October 2, 2010
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Education in America
The concern and debate over the American method of educating our young people has heated up. While it does not seem to be a major political issue in the upcoming election, it does underlie some of the populist movements which are currently so ubiquitous.
Education is a subject I know something about - I was once a candidate for a PhD at Harvard with the History and Philosophy of Ed as my field (I got married and bought a sailboat instead of finishing the degree). I was designated as a Master Teacher in the short-lived Florida program to identify such and I taught for many years in the Public School system at the HS and College levels.
Traditionally, Education, as a Social Institution, has had three major responsibilities: To impart information, to develop skills, and to civilize the students. Teachers have been traditionally trained to do these three things, but our modern world has badly skewed their ability to do so.
In today's world most of the information youngsters get is not from their teacher - it is from the massive modern media institutions over which the schools ( and family) have no control. The modern teacher is seldom seen as a "font of knowledge" and most teachers cannot themselves begin to keep up with all the information and misinformation currently bombarding their students.
In the realm of skill development, popular judgment holds teachers responsible for the poor showing of their students - probably rightly so. The basic skills ( the old reading, writing, and arithmetic we all loved) are more difficult to teach than most people think. First the teacher must have pretty complete mastery of the subject. If the teacher is a product of the failing system, he/she is probably poorly prepared - I know I was shocked by the poor preparation of College students I was supposed to be teaching how to teach. One way to overcome this problem is to hire the best - not the worst - college graduates into the teaching field. Since the best teachers are those who love to teach, every effort must be made to identify, encourage, and hire these fairly rare individuals.
Incidentally, the skill subject that is traditionally among the most difficult to teach - Math - is actually one of the easiest. The secret is motivation. I personally know how easy it is to motivate students in this field. For some years I volunteered to teach the "Unteachable" in this subject - the secret was assuring them a lot of personal success and making the subject practical in their terms. For example, I taught my 15-year-olds how to fill out and submit their own income tax returns - nothing motivates a 15-year-old quite as much as the prospect of getting money they did not expect.
Skills competency is not as easy to correctly measure as you might think and the popular standardized tests are often skewed. Individual teacher tests, reviewed by their peers are probably a better way to go - after all the teacher should know what he/she has tried to teach better than anyone else.
Most of my personal teaching career was teaching Affective (Civilizing) subjects - History, Sociology, Social Studies Seminars, etc.
That area of teaching, probably the most difficult and certainly the most controversial, is well worth another essay all on its own - stay tuned.
Today in America, there is considerable criticism of our school system and many different proposals to improve it: Doing away with tenure, charter schools, home and on-line schooling are some of the most common. The subject of tenure - a much misunderstood concept - seems to be under attack right now. Apparently the basic idea - a way to protect teachers from local political pressure and allow them to teach without fearing reprisal - has been forgotten. Now it is seen as a way to protect incompetent teachers. In practice, incompetency is most often to result of poor administrative oversight and reluctance to deny a poor teacher a continuing contract because of difficulty in replacing him or simply because its too much trouble to make a case. A lot of educational problems can be laid at the door of incompetent school administrators.
Comments (4)
Motivation has always been the problem for me. I enjoy teaching those who enjoy learning. Thus, I hope to get myself into a college classroom. I enjoy teaching high school students, but it's very disheartening to devote part of every single lesson to trying to make them care. Many college students don't care either, but they are at least motivated by what they've paid to be there.
@The_Brink_of_Omniscience -
What makes you think those college students are more likely to be self-motivated? Don't count on their having to pay as sufficient. Most of them are funded by someone else - their parents or you and me.
The most effective way to motivate HS students, for me anyway, was to catch their interest by relating them to the subject - make it seem to be worth their while to participate. Almost all students respect someone they think knows more than they do, cares about what they are teaching, and wants them to develop the skills they're being taught. Start by selling yourself and respecting the students.
Incidentally, the brightest and most intellectual students I ever taught were at the HS, not the college level. I sent a number of kids on the very good colleges and jobs.
You are the Master Teacher...I sit and learn from your opinion.
Odnosnie powyzszego artykulu, to czy na pewno autor wie o czym pisze ? Mam calkiem inne zadanie na ten temat.