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The Thriller

The Thriller

Well-Known Member
This is intended to be more of a suggestion thread for ways to improve public education... But it can also be a thread to sound off or tell stories. It has been bugging me for a few days. Since this board is filled with a bunch of smart people, I've wanted to know for some time if any of you have experienced this? And what your suggestions are?

Sooooooo for the last few months I've been able to work with this student teacher. I've observed him several times. He's a great guy. Not only that, he's probably the most talented and creative student teacher I have ever seen. For his Holocaust lesson, he blacked out the windows with black poster paper and created a type of "Holocaust Wall." The wall was filled with stories, laws, pictures, poems, etc for the students to read and examine. They had worksheets to fill out. So for example, "Nuremberg Laws" they had to find it on the wall, associate it with a picture/photograph, and define it. On the other side of the classroom there were several Holocaust victim profiles. Students had to find the number that they were given at the start of class and match them with the profile on the wall and answer questions about them. The soundtrack, "Schindler's List" was playing. Students were in tears. It was one of the best lessons I've ever seen. And from a student teacher???

Anyway, a Social Studies position opened up at our school. This guy can coach and was a part of leadership at his university. Anyone familiar with public education knows how valuable someone who can coach or help out with clubs is desired. He interviewed and from what I heard from my connections in the office, was by far the best interview.

Cheap, fresh out of college, talented, and able and willing to coach... Job should be his, right?

Wrong.

The principal's old friend, who once lived in his ward here in Utah, is now moving back from the east coast. She will cost us nearly double, cannot coach, was the worst interview (again, from what I've heard), and is pretty dead set in her ways. When asked during her interview what her primary mode of teaching is, she replied, "Lecture. You don't have time for activities. And I assign essays." sigh...

Guess who has the job??? Double sigh...

Being pretty green still (and hired on by the previous administration), I find this incredibly frustrating.

Over the past 3 years, EVERY SINGLE OPENING has been filled by either a coach (who can hand out worksheets for the kids to look up from their textbooks. Or who plug in DVDs for the kids to watch) or someone with a connection to the administration (family, friends, and ward members). It's incredibly frustrating to me because I really would like to see more dynamic, fun, "new school" teachers in our department.

Is this normal?

What can be done to break this scheme and finally get the focus back onto the kids and education?

I'm not a fan of vouchers and that sort of stuff... But if it can break this nonsense up, I'd be all for it. Ultimately, the kids are the ones who will suffer. sigh
 
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I agree with you in that the kids need to be interested or engaged in what they are learning. I think straight lecturing all the time is one of the worst ways you can teach. While lecturing does have its place it is far from effective when used over and over and over.

This is very easy to do with sciences and technology classes.

Also a major thing is getting the parents, or other responsible parties, involved. A major way of doing this is by having the teachers having open, frequent communication with the parents and students.

I think teachers a dramatically underpaid. I want to remove a majority of protections on firing teachers than increase benefits and pay dramatically. Attract the quality of teachers that we want and acknowledge the hard work of the good teachers we already have.

One thing I would like to do is start second language training along with English from day 1. Spanish, Russian, German, French and Chinese would be available courses nationally and leave it open to all school districts wether to include others (Like Arabic, Japanese, Italian, Tagalog...)

Also technology needs to be incorporated thru out classes starting with kindergarten. This can be as simple as having them sign in on an electronic keypad as a way of roll call or using a large screen for reading time and having the students pick the book on disc/chip and loading it into the computer/tablet with the teacher.
 
As for your problem, until you can convince the actual decision makes on hiring and policy of this you are fighting an uphill losing battle.
 
Your principal did a crony move instead of a merit move. Very unfortunate.

John Stossel on The Public Education "Blob"
Mar. 20, 2013 11:55 am

Education reformers have a name for the resistance they encounter: the education “Blob.” The Blob includes the teachers unions, but also janitors and principals unions, school boards, PTA bureaucrats, local politicians, and so on. They hold power because the government’s monopoly on K-12 education eliminates most competition. Kids are assigned to schools, and a bureaucracy decides who goes where and who learns what. Over time, its tentacles expand and strangle attempts to reform. Since they have no fear of losing their jobs to competitors, writes John Stossel, monopoly bureaucrats can resist innovation for decades.
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https://reason.com/blog/2013/03/20/john-stossel-on-the-public-education-blo
 
This was a sad story about kill joy parents too:

The Armand Larive Middle School in Hermiston, Ore., has canceled its after-school zombie apocalypse survival class, the Associated Press reports -- a move that could leave developing brains vulnerable should the undead infiltrate northern Oregon.

CNET.com reports teacher Rich Harshberge's extracurricular program informed students about the viral nature of the zombie disease and what to do if grandma is bitten -- but the course was really about getting students to read and write. Harshberge told the East Oregonian (subscription required) that he was able to engage students who would have otherwise ignored the material or reading assignments such as "The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection From The Living Dead."

Parents who were concerned about the class's emphasis on violence and who questioned its educational value complained to the district.
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https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/29/zombie-class-oregon_n_2980041.html
 
The notion that public education has gone to crap is the most over hyped nonsense in the US today. Our kids are doing just fine. America still leads the world in innovation. People should calm down and get the hell out of the teacher's hair and let them do their jobs instead of running them through the ringer all year long. It's no wonder they don't have as much time to give a good lesson with all the extra b.s. we put on their backs.
 
franklin said:
The notion that public education has gone to crap is the most over hyped nonsense in the US today. Our kids are doing just fine. America still leads the world in innovation. People should calm down and get the hell out of the teacher's hair and let them do their jobs instead of running them through the ringer all year long. It's no wonder they don't have as much time to give a good lesson with all the extra b.s. we put on their backs.
Click to expand...

My experience having put three kids through the system is that there are good teachers and there are bad. Sadly, the bad/lazy/mean/poor attitude outweigh the good anymore. There have been several that should have been outright fired for the way they treated the kids.
 
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