Education / Teaching thread (2 Viewers)

[Sun Wukong]

With a dab of "see, you don't need college to be successful! Go to trade school! Plumbers make $150k 2 years out of high school!", thus ensuring the next generation is less educated than the one before it, and votes accordingly.

Telling every kid to go to college was one of the worst things public education ever did. It created life crippling debt for people who never needed to have it to begin with.

 

[DavidM]

They won't be around long enough for that to matter. There's a reason most people that set foot onto this career path run screaming from it in less than three years.

As long as we refuse to address the underlying maladies with public education, you're not going to find people who want to do this. Certified. Uncertified. It won't matter.

I am certain that the profession played a big part in my Mom's death.

She spent many years teaching high school English, and in some especially challenging settings. She eventually left the classroom to become a school librarian at a middle school. Different title, younger students, many of the same challenges. Over the years, she was honest about how much worse behavioral issues had become and how little she felt supported by parents, administrators, and the local and state educational boards. She had friends leave the profession, to do absolutely anything else, out of utter burnout.

About four months before she made it to retirement, she suffered a stroke, followed by a series of smaller strokes and heart attacks while on life support. Against very long odds, she survived but spent the remaining four years of her life bedridden in a nursing facility.

When I hear people talk about how easy teachers have it and how much how free time they have, I think about my worn-out Mom talking to parents, making lesson plans, and grading papers and exams well into the night. Summers involved workshops, seminars, and various school obligations, but I wouldn't have blamed her if she just slept through June and July. Many of her colleagues worked second jobs to supplement their incomes so they could make ends meet.

The teachers who somehow still pour themselves into a profession that grinds people down, in a society that mostly couldn't care less, are actual everyday heroes. Given how important and defining education is, it shouldn't be a system that has to depend on the heroic efforts of unheralded and unsupported professionals.

 

[DaveXA]

Telling every kid to go to college was one of the worst things public education ever did. It created life crippling debt for people who never needed to have it to begin with.

I don't think its all a racket, but a huge chunk of it is. College is generally a waste of massive amounts of money for a lot of people who never end up using much of anything. Trade school and community colleges are better options in many cases.

A large chunk of my career was spent in fields completely different from my major field of study.

 

[brandon8283]

Telling every kid to go to college was one of the worst things public education ever did. It created life crippling debt for people who never needed to have it to begin with.

Oh, absolutely.

But the press for vocational school will definitely favor the side that prefers low-information voters in the future.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

I don't think its all a racket, but a huge chunk of it is. College is generally a waste of massive amounts of money for a lot of people who never end up using much of anything. Trade school and community colleges are better options in many cases.

A large chunk of my career was spent in fields completely different from my major field of study.

That’s if you buy into the narrative that university should be a fancy vo tech
The problem is that when we were trying to fight the Cold War with science, an era of hyper specialization took hold
That’s counter to the ideals of university training where a broad base of study is supposed to support you in your ‘loftier’ pursuits
(Now we’re asking 8th graders to pick a ‘pathway’ that will help them get into the college that will help them get into the grad school that will give them the best job - we’re asking 12 yr old to predict what they’re going to be when they’re 30 - it’s insanity)

To compound the issue, the Cold War specialization hit when we were also dealing with racial (and economic) and gender inequity- vo tech and ‘secretarial schools’ were where we dumped PoC and women who didn’t really have entry into regular ‘higher education’
People rightly pushed for racial and gender inclusion- those previous ‘dumping grounds’ were seen as institutions of an antiquated past (which they partially were) - no rich kid was ever going to be placed in vo tech so ‘upward mobility’ meant deinstitutionalizing trade schools bc we still haven’t figured out the difference between equality and equity

The financial crisis is a fallout of our lurch towards ‘equality’
When universities figured out that high schools were funneling nearly all students into college, it became a sellers market and when govt and banks backed education spending, colleges started jacking up prices and piling on amenities

Again like many other things, the problem isn’t college, predatory capitalism is

 

[DaveXA]

That’s if you buy into the narrative that university should be a fancy vo tech
The problem is that when we were trying to fight the Cold War with science, an era of hyper specialization took hold
That’s counter to the ideals of university training where a broad base of study is supposed to support you in your ‘loftier’ pursuits
(Now we’re asking 8th graders to pick a ‘pathway’ that will help them get into the college that will help them get into the grad school that will give them the best job - we’re asking 12 yr old to predict what they’re going to be when they’re 30 - it’s insanity)

To compound the issue, the Cold War specialization hit when we were also dealing with racial (and economic) and gender inequity- vo tech and ‘secretarial schools’ were where we dumped PoC and women who didn’t really have entry into regular ‘higher education’
People rightly pushed for racial and gender inclusion- those previous ‘dumping grounds’ were seen as institutions of an antiquated past (which they partially were) - no rich kid was ever going to be placed in vo tech so ‘upward mobility’ meant deinstitutionalizing trade schools bc we still haven’t figured out the difference between equality and equity

The financial crisis is a fallout of our lurch towards ‘equality’
When universities figured out that high schools were funneling nearly all students into college, it became a sellers market and when govt and banks backed education spending, colleges started jacking up prices and piling on amenities

Again like many other things, the problem isn’t college, predatory capitalism is

I'm not necessarily saying that colleges are the problem. Clearly the drawbacks of capitalism permeates universities all over the country. And in principle, I don't really have any objection to a broad based education approach (worked well for me), but I'd offer that its not for everyone. Some students either struggle or don't have the motivation or desire to do all of that, and where colleges succeed in broadly educating students, they often fail at training students for specific professions, i.e. plumbing, mechanics, electric, etc. Some people have zero interest in college, and pressure from parents to put their kids through college when they dont really want to isn't healthy.

