Posted on 07/01/2008 10:40:58 AM PDT by wintertime
We must be willing to redefine education. What education looks like now is an artificial construct. It was not created by people who knew or understood children or teens. It was created by bureaucrats and special interests who wanted to control children and teens.
I talked with a young lady the other day – 14-years-old – who loves horses and aims to own stables and teach riding, among other things. She’s been working with horses since she was five. She’s good enough now that she “breaks” new ones and retrains ones facing changes in the use they’re being put to. She knows her stuff.
(snip)
Then there’s her other life – public school. She failed her end-of-year math exam by three points, so she’s going to summer school. She’ll have to pass the test to move on to the next grade. I’ve talked with her. She’s smart and highly competent – just not especially interested in algebra. She’s more accomplished than many adults (even ones who did pass algebra). But she has four more years of school to go, during which time she’ll have to pass endless tests and divert her efforts from what she knows she’ll devote her life to.
(snip) I get many calls a month from parents of teens who simply haven’t managed to fit into the school mold. They’re smart kids, often kids with serious interests they’re prevented from pursuing because so many adults in their lives are running them through the testing/counseling/therapy wringer.
(snip)
In order to redefine education, we will have to engage in some self-liberation, for most of us have a very hard time letting go (I mean really letting go) of the idea that the state knows some secret about education that we don’t and that if we defy their model we just might be sorry.
(snip)
“Amelia is right, wintertime; bystanders on threads you’ve posted on can attest that you frequently make sweeping statements, then try to backpedal. You might try writing the exceptions into the cut-and-paste text.
Look, I agree with a lot of what you say, but the way yousay it does not generally help. Not only that, but cut and paste jobs are very ineffective on FreeRepublic. They demonstrate a lack of original thought about an issue.
You will find in all the many many threads I have posted on about homeschooling, that I often use similar verbiage, but it is never identical. I think this makes my arguments both more effective and more considered since I retype them every time.
I know it is frustrating to see the kind of language the NEA uses to blanket-condemn homeschoolers, or the talking-point-memo articles. But to change hearts and minds, we have to use different tactics than they do.
Amelia, I will point out that groups such as the NEA use language as bad or worse than wintertime’s when referring to homeschool parents. But we are not allowed to get upset at them because they don’t represent all teachers.”
THank you JenB.
Let me state...emphatically, that the NEA is completely and totally corrupt.
The Union in my own State (Washington) is AS corrupt.
There are many ongoing lawsuits against these thieves and liars.
I have opted out of WEA and NEA.
As far as problems in Public School.
There are many.
Some are horrible.
Some are caused by apathetic parents.
Some are caused by liberal bias.
Some are caused by ineffective (or just bad) teachers.
The list goes on..
We used to spend quite some time here on FR discussing what we (as teachers) were doing (in our own way) to try to fight the problems....try to reach kids...
We really don’t do much of that anymore because so many threads (if not all ed. threads) are turned into a battle...
I appreciate the homeschooler’s input.
I do a LOT of what Wintertime refers to as afterschooling.
It is actually a great term (in my opinion).
A huge majority of the homeschoolers in my area homeschool because they think that Public School is SO CONSERVATIVE.
As such, I don’t find much to discuss with them in the way of curriculum, methodology etc.
If one wants special ed. curriculum, I’m a good resource.
But for reg. ed. “Stuff”, Homeschoolers, such as Metmom, have helped me sort through the massive choices and given their own feedback.
I also have family who homeschools (we’re about to go meet up with them for a free summer movie).
MY cousin(who is like my sister) is one of the BEST people I have ever known.
She is a great resource!
We discuss the ills of public school all the time.
Anyway JenB...Lord willing,you are going to be a great mom someday.
Your children will be lucky to have you for their mom.
I won't purport to speak for wintertime, but despite the internet screaming of what you will and will not do as to running to nanny if anyone disobeys your pretentiousness, refuses to do your research for you, actually disagrees with you, or "libels" (if possible which it is not legally since libel is never of a group but only of specific individuals), I will disagree with you when, as and if I please whether you like it or not. No one died and left you dictator. I will become more moderate when, as and if I please as I have at the respectful request of softballmominva (whose efforts as a public school teacher I can and do respect and she is not alone in that) and when I do, I will do that in spite of and not because of you.
