Teaching Standards

[Conoga]

i dont know if this qualifies as politics or not.. if it does then Admins feel free to do what you must do lol

but apparently there is a bill on the floor right now in FL senate talking about using student performance as a determining factor in whether or not to renew teachers contracts.
i have some mixed emotions on it... i mean i can understand if a teacher goes into a tough area where students are just there so they arent on the streets(i've been to schools like that!) its going to be hard on those teachers to get those students to actually work hard because they have been allowed to be lazy for years.....

but at the same time...... if the teachers had had those motivational factors when the students were young.... then maybe the students wouldnt be in the position they are in now.
in the schools i went to the teachers didnt really teach. and those that did teach actually get up and use the chalk and blackboard and speak to the students would only acknowledge the students who were willing to listen. they didnt go above and beyond. kids were sleeping in class, asking for the bathroom pass, skipping class, talking, passing notes etc.
and then there were classes where the teacher just wrote the assignment on the board.. gave the basic guideline on how to do the assignment, NO class participation, and if you wanted a pass to go to the library he would sign it. if you did the work, fine, he would grade it. if you didnt, fine, he would give you an F... and that was normal every day teaching for them.

yeah i did very badly in those schools.... but i learned the library workings inside out

and there were teaching staff that would openly tell you that there were teachers there just for the pay check and a place to get out of the rain.. it was obvious because that was one of the worst schools in FL. i only did one year there and that was bad enough to effect me for a good long while.


anyway i can see both sides of the issue. i mean if a kid has a tough home life, has never seen a dentist, then yeah he's not going to be very receptive to learning. but thats not EVERY student, and i think that also qualifies as neglect doesnt it? someone at home isnt providing the essentials for this kid to properly care for him or herself, which is a whole other ball of wax. but thats not going to be every student. sometimes you have the rich kid who doesnt care because..... he's rich. his parents will provide everything(i used to work with a guy that was raised that way. his parents bought him a house, a car, fixed his teeth because he was too lazy to brush them. and he claimed "I only work here just so i'll have something to do"..) everyone knows if a kid is given the choice between work or play then he's going to chose play, right?

anyway, thoughts from any teachers? how do you feel about that type of bill?
In the area I live in now i absolutely refuse to put my kids in the public school. DH and I might get into a big argument, we might be sleeping in different houses for a while, but on this I will not budge. just talking to the parents around here has been proof enough that my kids would be better off with me than at a public school where just anyone can walk in and pick a kid out of the crowd and walk off with him with no questions from the staff
when I was a kid the school bus driver wasnt even allowed to let kids get off the bus at a friends house without a note from the parents AND office. and if my dad or stepmom wanted to pick me up after school my mom had to call and let them know what was going on.
And according to my cousin who lives in the city(she will be doing homeschooling very soon) there have already been three attempted abductions from her kids school. on top of that the teachers are yelling at the kids(LITTLE KIDS!) calling them dumb, or stupid, and telling them to shut up


i want to find some more reading material about this bill and what all is involved in it.
it sounds a lot like a cull system to weed out the teachers who arent teaching, but i can easily see how it will effect teachers who ARE trying and havent had any help from the teachers who were supposed to set the foundation. so for them and their students, the damage has already been done, and its anyone's guess if it can be undone.

i had the good luck to go to a great elementary school with great teachers and programs to help someone like me. at first i had average/below grades until 3rd grade ... that teacher would literally slam a book down on your desk and scream in your face. yes.. scream .. as a way of getting third grader's attention. and i went downhill from there with selfesteem. because of HER they wanted to label me as ADHD and recommended medication. instead my mom had them put me in a smaller class with a teacher who was trained in ways to encourage students and teach outside the box. and it was GREAT! my grades went back up!
only to go back down again when they put me into normal 6th grade classes with butthead teachers who would give you dirty looks or say something demeaning if you gave the wrong answers. and it was 9th grade when i discovered that HELL existed in Jefferson co. FL. the teachers would read magazines, feet propped on the desk, the students were allowed to turn on the tv and watch Mtv for half the period (he did mandate that we werent allowed to turn on the tv until we "pretended" to do our assignment)

well i could go on and on what it was like up until we moved again. but when i DID start at the other school the damage was done and i no longer cared anymore what happened.

surprisingly though i did pretty damned well in my college classes

[Jill]

I do not know enough about the Florida legislation to comment, but the federal government has placed pressure on school districts to raise outcomes in schools. Have you read about the mass firing in Rhode Island where an entire faculty has been fired? Federal tax money for education is on the line here, folks. This is not political, just point of fact.

Here is a link for the story:

http://personalmoneystore.com/moneyb...eachers-fired/

[Jill]

PS my guess is that Florida is trying to take a proactive step on a per teacher basis. It seems that this (federal policy) could break the unions, which is at odds with a Democratic administration that has been supported by the AEA and other education unions.