It's really up to the students. If they don't feel a need to go to college, they shouldn't be treated any different from those who choose to. 2 of my kids went the college route, one is in community College after starting out at a highly competitive university and my 4th took a gap year after graduating HS and debating whether to do community college then switch to art school at some point. They've all had to make decisions and for them, money definitely factors into their decision making.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

I'm not necessarily saying that colleges are the problem. Clearly the drawbacks of capitalism permeates universities all over the country. And in principle, I don't really have any objection to a broad based education approach (worked well for me), but I'd offer that its not for everyone. Some students either struggle or don't have the motivation or desire to do all of that, and where colleges succeed in broadly educating students, they often fail at training students for specific professions, i.e. plumbing, mechanics, electric, etc. Some people have zero interest in college, and pressure from parents to put their kids through college when they dont really want to isn't healthy.

It's really up to the students. If they don't feel a need to go to college, they shouldn't be treated any different from those who choose to. 2 of my kids went the college route, one is in community College after starting out at a highly competitive university and my 4th took a gap year after graduating HS and debating whether to do community college then switch to art school at some point. They've all had to make decisions and for them, money definitely factors into their decision making.

It’s not really up to the students though
Tomorrow I’ll have a jr do her final speech about college not being the only choice and it’s an uphill battle vs her family and research and school, et al - plenty of research about why school debt is bad, but not a whole lot of alternatives outside blog type articles
Starting at least by sophomore year, the drumbeat of college starts
Students are under too much pressure to guess the future- it’s really troubling

The solution is (seemingly) obvious- make public education free
That takes the incentive for so much bad action off the table
You don’t have to do away with private colleges, just makes a clear path that pre-law or nursing or IT or whatever are all on equal footing

 

[Get in the Carr]

Make education free so the “teachers” can teach whatever the hell they want. Brilliant with AI coming on board.

 

[wyrmer]

I just gave up teaching and switched careers. I was sick and tired of being, well, sick and tired. I have way more energy when I get home from work. Sure, I miss working with youths, but my stress levels are WAY lower now. I still work with people and feel like I work for the betterment of society, just in a different capacity.

 

[Get in the Carr]

I just gave up teaching and switched careers. I was sick and tired of being, well, sick and tired. I have way more energy when I get home from work. Sure, I miss working with youths, but my stress levels are WAY lower now. I still work with people and feel like I work for the betterment of society, just in a different capacity.

I have been with my kid at his pre
school for just an hour and it made me appreciate teachers even more which was already at high level of appreciation. Teachers should be paid more especially at the public school level. However, the school breaks and summer need to be shorter. Many people equate teacher pay to all of the days off they get. Maybe we should think outside the box and not have a break in education?

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

I have been with my kid at his pre
school for just an hour and it made me appreciate teachers even more which was already at high level of appreciation. Teachers should be paid more especially at the public school level. However, the school breaks and summer need to be shorter. Many people equate teacher pay to all of the days off they get. Maybe we should think outside the box and not have a break in education?

Longer just to be longer or is there content or practice you feel is missing?

 

[brandon8283]

I have been with my kid at his pre
school for just an hour and it made me appreciate teachers even more which was already at high level of appreciation. Teachers should be paid more especially at the public school level. However, the school breaks and summer need to be shorter. Many people equate teacher pay to all of the days off they get. Maybe we should think outside the box and not have a break in education?

There are quite a few districts in Mississippi experimenting with this concept. Most learning loss occurs over the summer break, presumably because it’s such a long time without classes.

To combat this, in our district for the first time this year, the summer break will be reduced from 9 weeks to 6. However, at the end of each 9 weeks, there’s now an extended break that can be used either for remediation on one of the weeks, or just a longer break. So now, there’s a 2 week fall break, 2.5 week Christmas break, and 2 week spring break.

Teachers and students are still going to school the same number of days, but the breaks are more evenly spaced.

We think it will be great for teacher and student morale, and reduce summe learning loss.

 

[SWJJ]

I have been with my kid at his pre
school for just an hour and it made me appreciate teachers even more which was already at high level of appreciation. Teachers should be paid more especially at the public school level. However, the school breaks and summer need to be shorter. Many people equate teacher pay to all of the days off they get. Maybe we should think outside the box and not have a break in education?

I am a HUGE advocate for the "year-round" school. we have exactly ONE in my district. My kids went there until 4th grade.
Basically they go to school from Early August until mid June, so they have a 6 week summer. Much less learning loss. They still go to school for the same amount of days, but they have extra breaks built into the school year. We would do Beach trips in October, and we did Disney in February. During the intersessions they offer fun educational "camps."

 

[SWJJ]

To jump the Shark:

 

[superchuck500]

I am a HUGE advocate for the "year-round" school. we have exactly ONE in my district. My kids went there until 4th grade.
Basically they go to school from Early August until mid June, so they have a 6 week summer. Much less learning loss. They still go to school for the same amount of days, but they have extra breaks built into the school year. We would do Beach trips in October, and we did Disney in February. During the intersessions they offer fun educational "camps."

It's interesting for sure. I was just reading about this the other day. Apparently advocates prefer the term "balanced calendar schooling" because "year round" makes it sound like they just power right through summer when the total number of days in school is the same, but the breaks are more evenly distributed.

While critics argue that it leads to student and teacher burnout, it seems that research is unclear on that - with some suggesting that it's actually better for burnout because the average break is longer than in a traditional schedule, giving teachers and students more beneficial pauses throughout the year rather than a handful of fairly shorts ones and one long one.

Another aspect is the summer trade-off between learning loss and the opportunity to things like attend summer camps, have significant travel with family or friends, and for older children, work summer jobs. These things benefit their development in ways that schools don't/can't typically provide.

This seemed like a decent summary:

https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/articles/the-pros-and-cons-of-year-round-school-calendars