If you don't like criticism of gummint skewels, stop taxing me and other conscientious objectors to gummint misedjamakashun to pay for them. Then you will have earned the right to be ignored on more levels than just academics. If you love those socialist skewels so much, then volunteer or pay for them yourself. Hold bake sales. Run bingo. Have rummage sales. Forego taxpayer paid marching bands, football and other sports programs, swimming pools and the rest of the non-educational window dressing. Solicit VOLUNTARY contributions from the public to pay your school's bills. On such an even playing field, gummint skewels would not last a decade. The "free" babysitting service aspect, if done away with, would destroy gummint skewels in no time.
This is a conservative website. The least you can do is maintain a decent respect for those involuntarily forced to provide your pay and perks. If you don't, that says more about you than it does about us. The blackboard jungle and antimorality training centers at all too many skewels best described as PS 666 speaks for itself too eloquently for you to successfully cushion with the latest union talking points.
Time was when I did not dare hope to live long enough to see the Iron Curtain fall but fall it did. Many dare not hope similarly as to the fall of gummint edumakashun but, if academic achievement is any indication, perhaps we should dare.
Mosby,
There are problems with the government schools that are **fundamental** to the system itself and can **never** be reformed. They were a problem from the very beginning.
I don't know how to state this is a more “creative” way, but I will try.
The following problems are found in **ALL** compulsory government schools, even those that are considered excellent:
1)NO school is religiously, politically or culturally neutral. This means that **no** government school is religiously, politically, or culturally neutral. ( First Amendment problems here.)
2)** All** compulsory government schools favor and **establish** the religious worldview of some of its citizens, and **do** undermine the religious worldviews of others. ( This is a First Amendment and human rights violation.)
3) All compulsory government schools forbid the free speech, press, assembly, and expression of religion of the children ordered by the government to be in their buildings. And...All government schools *establish* the government religion of Secular Humanism. ( Major First Amendment and human rights conflicts here.)
4)All compulsory government schools are a freedom of conscience nightmare for those citizens who do not want their tax dollars supporting the government established school religion of Secular Humanism, the government anointed politics, and the government anointed culture promoted in their schools.
How else can I say this? How is it possible to be more creative?
The above can **not** be fixed. It is intrinsic to the system.
I believe that there are Marxists throughout the entire government education-industrial-complex. So...What does that make those ( employees and general citizens) who unwittingly help these Marxists?
My criticism, like JenB’s, is not of any specific or individual teachers. The system is rotten to the core. Unfortunately there are plenty of people giving CPR to a dead horse.
And yet the only thing you have done is to pull your children out.
Have gotten on to a school board?
Have you organized parents to help out in the schools?
Have you ever been a volunteer parent?
The way I see it all you have done is come on to threads like this one and whine, while cutting and pasting things that give real conservatives a bad name.
Have you noticed?
**General** criticism of government schooling or their employees is often followed with some variant of the following sentence:
“You have **personally** insulted **me** ( as a specific individual) because I ( fill in name of appropriate government school defender) work for or support the government schools!” This is sometimes accompanied with threats to contact the moderator.
What is the point of this? The purpose is to close down totally all general criticism and its institutional flaws. Any **general** criticism is applied personally and all debate is effectively muffled.
Geeze! What a great debating technique!
By the way, I do wonder if some the debating techniques seen on this board are used in the classroom on immature and unsophisticated students. If they are, I would consider this abusive.
What relevance has certification? Either you can teach or you can't teach. No bureaucratic, academic "theoretician"-based (your needing certification guarantees more jobs and makework for "education" professors who know nothing of substance and everything as to the BS of "education theory") "certification" is any more meaningful than the alchemy of turning lead into gold. Mythology under whatever label is still mythology.
Please read post #200.
Again if I have personally insulted you please identify the post. I will ask the moderator to remove it and I will apologize to you and every person on the thread.
I seriously mean this.
You have accused me of **personally** insulting you, and I would like to make amends for this act. But...Gee!... I would like to see the specific post or posts.
Two questions/observations as you may have a longer view than I do. Do you know when sport teams became expected in the public schools? I know my father had a football team at Roosevelt High School in Atlanta, GA when he graduated in 1952, but was this the norm in the 1950's? When did this become an integral part of schools?
