[driftless]

I went to private (Catholic) schools through high school, but I can remember my public school friends talking about the tough non-nonsense teachers they had. That was in the sixties. The only public schools I've attended were colleges. I remember taking classes in the early nineties. I recall one particular geography class where the professor had to daily talk over the noise from some yakking students.

He put up with this disruption the entire semester until almost the last week of term when in the middle of a lecture, he stopped and politely asked the offending students to keep quiet because he could barely hear himself talk. Here, as Paul Harvey would say (?), is the end of the story. The students involved in the disruptive yakking were both education students. That's right, both students wanted to become teachers.

[13Sisters76]

Some of the (very) young teachers coming into the system now worry me a bit...spelling, writing and grammar seem to be an issue they do not regard with much importance. Perhaps the emphasis on computer skills IS more important for some now. I know of a young teacher in geography who's classes are all about how "evil" WalMart is. Perhaps geography isn't important either...