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Trish
SFN Addict
USA
2102 Posts |
 Posted - 01/06/2002 : 20:58:48
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gezzam
SFN Regular
Australia
751 Posts |
Posted - 01/06/2002 : 21:33:29 [Permalink]
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I know that when I was in grade 2 (aged about 7 years old) I was ahead of the class in all subjects...the result was that I skipped a year and went straight to grade 4.
This was fine until I reached my final years where I was often up to two years younger than my classmates. On an intellectual level I was their equal, however in hindsight I was not as mature and therefore unable to satisfactorily ready to complete what is supposed to be the most important schooling year of your life. If I was given more time and a little bit of attention back then, the need to skip a year of school would not have been required. It was easier to shove me up a grade though.
There lies the inherent problem of schooling, if through those formative years, teachers were prepared to give students that are a little more advanced some time and effort, it can only help these kids. However, their pay is shit, and most don't give a damn. Teachers are one of the most important people in a young child's life. They should be able to quickly pick what directions a child's interest lies, and then help him/her achieve what ever they want in life. Unfortunately most teachers are like Miss Hoover in the Simpson's.... and the good ones are few and far between.
"Damn you people. Go back to your shanties." --- Shooter McGavin |
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comradebillyboy
Skeptic Friend
USA
188 Posts |
Posted - 01/06/2002 : 22:48:32 [Permalink]
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trish, there are many very good schools which address your concerns well. A good secular private school, with average class sizes of 12 students, and no tolerance for delinquent behavior and a salary and benefits package 5% better than the local teachers union wins, and competent teachers, will produce excellent results. if your child could pass the entrance exams to this school, you would shell out at least $12,000 in tuition per annum.
so long as public schools have to accept children who disrupt the educational process, it will be very difficult to establish a good learning environment.
out of 100 students i'll usually have 5-10 difficult ones. that small group will rob me of many hours of productive teaching and keep the other students from learning as much as they would like. i might not be able to give your child the individual attention he/she merits because a fair amount of time is taken up in maintaing order. its not about the union making us lazy, but few of us are either emotionally equipped or have enought time to cater to each child's individual needs. private schools with small class sizes provide that kind of service.
enough whining for the moment!
comrade billyboy
Edited by - comradebillyboy on 01/06/2002 22:54:59 |
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Trish
SFN Addict
USA
2102 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2002 : 01:41:38 [Permalink]
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quote:
trish, there are many very good schools which address your concerns well. A good secular private school, with average class sizes of 12 students, and no tolerance for delinquent behavior and a salary and benefits package 5% better than the local teachers union wins, and competent teachers, will produce excellent results. if your child could pass the entrance exams to this school, you would shell out at least $12,000 in tuition per annum.
Yeah, unfortunately I'm well aware of this.
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so long as public schools have to accept children who disrupt the educational process, it will be very difficult to establish a good learning environment.
Is there then nothing we can do?
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out of 100 students i'll usually have 5-10 difficult ones. that small group will rob me of many hours of productive teaching and keep the other students from learning as much as they would like. i might not be able to give your child the individual attention he/she merits because a fair amount of time is taken up in maintaing order. its not about the union making us lazy, but few of us are either emotionally equipped or have enought time to cater to each child's individual needs. private schools with small class sizes provide that kind of service.
I had a teacher sit there during conferences and tell me, 'I've been too lazy to work with students more advanced than the rest of the class.' Then she laughed and explained, 'But last year I had an assistant who could do that for me.'
I understand the time required for the class as a whole and it's difficult to expend time for those students who are more advanced. However, this was a second grade teacher. When I went to the principle with this problem I was basically told there was nothing she could do. And that she'd watched my child in class and she was interested and participating. I have a child who will try to get what she can out of any situation as a learning experience. I did manage to instill that in her. However, the behavior when she came home is another story. She didn't want to talk, was extremely moody and trying to start fights with me. Going as far as physically hitting me when we walked through the door. Her frustration level from trying to deal with school and not knowing how to express that frustration with what was going on was too much. And so she struck out where it was safe to do so. After she was out of the situation she finally explained that the teacher would have the kids sit with their heads on their desks while she would finish writing out her bills and take care of personal things. This isn't trying to keep the class in order because of a few disruptive students, this is a teacher who knows that she can't be fired and doesn't give a damn about her students. It's tragic at that age for the students.
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enough whining for the moment!
I hope I'm not whining. I am looking for solutions. What can be done to improve this. I understand something needs to happen with disruptive students. I really do. And I know that we don't pay our teachers what they are worth. I know we leave our teachers with no recourse in dealing with disruptive students. They are often time forced to keep them in class in the hopes that just maybe they might straighten out.
However, there has to be a workable solution to this problem. One where you are free to teach your class without having to deal with a student that doesn't care.
I would ask you, if students are caught early enough and encouraged in the classroom environment to learn do you think it would reduce or even potentially eliminate students that are disruptive? Is there something we can do to help teachers learn how to motivate their students to learn? Is there a way to improve the school system over all? I'm thinking from the top down. Cut a lot of the waste that is apparent in the schools upper and middle management levels. Get more of the money people throw at the problem to where it will do good.