Also, one thing I have noticed in my local school is that sports end up being 'funded' after many years of an 'unfunded' status. In an unfunded status parents pay 100% of the cost of supporting the sport, with the exception that the school provides transportation if practice is off-site of the school. After a few years, the group approaches the school board and asks for progressively more money until the group is funded. I've seen this in my own district where golf, lacrosse, swimming, and gymnastics are all on this path. Next year, golf will be fully funded, swimming about 3/4, and the others just a stipend, but I know what will happen in the end - they will all be funded.
In a funded status, the school covers the necessary insurance, the cost of the coaches, and transportation to and from all games, however, even unfunded sports still raise money for extras. I would say I probably spent in the neighborhood of $750 a year for each of my girls to do marching band and probably around $200 for softball. But, the amount we put in is far less than the schools portion.
So in my probably somewhat rambling post, my question comes down to this... when and why were schools EXPECTED to provide these services? What was the impetus? Why are schools required to teach other subjects that are non-curricular related? And in the times of tight budgets, what gets cut? There are so many strings attached due to Title 9 that I'm sometimes surprised that schools don't just say to heck with it and cut out all extra-curriculars.
Will there come a time that some parents will simply hand their kids over to the schools for a 24/7 day care? I know that some people see it as the schools taking, but from this side of the desk, I can tell you that in many many situations, it's the parents wanting the schools to do more and more so that the parents can be the friend.
Why are the schools expected to be mom and dad and coach and counselor and agent and adviser and nurse and law enforcement?
1) The sweeping generalizations of "ALL" government schools as evil institutions designed with nothing but nefarious purposes.
2) The sweeping generalizations of "ALL" public school employees as "Marxists" and "Useful Idiots"
3)The unrelenting assault with out citing specifics
I am quite grateful that the people of this county pay my salary, and I am proud that they feel confident enough in my abilities to entrust me with the education of their children.
What I will not do is sit by idly by while fanatics and zealots make personal attacks on me and my chosen profession.
What relevance does taking a driving test have?
What relevance does the SAT, CLEP, MSAT, LSAT's have
What relevance did it have for guild members to serve an apprenticeship, and then create a "Masterpiece" before being able to earn a living in a profession.
Certification proves that I have had the required education and have met certain competencies that the State has determined are required to be a proficient teacher.
Would you go to a Doctor that had not gone to medical school and passed the Boards, How about a Lawyer that had not passed the Bar?
Like you said look it up there are dozens of examples, and apparently the moderators agree with me since a number of your posts have been pulled and you were warned to knock off the personal attacks.
Like you said look it up there are dozens of examples,
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Then it should be easy for you to find **one**.
You have accused me of calling **you**, verga, (specifically, you) a useful idiot.
Please provide the post number. I will ask the moderator to remove it. I will apologize to you, and every person on the thread.
In that vein, I consider it a moral outrage for any teacher to not do their 100% best when teaching. Teachers that pop in movies rather than teach disgust me, and believe me when I tell you I've made my share of enemies when I've confronted teachers about lazy teaching. ESPECIALLY when these teachers are in our elementary feeder school and they come in not knowing the alphabet and tell me that they played with cars in reading class. I made a huge stink about 6 years ago and was instrumental in forcing several teachers into 'early retirement.' Whatever they call it, I wanted their lazy selves away from my kids and their siblings coming up. I'm still very unpopular at that school and guess how much that bothers me? Yeah, you know it.
We are paid by the citizens of our districts to TEACH not to entertain. I will never violate that contract and will leave the day I cannot perform my job at a 100% level.
Pulling our kids out of gummint skewels is job #1. When enough parents do so, you lose your political clout (which arises not from academic achievement but from "free" babysitting, bread, circuses and football games) and the gummint edumakashun house of cards crumbles deservedly like the Berlin Wall. Next will be defunding gummint skewels and then abolition. Meanwhile, we create free market substitutes that actually educate, be open to hiring actual teachers formerly trapped in gummint skewels and a lot of actual; teachers who would not be caught dead seeking "certification" from some imbecile special interest bureaucracy dominated by NEA.
I was a "volunteer parent" each time my wife became pregnant. That coupled with free market educational activity is the kind of "volunteer parent" I choose to be. If the gummint skewel folks cannot get the job done with all the resources annually wasted on that system, don't expect volunteerism in service to the socialist skewels from conservatives. Good help is hard to find and we are busy educating our own kids.
