The Case Against College Education

[Annie]

I'm not so inclined to blame teachers. Ifkids aren't motivated and have aholes for parents, not a lot can be done. The lack of money ssue is usually a cover for the anti education culture.

Thus, we should only concentrate on those from middle class and better homes, especially in the difficult economic times we are experiencing?

I feel like I'm in a world turned upside down.

I'm a teacher arguing that while the public should not expect schools to right all the wrongs of society, while still trying to teach the academic curriculum they should do what is possible in the schools they are being paid to teach in.

If in a upper socioeconomic areas, it's well documented that many students need to be inspired to move beyond themselves, to see a purpose they may have. In the lower socioeconomic areas the teachers should be aware of the need to be a role model, concentrate on providing examples of others that have succeeded in difficult circumstances, while teaching the curriculum.

In any school, it's imperative that the teachers teach the students from the point they are at and move them along as quickly as possible. Same lesson may mean 2 or more versions of attaining the material at differing pacing and depth.

 

[midcan5]

I find it suspicion that right wingers want to manage education even as I agree with trade schools and the OP. In Catholic school it used to work that way, one irony for me is academic students didn't learn typing because that was for dummies, so today I hunt and peck still. Who's the dummy now, I made sure our boys took typing after computers started their growth spurt.

But an education should cover lots and be open enough that the student understands what civil society is and how it works. We need good citizens as well as good plumbers.

Charles Murray gives this same argument. If we have tech schools where will they work? Growth is in services and we can't all be shrinks or massage therapists - a noticeably growing trade. The Indian on the line sure can't give you a massage huh.

Is this just another example of the right countering the left and crying over their loss of power?

Amazon.com: Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality (9780307405395): Charles Murray: Books@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ZIUpq3wTL.@@AMEPARAM@@51ZIUpq3wTL


"For Postman, the survival of public education rests upon its purpose. He suggests that early purposes of education such as democracy, the melting-pot concepts, and Protestant work ethic have been lost. In addition, the "gods" of consumerism and technology have also failed. He suggests that the reader consider his five purposes for education as a means for its survival. These include his belief that education should exist so individuals become responsible for the planet earth."

Amazon.com: The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School (9780679750314): Neil Postman: Books@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/710919RHGWL.@@AMEPARAM@@710919RHGWL

 

[Topspin]

A lot of cry baby excuses. People rise to their educational capacity generally. Some are only equipt to be welders or contractors. That's fine, rich people need buildings.

 

[Mott the Hoople]

All I can say in this is that there are very few jobs that I can get through college that wouldn't have me contemplating suicide every night. I like trades. And the money ain't half bad either.

It wouldn't hurt you ya big cry baby.

Your bright and you have decent leadership skills. A sound liberal arts education would help you develop and advance those talents, even if your in a trade. My bro-inlaw is a tradesman. Runs his own CNC shop and has a business selling reflective logos he's designed and has patents pending.

http://www.reflectivelogos.com/

He started out a tradesman with an AS in CNC machining and went on to complete his BS in business and it didn't turn him into a whiney assed emo like Watermark. Won't kill you either.

 

[Mott the Hoople]

You actually make my point. On another board the 'liberals' believe it or not, are defending the teachers and saying that it's not their fault, but that the kids come from poor families, so the parents are illiterate. Thus, what is a teacher supposed to do?

That makes me ill.

Truth is, not everyone has an IQ or interests that lead to success in university. Not everyone that comes from a poor background is destined for poverty. Lots of kids from poor schools have the innate intelligence to do well, though their education opportunities if stuck with indifferent teachers may hide that. That was part of my point.

If one teaches in the town I'm most familiar with, to have a kid not do well on standardized tests is freaky. Even in 1960, 50% of kids had a least one parent that had graduated college, most with post-grad degrees. University town, hospital in town, major teaching hospital 6 miles away. Nearly all the families had a doctor, professor, or both in it.

However, not all the kids inherited the brains. Many not enough to avoid drugs and just lazy students. Not bored, just lazy and determined to show their parents they didn't have to apply themselves. Of course they went on to university, though not where their parents would have liked them to have gone. Most of them didn't get a degree, they stayed lazy or really had missed the basics over all those years.

Now about those 'failing schools' in impoverished areas. Do you really want to tell me that those teachers shouldn't be spending 25 minutes more a day teaching? Can't have lunch with students that want to sit and talk with them once a week? Shouldn't keep up with new methods, including technology such as Smartboards, Senteo, to help engage the kids? I can't understand any teacher denying his/her students, especially those lacking so much at home, a chance to succeed in school.

I am not about to criticize another professional for the expectation of compensation for their services.

I'm a professional and I have the expectation. My father is a professional (a physician, he went to med school when I was in high school) and he taught me that the surest way to have your skill and profession disrespected is to not charge out the ass for it.

I empathize with teachers as no other group of professionals have to deal with the hordes of arm chair morons who don't know that first thing about teaching second guessing their efforts. I can imagine all the poor biology teachers and the crap they have to put up with from all the Dixie's of the world. Imagine what science education would be like if we let those people had their way? I'm pretty sure that extends to the rest of education and teaching professionals. So I'm not about to criticize those teachers for expecting compensation.

I've been in the corporate environment where they give you a title "manager" with no bonus or incentive structure on the business side and then expect you to work 60 to 80 hours a week. That's crap. I'm a professional and I expect to be paid for my services. I also respectfully extend that courtesy to other professions/professionals.

In this particular case I think this is a foolish policy. They would have been better off closing the school down. Now top teaching professionals will avoid working in these communities like the plague knowing they will have to work harder, for less compensation with a high risk or serious damage being done to their professional reputation due to circumstances mostly beyond their control.

If they want to take this route they should go further. They should flunk out all the students who were under performing. Put that on their permanent record and force them to attend remedial schooling before being permitted back into the Public Schools.

Right now their blaming this solely on the teachers and right wing union busting wackos, who hate and despise the middle class, are having a hey day over this.

I say the fair thing to do was close the school down, wish the teachers luck finding jobs at other schools with out unnecessarily damaging their professional reputations but first flunk out all the under performing students and let them and their parents pay the consequences. Why should these teachers be the only ones held accountable? There not the ones completely at fault.

 

[Mott the Hoople]

I don't think there is any need to teach a different curriculum, but there certainly needs to be more division of classes for aptitude. I also think there needs to be more tailoring to how the child learns by jr high.

I was a slacker throughout grade school. But I always did very well on tests. Outside of math, I honestly did not see the point in much of the classwork/homework. All it really did was highlight the key material which is already done in the text. I also lost interest in classes that were too slow.

I applied myself more in college, as well. But, in college most of the work seemed relevant. Also, I truly believe the fact that college cost me something made me work harder.

That sounds pretty much like my experience. I agree with you.

 

[Mott the Hoople]

I'm not so inclined to blame teachers. Ifkids aren't motivated and have aholes for parents, not a lot can be done. The lack of money ssue is usually a cover for the anti education culture.

You're dead on right. The rural high school I graduated from does meet the state and national academic standards but just barely. There far more concerned about team sports.

 

[Mott the Hoople]

A lot of cry baby excuses. People rise to their educational capacity generally. Some are only equipt to be welders or contractors. That's fine, rich people need buildings.

LOL You sound like my father though he's less tactful then you (as if that were possible). He say's "The world needs losers too."

 

[Topspin]

Somebody has to weld and hammer. It certainly isn't going to be the educated.