The bigger issue is that No Child Left Behind forces teachers to make decisions everyday that causes them to break federal law. For example, some IEP's for special needs children are in direct conflict with No Child Left Behind. What are our teachers to do in these circumstances? We need education reform that actually works, that does not place our teachers in losing situations.

[Breelia]

Just offering this as a point of comparison and my opinion. Not sure if it really applies, or if it would even be possible, but I just got out of the education system, and I can say, from an inside point of view, it sucks all around right now. For teachers AND students. And I think it'll get even worse before it gets any better.

I went to elementary school in Europe and our class levels were divided into sections of about 25 students. Never more than 30. I believe they were divided based on test scores and one section was reserved for the high scoring students (or athletes). Before you jump to conclusions, though, students were not stuck in those sections. They could be transferred into a different one based on performance. In the case of athletes - we had a swim team - they either had to get good grades to stay in the section, or be fast swimmers, but even the fastest swimmer wasn't exempt from class work and getting good grades. And swimming came as a privilege of being in that section, so they had to keep their grades up to stay there. And this separation wasn't done to favor anyone, but to better meet the students' needs. The curriculum was the same, but the teaching styles were different, based on section.

I thought that was a very good school to attend. I loved most of my teachers, I had a close circle of friends, I got my exercise, and we were taught many more subjects than schools here. I'm talking physics, chemistry, geography, art and music (both required), foreign languages, even ethics ... in 5th grade. We had 45 minute classes and would take 7-9 subjects per year, as opposed to the 4-6 I took in high school here.

The reason I am typing this is because in comparison, the American education system sucks royally, from the ground up. I'm sorry, but it does. And what's worse is that I am hearing from my relatives back in Europe that the schools there are changing, looking to the U.S. as an example. That worries me very much. I think it should be the opposite, though I can easily see, with the mess the education system is here currently, how it would devolve into a popularity contest and bad ranking systems.

Blue, I don't know what to tell you. I would say you're far better off with home schooling than risking your childrens' safety. And chances are your kids will grow up a heck of a lot smarter and more knowledgeable than if they attended school.

[airbear82]

It is not just U.S Schools that are like that though, In my high school grade 8 math class our math teacher was also the keyboarding instructor. I had him for both grade 8 and 9 math and I went on to grade 10 math having learned NOTHING of the basic principles of math so GUESS WHAT? I ended up FAILING! My grade 10 math teacher told my mom for the amount of effort I was putting in that I should have been getting A's but I just couldn't do it! My Gr 8 instructor gave us 50 page math tests every week on stuff that we hadn't even learned yet! Not only that but he graded us on whether or not we were polite and respectful to him, I got a C in that class because he always caught me reading in his class, and would threaten to send me down to the Principals office but he never did . I think that out of all my teachers he and my grade 10 socials teacher were the worst I absolutely HATED the both of them. Mr Adams the Social teacher when I asked him a question because I didn't understand something from the textbook called me stupid, I had him for grade 12 Geography with my best friend but she had to withdraw because she was going through really tough time (she comes from a history of abuse), you know what he said? that she couldn't handle his class because she wasn't strong enough ! I almost stood up right then and told him that he didn't know what the F*** he was talking about! To this day I regret not doing that! It has always bugged me that I just sat quietly and let him bash her that way. The ONLY teachers I have ever truly like were Mrs. Huey my Grade 8 English teacher and Mrs. Sachar my Grade 9 drama teacher. Yep I hated High School .

I will also admit that I know that not every teacher out there were like the teachers I had, and that there are probably a lot of teachers out there that are very good. For instance I took a Principles of Math 11 class AFTER I had graduated at the Learning Educational Center in my area to this day I am grateful to the Math instructor Rob Ashby because he made me BELIEVE that I could do it, You know WHAT I got a B+ in his math class!

As for homeschooling I have nothing against it but I do believe that you have to be the right type of person to be able to pull it off. I may have the patience but I will admit I am a horrible teacher and would probably end up confusing my poor kid more often then not . So I might have a beef with the educational system but the teachers would probably do a way better job then I ever could! Also Public school doesn't JUST provide a learning experience it also is a social setting. So unless you are able to provide play dates and what not for your kids to get that Socialization that they need then that is great.

[Anita]

Breelia,

I have only been in US classes, privet and public as well as home school.
But I know people that have been in European and US public schools and they all say what you are saying.
From what a friend of mine in Europe said you have to test into University basically/ He was saying if your grades on this one test are not high enough you go to a trade school type thing.
Personally I think that they have it right, to me it makes more sense.
Also he was saying in University you only take classes that are related to your major which is great unlike here in the US for some reason they want Music, History, and English to have math and science and foreign lan.
My friend came here for a year and he was a science major and had to take english and history classes.
Which is lame.

