Posted on 10/27/2012 2:58:17 AM PDT by expat1000
A very poor Jewish girls school in Brooklyn, New York, received top grades in tests, according to reports.
Tiferes Bnos, is an all-girls school located on the first floor of an apartment building, near the border of Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant sections of Brooklyn.
It would not be surprising if the school had a poor academic track record. None of the teachers went to college.
All students speak Yiddish as their mother tongue. The vast majority of the schools 430 students are extremely poor. So are the teachers. The teacher base salary of the Orthodox Jewish school is only $6,000 a year. Students spend less than half of the week studying math, reading, science and social studies. The majority of class time is devoted to religious instructions.
However, during the last decade Principal Miriam Amsel, a soft-spoken woman with six children who never finished college, has coaxed excellence of students and teachers.
In the 2008 to 2009 school year, fourth graders in Tiferes Bnos took state standardized tests for the first time. According to a status report provided by the school, 87 percent were proficient in English and 97 percent were proficient in math.
The secret, Amsel said, is deep and constant work training the teachers. The teacher training begins from six months before setting foot in one of the classrooms and continuing all the time while still teaching at the school.
"We are here to educate the teachers as well," she said.
haven’t heard that in a while!
No surprise here. This school is successful for the same reason that home-schooled kids tend to attain grades far superior to their counterparts in public (or even private) schools. Education is not about institutions and bureacracies and “teachers” with advanced degrees. It’s about parents who give a sh!t and kids who have a sense of discipline and a love of learning instilled in them at a young age.
I don’t subscribe to that either. But parents are the bosses: they hold the administration, the teachers and the students accountable. They attend PTA (or PTO), teacher’s conferences, serve on coimmittees, attend school board meeting, and even run for the school board. But the biggest thing they do is insist their children work hard to succceed. If you look at Jewish educational values and now Asian-Americans, you know it has nothing to do with poverty, and everything to do with values.
A good teacher can teach by writing with a stick on the ground. A bad teacher can’t get the same results with millions of dollars of government “investment” in education.
Everything depends on the excellence of the teacher, not the bells and whistles of the education industry.
Sure did.
It's a shame that the commies and psychologists ruined the religious orders. We need those old-school sisters more than ever.
” the majority of class time is in religious instruction”. Nuf Said
That school needs government curriculum guidelines and government funding to get them in line with national 'standards'.
Plus only a $6000 salary and their students excel. Answer that liberals.
Right after I throw the cow over the fence some hay.
My my immediate reaction, as a teacher, is that most likely these girls: have a mind-set to learn; they are not disciplinary problems; they are not crack-babies to begin with and are therefore capable of learning; they are not afraid of being told they are acting too white by their peers because they are participating in class and are doing their work; and they value an education. These are just some thoughts.
I agree
The biggest problem with education is the lack of committment...and this is very evident in most black and many Hispanic communities
Without measuring the afterschooling and preschooling done by the parents in the home it is impossible to know whether or not a teacher or school is good or not. I have rarely seen this addressed in articles about education.
Over my career, I have likely known several thousand families. When I have met an academically successful child, I have been eager to ask the parents about the values and study habits established in the home.
My anecdotal observation:
Successful homeschoolers and academically successful institutionalized children have home values, routines, and HOME study habits that are essentially identical. Both groups of children are spending about the same amount of time AT THE KITCHEN table working on their studies. Also, they have had very similar and very enriching preschool years with their PARENTS in the HOME.
This is true both for parents who are immigrants or native born. The immigrant families have recruited older cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends and their children are active in after school study clubs.
My conclusion:
Little learning happens in school. All academically successful children are essentially homeschooled. If they are institutionalized this homeschooling is now commonly referred as “afterschooling”. The only thing institutional schools are doing is sending home a very expensive curriculum for the students and parents to follow IN THE HOME.
So?....What if all that money we spend on government schooling was essentially doing NOTHING at all? It is possible that this is indeed the case. Without measuring afterschooing and preschooling, it is impossible to know.
And...If it is true that “afterschooling” and “preschooling” is the real schooling, then what is really needed is a complete and total revolution in the delivery of education. Perhaps we should be educating the parents instead of the kids.
ping
bfl
This exposes the sham of the teachers unions, all the high and mighty degrees flouted by our so-called “educators” and the billions poured into school districts across the nation that furnish little but diminishing returns.
It should be looked at and examined by parents everywhere before dumping their children into these cesspools run by pseudo-elites that public schools have largely become.
this forgets that the students are all Eastern European Jews. EE Jews have one of the highest IQs in the world along with Indian Brahmins and specific Chinese and Japanese students. The genetic reasoning would be that these groups were restricted to non-physical activities for centuries
I kinda doubt they forgot - it would be impolitic to mention it. You are not suggesting these kids have superior learning abilities are you? If so, superior to who? Isn't it against the law to imply like that? :-) /sarc.
Note that I said "average" -- there are people of Eastern Europe descent who are dumber than the average non-smarts and there are people of other groups who are smarter than the average EE Jew
There are a number of factors that make for better results in schools:
1. Genetics -- smarter parents generally have smarter kids.
2. Culture -- and this can be down to individual family culture. South Asians and East Asians and Eastern European Jews prize scholarship. Other societies may prize athletic ability or artistic talent, but these prize scholarship
3. Discipline and focused learning at the beginning in schools. I don't believe in schools that allow students to fool around in the junior years. unfortunately one needs to learn formulas by heart before questioning them. Also, uniforms should be a must imho
Take any one of these away and the students will have less opportunity to shine.
Put all of these and the students will shine
Even if we have say a student who comes from a non-intellectual background -- and this could ALSO be a Eastern European Jewish family, say he can try and try and not be as smart as the top 10%, if he is in a culture that does NOT classify smart people as 'nerds' etc. and mock them, rather if he is in a culture that respects intellectualism and in a school that has discipline, he will be smarter than average
Have you seen the programs Disney et. al. proffer kids? Working hard at studying, knowing things etc. is mocked. discipline is mocked and everyone needs to "explore" -- at 13!! Crazy
(1) The IQ of the students;
(2) Whether their parents enforce discipline and demand performance.
(3) Intolerance of any disruptive students that interfere with the learning of others.
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