A few words in defence of Teachers. and a few gripes.
I notice my grand kids are being taught close to the same subjects in 5Th. grade as I was in highschool.
Whole new world here, kids play on their parents PC at home at 3 years old today, to the kids learning is a game, a sport, to play a game better then their friends.
Somehow this new generation is learning at a pace that amazes me, who can take the credit for this.????
So much is different today now we have the PC. I bought a pre school game for kids and watch stunned as my at the time 3 year old grandson matched colors using hand eye coordination with the mouse, matched numbers and letters. Problem was by the time he got into preschool he became Bord as he knew by games on the PC the answers to questions asked.
My question is are some teachers with good educations able to teach others in a way that the children will learn and is fun?? Remember the Alphabet song, math with the ansewers to 2x2 and the students had to clap 4 times.? Can teachers go about improvising their lessons to the comunity the kids come from???---W.VA> How many cubic feet of oxygen is needed to keep a coal miner under ground for each shift.
Unfortunately a math teacher in an inner city decided to teach math using examples of what the kids lived around.------How many grams of pot in a dime bag?? in the 6 or so months before he was caught the scores of his students went through the roof.
Then there was the reading teacher that had a class of all males that just could not grasp the idea of reading comprehension. He gave the boys print outs of Playboy jokes and articles. Another Winner, the only student he had that flunked the class was blind.
For the girls and their interests, a list of cosmetics and what one is the better by price and amount. Unfortunately today, teaching girls how to find out what is a better buy for diapers, the cheap ones that last only an hour or so or ones had a higher price that cost 20% more and last longer. Law classes, if you and a male are hired at the same time and find out the male is being paid $1.00 more an hour, what branch of government should you go to.
Once you get past the 3 R's then Education should be about how to live in this world. For students that excelled in a subject then push them, one thing leads to another. Example for the math teachers they can cross teach history as in Afghanistan, how many acres does take to make money on the poppies grown. What do they use on their fields to fertilise them, what method of transportation do they use, what is the woman's role in Afghanistan and how is this compaired to Turkey and their life and growing, transporting their Poppy's.
I really shake my head when I heard of teachers, a man and wife in an out post of Alaska had to move into the school building as the home the State gave them was unlivable.
Teaching has become a trade, don't matter if one likes their job, ----Teaching is a inborn talent, something along the lines of a Missionary that faces cannibals yet still goes on. Teaching is a talent, a gift, I always remember Annie Sullivan who took a deaf, blind child and taught her to read, write and become one of history's most amazing people, Helen Keller.-----