Better than organizing parents to help out in gummint skewels, I work with others and organize parents to create and maintain our own school with Saxon Math, Latin in grade school and a lot of other things long absent from most gummint skewels (and a lot of parochial schools with "certified" teachers for that matter). We don't waste our time wrangling with gummint skewels, their imbecile and impenetrable administrators, their NEA hacks, their special interest programs for every designer leftist cause in creation (assuming that word does not offend you) and the hostility to religion and morality that characterizes so many of them.
Why, in anyone's wildest nightmares would any conservative aspire to be a gummint skewel bored member??? I never aspired to be a member of the soviet Politburo or of the supreme soviet. Each was a smidgeon worse than the National Edjumakashun Association. Now, you may imagine that I have some obligation to the kids in my community so that I should neglect my own and waste time doing gummint skewel bureaucracy. Not in my lifetime and not in God's lifetime. If their own parents don't care to get them out of gummint skewels, what good can possibly be done? Those parents are in charge of their own kids as I am of mine and that is as it should be.
Maybe if the community could cut off your pay and perks and tax you as heavily for the occupational status (?) of being a gummint skewel teacher as we have been taxed to fund your luife, we will find you cutting and pasting and posting your whines here and maybe then you will have standing to complain which you lack at the present.
Oh, and homeschoolers and private schoolers, in addition, to pulling their kids from the gummint skewels also tend to actually educate them which is more than was available to them at many of those PS 666s.
Horace Mann was no conservative. He was an Old New England leftist moonbat. John Dewey was about as conservative as Lenin or Stalin. If conservatives acquire a bad name among the Mannites and Deweyites for (OMG!) criticising vastly expensive socialist systems of edjumakashun and indoctrination, that is as it should be. The remarkable thing is that there are people who imagine conservatives sooooo gullible as to believe that the gummint edjumakashun system is or ought to be the object of conservative affection or support. Actually, the sooner abolished the better unless someone has some constructive ideas as to how to reform the dead beast as a transition before the corpse is sent to the renderer.
If you don't want children educated in my Catholic Faith, fine. We are, after all, America. If I don't want my children educated to be immoral, ignorant and secular humanist, that is also fine since this is America. The SCOTUS supports that choice as well: Pearce vs. the Society of Sisters (1920s).
The system is indeed rotten to the core.
SoftballMominVA: Glad to see you here.
I would be interested in knowing why I am at this moment considered 100% qualified to teach at any community college in this country, but not qualified to teach high school students. Unless they were high school students dual-enrolled at community college...
Twink, I've been very, very nice here. I've been more than polite. I'm not interested in being polite anymore. Your post #161 to me and the fact that Verga cheered you on tells me everything I need to know about the two of you. And the fact that no other teacher called you on it tells me even more. You are one of the many reasons why we don't send our children to public school.
Because you obviously suffer from reading comprehension problems, allow me to explain it all to you:
In #155, Verga tried to justify public school education with the line, "Almost 70% of African Americans come from single parent homes, who is going to teach them?"
Verga didn't refer more broadly to single-parent households. Verga pointed directly to one particular racial group. Now, I'm not arguing that a higher percentage of African Americans aren't living in single-parent households. (And, yes, Twink, I see nothing wrong with that term, just like there is nothing wrong with the terms Irish American, Italian American, etc.). But, there are single parents of other persuasions, yet Verga had to bring in the ol' "black people need us" justification.
I responded by saying, "One of the reasons we homeschool is the condescending attitude toward African Americans in the school system.... statements like the one above reflect the general attitude. Outside the school system, my children have not been taught to see themselves as victims."
You then launch into:
If you’re homeschooling because of the condescending attitude toward “AFrican Americans” then you don’t live in the NE. Or in NJ. Come live here. Not only won’t you get a condescending attitude, you’ll get special treatment and all that.
Do you not understand the definition of the word "condescending"? Did you not read my whole post? Special victim treatment DOES fall under the definition of condescending. As President Bush used to call it, "the soft bigotry of low expectations." You should be addressing your post to Verga, not me. And, btw, I've always lived in the NE. I grew up outside Philadelphia and lived in Philly for several years. My husband grew up in Philly. We do live in NJ now.
And as for your other comments:
I’m way past that white guilt crap. I’m sure there are areas and people that still discriminate for whatever reason. Whatever. My grandparents came to America from Italy and Ireland. I have no interest or background in what *African-Americans* deal with nor do I care. My ancestors had their own crap to deal with yet they survived and thrived and didn’t whine about it.