There is no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. It underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've known. Sagan |
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Badger
Skeptic Friend
Canada
257 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2002 : 12:08:02 [Permalink]
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In my (redneck) opinion, I'd say if they cut out the frivolous stuff and concentrated on the basics the money that's there would be better leveraged.
What I mean is that all schools have computer labs now, that get upgraded every year, so kids who can't read or write can go surf the internet, go to chat rooms and share their bad english habits, and play video games. There is money spent on sports programs and equipment that could be better leveraged as well. There are field trips to watch movies, or go to petting zoo's (most of the kids in the local schools live ON FARMS). Leverage these $$ as well!
But hand in hand with that goes support for teachers. I've seen parents at parent teacher interviews with the "My Johnny is an angel, and you should pass him anyway. It's just too hard for him. It's hurting his self esteem." attitude. And that immediately undermines the teachers authority. Johnny thinks "I don't have to do this because I can pit my parents against the teacher, and my parents will believe me every time." And so Johnny loses because his parents don't have the backbone to see that maybe Johnny isn't so perfect, and do something to help Johnny achieve excellence. When the kids get bad grades or have social problems at school, as all kids do at one time or another, that's when the parents should step up to the plate and help out.
This support should come from the school system as well. Teachers should back eachother, and the principle should back his teachers, and the board should back the principles. Anything less undermines the authority of the whole system and it falls apart.
I have no idea how to get past all the lawsuits that taking back authority would incurr. Anyone have any ideas?
Just because we're hypnotized, that don't mean we can't dance. - Tonio K. |
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Trish
SFN Addict
USA
2102 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2002 : 14:59:30 [Permalink]
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quote:
But hand in hand with that goes support for teachers. I've seen parents at parent teacher interviews with the "My Johnny is an angel, and you should pass him anyway. It's just too hard for him. It's hurting his self esteem." attitude. And that immediately undermines the teachers authority. Johnny thinks "I don't have to do this because I can pit my parents against the teacher, and my parents will believe me every time." And so Johnny loses because his parents don't have the backbone to see that maybe Johnny isn't so perfect, and do something to help Johnny achieve excellence. When the kids get bad grades or have social problems at school, as all kids do at one time or another, that's when the parents should step up to the plate and help out.
I am talking about a child who if first grade was doing fractions (her first grade teacher is the one who started her on this stuff not me) and in second grade was given nothing more difficult than 9+9.
See and that's the problem too. There are a lot of parents who think their kids are smart and super geniuses and there are parents who have kids who are smart and they get frustrated with the system while their child gets frustrated and bored with the system. Where do we drawn then line? What is the minimum level each child should have to know before passing on to the next grade?
There is no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. It underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've known. Sagan |
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Donnie B.
Skeptic Friend
417 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2002 : 15:11:58 [Permalink]
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You know, this country has a lot of programs to support gifted students at the college level... scholarships and grants of all sorts.
Why isn't there something like this that applies at the elementary and secondary level? Why doesn't some organization provide grants to help pay the cost of private education for gifted kids?
Obviously, the government can't do this... too much "elitism". But a private foundation could.
-- Donnie B.
Brian: "No, no! You have to think for yourselves!" Crowd: "Yes! We have to think for ourselves!" |
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PhDreamer
SFN Regular
USA
925 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2002 : 15:12:27 [Permalink]
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quote:
This support should come from the school system as well. Teachers should back eachother, and the principle should back his teachers, and the board should back the principles. Anything less undermines the authority of the whole system and it falls apart.
I have no idea how to get past all the lawsuits that taking back authority would incurr. Anyone have any ideas?
Well, the original case law established that school officials act in loco parentis. It was intended to give teachers and principals rights equivalent to legal guardianship. It was a nearly unchallenged doctrine until the beginning of desegregation the 1950's and was basically ignored by 1969 but never legally overturned. It would be interesting to see if that doctrine could make a comeback.
My roomate is a high school Latin teacher, and a rather opinionated one. He is of the opinion that there is a noticeable difference in average student apathy between his students (which tend to be the creme de la creme) and our peers when we were in high school ten plus years ago, with today's students having the greater apathy. I can't objectively, or even subjectively evaluate his assertion, but he maintains that he's not the only staff member who has that opinion. Just food for thought.
Hmm, if only we could institute something really useful, like a moment of silence so the poor spiritually deprived students can properly acknowledge the creator that allows them to learn...
Oh right, the moment of silence could also be used to gather thoughts or meditate.
Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things. - Silent Bob
Edited by - phdreamer on 01/07/2002 15:26:17 |
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Trish
SFN Addict
USA
2102 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2002 : 15:27:17 [Permalink]
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quote:
My roomate is a high school Latin teacher, and a rather opinionated one. He is of the opinion that there is a noticeable difference in average student apathy between his students (which tend to be the creme de la creme) and our peers when we were in high school ten plus years ago, with today's students having the greater apathy. I can't objectively, or even subjectively evaluate his assertion, but he maintains that he's not the only staff member who has that opinion. Just food for thought.