[Conoga]

Airbear, i had similar situations. i had ONE math teacher in high school that did try, and i wanted so badly to make him proud of his efforts, but i really did not grasp the concept of the whole geometry/algebra thing UNTIL ........ i got a job where i was actually building things with my hands, using the tools and the science in a real life situation. i never could grasp it with just reading the directions. i had to get my hands around it in order to get my head around it. ((i blame my mom for jinxing me though. that school required more credits than the state required for graduation, which basically meant i wasnt graduating -changed schools again so it didnt matter lol - but her closing argument to the school was "she doesnt NEED that much! she isnt going to grow up to build rockets or dog houses!" ... the damned teacher said "Well you dont know that".... low and behold three two and a half years after graduating there i was .. not building rockets or dog houses but measuring and cutting and building blinds and draperies for windows lol!) To this day i dont know why no one suggested i take a shop class. i guess because i was a girl and preferred reading? *shrug* who knows. but the one thing i did learn was that not everyone learns the same way and its unfair to force people to conform or fail. in my psychology classes we learned about that sort of thing. and yet in other classes you read the chapter, you did the work and you moved on. it was like marching through a strange canyon. if you unlucky enough to stumble, get confused, fall behind, you were LEFT behind... and often times were taunted by the others because "You're too stupid, jeez everyone knows how to do this! you have to be some kind of idiot not to get it"

As for homeschooling -
i've been doing a lot of reading and studying about the subject and i agree its not something to jump into without a care.. i met one kid that was homeschooled(when i was in the high school from hell) - he was AWESOME! Very good looking, very outgoing, AND a gymnast! he didnt stay there long in that school however.... no need to ask why.
one of my cousins home schooled her kids for several years but ended up putting them in public school when she got divorced. her two oldest are in gifted classes. her youngest was put into pre-K and he's everyone's biggest challenge. he got to start school from the ground up like most people, and he's just not having a good time of it... But before her divorce, during the summer we would all pile into my car and drive to the beach or the zoo, on the way there the kids would be doing their lessons. they were all three smart - too smart sometimes, they could embarrass you if you tried to answer their questions thinking they were too young to understand(like where do babies come from, birds migrating, and whys does the sky turn red when the sun sets etc.)

And my other cousin who will be beginning home schooling; we've struck up a deal. where i lack math skills i make up for in english/reading and history. she was never too keen on history or reading but she knows the science/math stuff that i never could grasp. Her oldest son will be going into second grade, and her youngest will be starting kindergarten - my oldest will also be starting Kindergarten about the same time. my youngest is smart enough that he could very easily do everything they do.
and being social is no problem. my kids arent in day care but they're not shy with strangers. but they arent so friendly as to let anyone grab them.

But what i like best about home schooling is we can go their pace. we dont have to wait for 25 other people to get it, we have more time to teach, no class changes, bus rides, school lunch periods etc. once they get the lesson, they GET it. and then we move on. if they dont get it then we can work on it longer. you can teach anywhere - like my cousin did with her kids in the car, or at the beach, park, etc - You can join with other home school families or do it yourself. you can buy CDs, DVDs, books, lesson plans etc. or you can work with others who already have those things.

i love this video about home schooling lol http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQoSRfu5z_4

[airbear82]

Airbear, i had similar situations. i had ONE math teacher in high school that did try, and i wanted so badly to make him proud of his efforts, but i really did not grasp the concept of the whole geometry/algebra thing UNTIL ........ i got a job where i was actually building things with my hands, using the tools and the science in a real life situation. i never could grasp it with just reading the directions. i had to get my hands around it in order to get my head around it. ((i blame my mom for jinxing me though. that school required more credits than the state required for graduation, which basically meant i wasnt graduating -changed schools again so it didnt matter lol - but her closing argument to the school was "she doesnt NEED that much! she isnt going to grow up to build rockets or dog houses!" ... the damned teacher said "Well you dont know that".... low and behold three two and a half years after graduating there i was .. not building rockets or dog houses but measuring and cutting and building blinds and draperies for windows lol!) To this day i dont know why no one suggested i take a shop class. i guess because i was a girl and preferred reading? *shrug* who knows. but the one thing i did learn was that not everyone learns the same way and its unfair to force people to conform or fail. in my psychology classes we learned about that sort of thing. and yet in other classes you read the chapter, you did the work and you moved on. it was like marching through a strange canyon. if you unlucky enough to stumble, get confused, fall behind, you were LEFT behind... and often times were taunted by the others because "You're too stupid, jeez everyone knows how to do this! you have to be some kind of idiot not to get it"

Yeah I was never good at the Math/Sciences but I always did awesome in my art class. You know what what my mom said once when I was bummed because I only got like a C+ on an Art Assignment? That she didn't CARE if I failed Art as long as I passed MATH! Now that makes me angry because to me that says that she doesn't care if I excel at something I am good at but would rather I struggle with something that I am never going to succeed with. I think that in her own way because she was bad with Math, that she wanted me to succeed where she hadn't. These types of experiences affect your WHOLE life though, I had dreams and aspirations when I was much younger but now it has all amounted to nothing. Maybe IF I had, had one teacher to tell me that I could do it maybe....

