graduates that would never think to crack a book because it looks fascinating, or fun. They've absorbed the lesson that learning is all about the tests, papers and grades; without the grade there's no point.

Many take drugs to get through school; a logical strategy when the grade is a higher priority than the student's own welfare. I had a buddy in a medical program who told me everyone in his class reported developing some kind of a sleep disorder as a result of the workload. He wasn't drugging, and he was a good student, but his health was ironically damaged by it.

If you think I'm blowing smoke, consider this: we all know children learn at a phenomenal rate during the first few years of life. Possibly they learn more in the first 3-4 years of life than in the 12 years from grade through high school! And they learn the most demanding thing they probably ever will; how to use their mouths to form words that convey actual meaning; from a standing start! Incredible; reading is child's;-) play by comparison!

Yet those are the years before regimentation, or (with rare exceptions) any type of formality is introduced. Why aren't we the least bit interested in finding out something about this amazing process and applying it to help people reach thier greatest potential?! Well, some people are intensely interested, but the testing junkies are not among them.

An obvious lesson to be gleaned is that learning is innate: it happens when a kid gets lots of loving attention, and the people giving it don't even need any expertise; the child still learns amazingly complex "lessons" at an incredible rate. So do we take any insights and apply them to education?

Not if we listen to the "more testing", "more rigid standards", "punish the teachers that don't produce high grade getting robots" crowd. They pretty much advocate the opposite; teach by force. If that doesn't work, increase the force. Apply it to the teachers, (threat of job loss), who will pass it on the the kids (threat of being held back/humiliation), who will damn well be punished if they don't learn exactly what we want them to on our exact schedule.

The fact is, this hysterical testing frenzy that gives tests and grades the highest priority and ignores the actual learning experience is driven by a profound disrespect of humans, and especially, children. If you need to test them every time they turn around, it shows a total lack of confidence in their process. To quote Pink Floyd, "Leave them kids alone!"

Excessive testing has demonstrably negative effects on children, and actually interferes with learning. Any honest assessment of education and what we know of the mind has to concede that we know precious little about the internal mechanics of learning. But we know that it does happen on it's own. You can encourage it, or interfere with it, but you can't force it, especially given that you don't even know what it is or how it occurs.

Anybody can remember a time they were learning a new subject or skill. There's usually a point where it all clicks. One day for example, I picked up my guitar, and could play something comfortably and fluently that I struggled with the last time I tried it, maybe a week before. What happened during that week? No testing, no practice, nobody threatening to hold me back, no promise of a high grade. Some internal process we don't understand, yet we can all recall.

Since we are born such amazing little learning virtuosos, isn't it clear that we should stop trying to take over the process with our clumsy, abusive bumbling? Our goal with education should be to encourage the child to retain as much of her amazing learning abilities as possible; not to start offering carrots and sticks to force her to do what she already does so much better than any adult.