So Bill Gates has been making the rounds...

[Payton34]

A friend of mine teaches AP history. Her classes do a lot of interesting things including creating mock governments.

Shouldn't need to be in an AP class though.... Had an interesting discussion with an AP teacher the other day lamenting how too many kids are pushed into AP and simply aren't ready to do the work (Straying a bit from the point, I know)... Today's AP is yesterday's Honors classes... Problem is that the actual AP exams are the same college-level classes that they always were...

Anyway, I'll get off that soapbox.. The only point I was making was that advanced classes (not just AP) are suffering for the sake of getting as many of the lower-level kids to pass a general skills assessment in a subject area....

[Gmaniac]

A friend of mine teaches AP history. Her classes do a lot of interesting things including creating mock governments.

An AP classroom is a lot different than a regular classroom.

Starting with the fact that you get the best students in the school to teach. It's a massive difference.

As a teacher, you are also allowed to expect more out of your kids in an AP environment. You can hold standards high. In my experience... a teacher is often not allowed to hold high standards in a non-AP classroom.

[USAFspeedboy]

THIS is what teachers need.

Test scores and graduation rates are the best indicators of educational progress, but somehow the idea of people actually having to get their hands dirty and do some hard work turning things around scares people.

My charge to teachers: what you do matters. Everything you do in and outside of the classroom matters. And failure to educate your students for any reason is YOUR failure.

If one of the guys i had to patch up died, it was my failure. Doesnt matter if he had a 70% burn surgace or if the kid was without oxygen for 15 minutes, or the fragment sliced the guys abdominal aaorta. Any loss of life was a failure in my book. Maybe more teachers should think yhe same way.

[Payton34]

My point is, the quality of dedicated teachers arent even close to what they once held. All i hear from teachers are excuses and reasons why they arent giving 100%.

But my question is how are YOU measuring their "dedication" and what is "100%" in YOUR book? Your initial post seemed to indicate that if a teacher isn't chasing down every failing student all over town and knocking on doors and putting books in the kids' faces and lecturing the parent and threatening to call DCF on them, that they somehow aren't living up to their responsibilities as a teacher....

That isn't their job.... Their job is to maintain control in their classroom, teach and assess (No small task mind you).... Any more is above and beyond...

Parents suck too, i agree, but that isnt a new phenominon here.

Perhaps not, but the schools are tasked more today with picking up the slack for poor or absent parents...

My mothers mentor was a lady named miss freeman, she tuaght my mom, my brother and my sister, and when my mom became an educator she requested to work with her. I remember vividly ms freeman feeding children whos parents were on drugs, i remember my mom and ms freeman swinging by kids houses to take kids to festivals in the stawberry mansion park (on a saturday at that). To this day in my old "hood" im known as "ms ____ 's son". Mrs freeman was dedicated to her craft. Mr cartwright was dedicated to her craft, my mother was dedicated to her craft. Those were teachers. Todays run are pethtic. Not all, but clearly most are. Whens the last time you heard of teachers visiting childrens homes, requesting personal conferences or calling parents employers to talk with them or actually
Feeding a child, or taking time after class on a regular basis to nurture a kids potential.

Again, I'm back to asking, Since when was all of this a teacher's DUTY?, and why do you think it apparently should be?... A lot of teachers are working parents themselves. It isn't a profession filled with old single school marms anymore dude....

Its sad becuase being a teacher these days is the only career where end results dont count toward a persons record. Its insane.

Its not insane... Somehow thinking that if a teacher cannot get an entire room of kids, half of whom barely speak English, and 4 or 5 are inclusion (special ed) and a bunch barely ever show up to class and such, to pass this test, that the teacher is somehow a failure!!!

How is that fair?

[Payton34]

THIS is what teachers need.

Test scores and graduation rates are the best indicators of educational progress, but somehow the idea of people actually having to get their hands dirty and do some hard work turning things around scares people.

My charge to teachers: what you do matters. Everything you do in and outside of the classroom matters. And failure to educate your students for any reason is YOUR failure.

If one of the guys i had to patch up died, it was my failure. Doesnt matter if he had a 70% burn surgace or if the kid was without oxygen for 15 minutes, or the fragment sliced the guys abdominal aaorta. Any loss of life was a failure in my book. Maybe more teachers should think yhe same way.

So you watch 'Lean on Me' and maybe follow it up with 'Stand and Deliver' and now suddenly its SO clear!! The problem is poor teaching!!!

[Gmaniac]

THIS is what teachers need.

lol...

I can't help but wonder if you are basing your overall opinions on movies like this as opposed to actual experience, meaningful studies, or reality.

Say it ain't so, Speedy!