Wow. For the record, all of my ancestors came from Italy, so you don't need to tell me about the hardships immigrants endured. Yes, that means, like you, my children can trace half of their ancestry to Italian immigrants. But, let's be real: The experiences of immigrants cannot be equated with the experience of being black in this country. That's not an excuse for bad behavior, and children should not be taught to think the world is against them. But, in all seriousness, let's not pretend the two experiences (immigrant and black) are equivalent. You know they're not.
The black community is suffering but not because of racism or discrimination by whitey. They’re suffering because LBJ’s Great Society allowed for the laziness and entitlement mindset that is prevalent today. And the community sucked it up and is playing it for everything’s it’s worth. It’s so much easier than actually working and succeeding.
You need to direct that comment to yourself. Who really benefits from the entitlement of public school? The black community that you so despise? Or YOU? YOU are the one making money off the system. We homeschoolers want school funding decreased drastically and education sold on the free market. YOU, on the other hand, complain about entitlements at the same time you claim people need the entitlements, and you make a living off the entitlement of "free education". What a hypocrite you are!
What other community gets what the black community gets?
Public school education is just another entitlement, dear. Here in NJ, we homeowners pay a fortune in school taxes, sometimes more than we pay for our mortgages. Most of the kids who attend the schools in our township happen to be white. We raise our kids not to judge people by color, but since you and Verga brought race into the discussion, allow me to point out that the vast majority of students receiving their free education courtesy of the taxpayers are white. In our town, whenever there's a call for more money for the school, those white kids and their parents are out there, whining, holding signs, "We need music," and on and on. So, my husband (who is black) pays a fortune for mostly white kids to attend public school while his own children receive nothing. He doesn't care what color they are. He doesn't want to have so much taken from his own family to pay for others. So, I don't want to hear from you about entitlements.
Suck it up and get the hell over it like the rest of us have to.
LOL. You are a piece of work. And you're teaching other people's children. Unbelievable. And you have the nerve to whine that Wintertime is being obnoxious?! Why don't other parents "suck it up and get the hell over it" and pay for their own kids' education, eh?
Call me a racist, I don’t give a f.
OK, you're a racist. Wow.
To any and all black Americans out there, take a good look at what's teaching your kids in public school.
I’m tired of all the whining by so called minorities, be them black or hispanic or women.
WHINE? You and certain other schoolteachers do nothing but whine all over this forum! LOL.
Just because I've been polite to you (up to this point) does not mean I agree with you. Wintertime is absolutely correct in her criticisms of the public school system.
Let me also point out that the soft bigotry comes into play with my Learning Disabled students. They are not expected to do well academically by anyone, parents, teachers, themselves. And I fight that 180 days a year with them. True story: Two of my 6th graders scored an ADVANCE on the state SOL reading test. When one of them told her friends, she was told that she couldn't have taken the same test. She told them she did. They told her that she was in special ed, and she said, it was the same test - ask Mrs * Not only did they NOT believe her, they did NOT believe me when they came to me and asked if special ed students take the same test (I wasn't aware of the conversation until after) One looked at me and said "You've got to be lying because I know someone in your class that got a higher score than me." At this point I figured out what must have happened, and I told them that I wasn't going to discuss anyone's scores and they needed to worry about their own skills.
I share this because I probably felt just an inkling of what you must feel when people don't expect young black men to succeed or to only succeed when assisted. I was annoyed that these girls denigrated the incredibly hard work my students did and then I was amused that a dose of reality had hit them - hard work can beat natural talent.
I don't whine about my situation - I happen to love my job and my students and am quite satisfied with my pay, benefits, and perks. I also feel a deep obligation to remediate the reading problems presented to me at the beginning of the year. It is my Christian duty to give an honest days work for my wages.
I don't know what I would have done with my children had I fallen in love with a man of another race? But I like to think I would have made the best decision possible, no matter what the personal cost, as you have.
As far as comments made by other posters - I learned about a year ago to simply not engage certain posters no matter what the provocation. If I find myself becoming emotional over an Internet posting, then I need to stand up and walk away from the computer. There's a whole world of dumb out there, and some of them call themselves conservatives. But I would rather be on their side than on the liberals.
Your experiences may vary - good day to you and yours
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