[Wildernessgirl]

Airbear, i had similar situations. i had ONE math teacher in high school that did try, and i wanted so badly to make him proud of his efforts, but i really did not grasp the concept of the whole geometry/algebra thing UNTIL ........ i got a job where i was actually building things with my hands, using the tools and the science in a real life situation. i never could grasp it with just reading the directions. i had to get my hands around it in order to get my head around it. ((i blame my mom for jinxing me though. that school required more credits than the state required for graduation, which basically meant i wasnt graduating -changed schools again so it didnt matter lol - but her closing argument to the school was "she doesnt NEED that much! she isnt going to grow up to build rockets or dog houses!" ... the damned teacher said "Well you dont know that".... low and behold three two and a half years after graduating there i was .. not building rockets or dog houses but measuring and cutting and building blinds and draperies for windows lol!) To this day i dont know why no one suggested i take a shop class. i guess because i was a girl and preferred reading? *shrug* who knows. but the one thing i did learn was that not everyone learns the same way and its unfair to force people to conform or fail. in my psychology classes we learned about that sort of thing. and yet in other classes you read the chapter, you did the work and you moved on. it was like marching through a strange canyon. if you unlucky enough to stumble, get confused, fall behind, you were LEFT behind... and often times were taunted by the others because "You're too stupid, jeez everyone knows how to do this! you have to be some kind of idiot not to get it"

As for homeschooling -
i've been doing a lot of reading and studying about the subject and i agree its not something to jump into without a care.. i met one kid that was homeschooled(when i was in the high school from hell) - he was AWESOME! Very good looking, very outgoing, AND a gymnast! he didnt stay there long in that school however.... no need to ask why.
one of my cousins home schooled her kids for several years but ended up putting them in public school when she got divorced. her two oldest are in gifted classes. her youngest was put into pre-K and he's everyone's biggest challenge. he got to start school from the ground up like most people, and he's just not having a good time of it... But before her divorce, during the summer we would all pile into my car and drive to the beach or the zoo, on the way there the kids would be doing their lessons. they were all three smart - too smart sometimes, they could embarrass you if you tried to answer their questions thinking they were too young to understand(like where do babies come from, birds migrating, and whys does the sky turn red when the sun sets etc.)

And my other cousin who will be beginning home schooling; we've struck up a deal. where i lack math skills i make up for in english/reading and history. she was never too keen on history or reading but she knows the science/math stuff that i never could grasp. Her oldest son will be going into second grade, and her youngest will be starting kindergarten - my oldest will also be starting Kindergarten about the same time. my youngest is smart enough that he could very easily do everything they do.
and being social is no problem. my kids arent in day care but they're not shy with strangers. but they arent so friendly as to let anyone grab them.

But what i like best about home schooling is we can go their pace. we dont have to wait for 25 other people to get it, we have more time to teach, no class changes, bus rides, school lunch periods etc. once they get the lesson, they GET it. and then we move on. if they dont get it then we can work on it longer. you can teach anywhere - like my cousin did with her kids in the car, or at the beach, park, etc - You can join with other home school families or do it yourself. you can buy CDs, DVDs, books, lesson plans etc. or you can work with others who already have those things.

i love this video about home schooling lol http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQoSRfu5z_4

same here. I never really understood certain aspects of algebra, fractions, etc. until I started doing things where I was using those concepts and then it seemed so simple.

Teachers needed to understand as well that students learn differently and how to reach various students when teaching.

[DoberDawn]

One of my friends does teach in the Florida system and I know is very frustrated by and opposed to this possible law. I've passed this thread on to her (she's on this board but not too active)... so she can comment more knowledgeably from the front lines.

I know she said that from her perspective, she gets kids in her High School English classes that have been passed thru with limited English skills to begin with (including hispanic/illegal alien students), chronic truants who skip school, don't do the work, move around constantly, are only with her for part of the year, and if these students fail the Florida FCAT tests, her pay will get cut under this law regardless of how hard she works and how well she does with teaching ALL the other students in her classes. How is that fair? There is no provision to account for that from what I understand. There is also nothing to account for or adjust for differences in schools with all the assets vs. schools in poor districts where they don't even have enough materials to go around.

Again, I dunno... I'm just relaying what my friend has said. Maybe she'll post more.