[Payton34]

C'mon Gman!!!! We should ALL be playing football for Notre Dame!!! After all, I watched 'Rudy'!!!!

[Raid]

.

Very broad ideas. I don't see how test scores, observation, and student surveys are bad ideas in any way.

Any kind of measurement that can be even remotely tethered to a teachers performance in inherently evil and must be stopped.

[USAFspeedboy]

So its the kids fualt that teachers cant teach? Dude thats lazy. And yes, as a tax payer, a teachers job is to do whatever the job requires. Your argument is like a cop refusing to stop a bad guy off duty, or to pull someone from a burning car. Why is it the ONLY tax paid profession that uses the "that aint my job" excuse are teachers. And that in it of itself is the problem. If people are not willing to work harder and by any means to teach and help mold the minds of our kids, then they should not be teachers. If parenting has always been an issue, and teachers have waaay more leeway in classrooms than ever, kids should be crapping on china right? Imagine if cops,fireman,military, etc simply threw our hands up and said "thats not my job". Smh

[Gmaniac]

Do its the kids fualt that teachets cant teach?

I think your English teacher probably dropped the ball... I'll give you that one.

[USAFspeedboy]

lol...

I can't help but wonder if you are basing your overall opinions on movies like this as opposed to actual experience, meaningful studies, or reality.

Say it ain't so, Speedy!

Its funny how the focus is on the hollywood dramatics and not the message. I last saw this movie over 20 years ago. But i had a principle in k5 that did just this. I mentioned her already. She cared about her kids and demanded the same from her teachers.

[USAFspeedboy]

I think your English teacher probably dropped the ball... I'll give you that one.

Lol funny, once again I USE A SMARTPHONE TO POST!!! i fat finger quite a bit.

[Raid]

Today's social media (including of course NST) has really put the spotlight on 'what/how' teachers think. I have two teacher contacts on my FB, and both whine about....friggin' "everything". I mean, it's really weird how they biiitch about having to work 50-60 hours a week...and such. One, my niece of all people, boasts (boasts?) that her 'summer off time is deserved because teachers work harder than the private sector. Like, huh?

What I have seen over the recent years, again due to social media, is how DISCONNECTED the teaching profession is with the 'private' sector [ meaning the vast majority of what people do for a living, and how those companies and processes work, both in the service and product industries ]. Teachers don't want to know how for example how 'procurement processes' work - and how to address those issues, they would rather biiiitch about "I had to buy crayons for my class last night", the school board sucks..

Many of us say politicians are out of touch. I believe teachers don't get it either. Do they need to? Well, it may help in rounding out their PERSONAL credentials and understanding where the information they are teaching may relate to most students future.

[USAFspeedboy]

Raid i agree... Teachers are a wierd bunch these days. My mom retired and she gave an example of why she left. When fellow teachers started bad mouthing and being nasty becuase she was so envolved with her students she got frustrated, but when the union and school leadership refused to do anything when teachers outright refuse to work, she had enough.

She always says, how a human being, could see a child in need and heading for dissaster and not feel a pull to do all thats needed to help was beyond her.

We didnt have much, but i remember my mom giving our food to kids at school.
These days teachers want a free run without getting their hands dirty.

[Payton34]

So its the kids fualt that teachers cant teach? Dude thats lazy. And yes, as a tax payer, a teachers job is to do whatever the job requires. Your argument is like a cop refusing to stop a bad guy off duty, or to pull someone from a burning car. Why is it the ONLY tax paid profession that uses the "that aint my job" excuse are teachers. And that in it of itself is the problem. If people are not willing to work harder and by any means to teach and help mold the minds of our kids, then they should not be teachers. If parenting has always been an issue, and teachers have waaay more leeway in classrooms than ever, kids should be crapping on china right? Imagine if cops,fireman,military, etc simply threw our hands up and said "thats not my job". Smh

LAZY? Geezus, well then let me just say that you have un-realistic expectations.... Yes, every teacher should just say, "You know what? F**k MY family... I'm going to go parent every failing student I have because its not fair that their parents suck!!!".... Really dude?

Funny, again, that you choose to hold up "Stand By Me" as your ultimate measuring stick of what you think a school should be.... Do you happen to recall a scene where the principal ALSO kicks out every useless student in the school? Nah, you probably forgot about that because it flies in the face of your point I suppose? Well schools today aren't allowed to do that for the most part. These kids that serve as nothing but a distraction reside in our schools and make life extraordinarily difficult for teachers AND their fellow students.... I'm sure that you could get teachers to agree to some form of standard evals if you tell them that you're going to start by expelling all of the crappy kids....

Wonder why Mr. Clark didn't visit the parents of all those kids and tell them what they were doing wrong and show some actual initiative instead of just kicking them all out of school? Musta been LAZY!!!!!