I wonder then if there isn't at least a corallary inherent between the faster pace of video games and movies that our children play with and watch and the slower less *exciting* (for lack of a better term) pace of the learning environment.
A child is exposed, bombarded really, by fast, constantly changing, colors and sounds in the tv and in the video realm. This is designed to keep the attention and interest of the viewer. This is a deliberate and measured occurance when creating advertisements and video games. There are even studies to see how fast the mind can process images that are used when creating advertising. And the rate at which a person processes information from visual stimili has increased. Something like just under half a second is enough to process information. I know I improved my ability to see defects in my own animation despite running it at real time. I can even see a dropped frame going from CA to video which run at different rates 30fps vs. 27.73 fps. I know this because I had to learn to see dropped frames.
How does this expectation of changing stimuli affect a child in the learning environment where the changing stimuli is at a much slower pace? And is this in part the problem we are seeing with teaching kids in a standard classroom environment? In part the problem we are seeing with kids assumed to have ADD or ADHD when in actuality it is an inability to become absorbed in the slower pace of the classroom?
PhD and c-billyboy - I would really be interested in your opinions on this.
(This might make a good essay for SFN. I'll have to look into it and see if there is any support for this idea.)
There is no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. It underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've known. Sagan |
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Lisa
SFN Regular
USA
1223 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2002 : 16:26:47 [Permalink]
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I know several teachers who are outstanding, and will go to great lengths to make the subject matter interesting and relevant. Makes the lousy ones even more noticable. Why do you think Megan posted all those science questions over in the astronomy folder? She says her science teacher is a heck of a nice lady, but waaay out of her depth in regards to teaching science.
(Megan just IM'd me. If its clear tonight, we're going to look for Jupiter.)
Trish, your idea is an excellent one. What has happened to education? When I was in high school back in 197mumblemumble, passing grades were given to students who learned the material, not as a warm fuzzy. I realize self-esteem is important, but ultimately its the student who pays the price for these policies. Little Johnny or Jennifer might feel swell about their passing grades, but if they're not earned or deserved, college will be a rude wake-up call.
Lisa
If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room. |
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comradebillyboy
Skeptic Friend
USA
188 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2002 : 17:11:21 [Permalink]
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quote:
quote:
enough whining for the moment!
I hope I'm not whining. I am looking for solutions. What can be done to improve this. I understand something needs to happen with disruptive students.
I would ask you, if students are caught early enough and encouraged in the classroom environment to learn do you think it would reduce or even potentially eliminate students that are disruptive? Is there something we can do to help teachers learn how to motivate their students to learn? Is there a way to improve the school system over all? I'm thinking from the top down. Cut a lot of the waste that is apparent in the schools upper and middle management levels. Get more of the money people throw at the problem to where it will do good.
trish, i was not accusing you of whining, because your concerns are truly valid and i wanted to respond constructivly. i was saying "enough whining" from me. sorry if you thought i was taking a poke at you.
the solution to the problem is complex and expensive, but it mostly involves smaller classes and better trained teachers as well as a greater variety of schools to help the kids who dont fit the basic mold. vocational schools, apprenticeships, on the job training, tech schools would give students more meaninful choices, and reduce the disruptive effects of putting the square peg in the round hole.
with regard to the pace, i think we do over-tax the average teen's attention span. one of the most difficult things is to get average kids to actually focus on a problem for a reasonable time before he/she gives up. my honors students can focus very well, and i think they are adequatly challanged, and some of my lower level students really work hard to keep up, but i would like to get the students to be more persistant. its up to the teachers to be more adaptable, but we could use more help from the universities. sadly the quality of research done in colleges of education is shoddy, and a high proportion of their ideas are rubbish. really though, its a miracle that anyone who has enrolled in a typical college of education can teach anything. i learned more about teaching at my doggy obedience class.
at my school we still have enough students for 2 more full time math teachers, but none are to be found here in albuquerque, a metro area of about 600,000 folks. average class size for high school math classes here is 30-35 kids.
comrade billyboy
Edited by - comradebillyboy on 01/07/2002 17:30:21 |
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Badger
Skeptic Friend
Canada
257 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2002 : 17:30:48 [Permalink]
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Trish, you're comparing entertainment to learning. I know where you're coming from as the big revolution in video games when I was 13 was Pong IN COLOUR. Now adays, watching the boys play their games, I just get dizzy and frantic. And in the classroom, there is a kind of unwritten doctrine to keep the student's attention, to keep them interested and entertained. And back in the "good ole days, when I used to walk 2 miles to school and backin chin deep snow uphill both ways" we were EXPECTED to PAY attention. It was one thing we were to learn. We memorized things, did multiplication tables endlessly, wrote the alphabet, and sentences hundreds of times.
Why? What skills did we learn? First was to concentrate. Second was to keep at something until you got it. Third was disciplining our minds. There were probably other benefits.
I don't think the same kinds of things are learned today, and I think that the kids of today are at a disadvantage because of it.
With regard to the kid in 1st grade doing fractions etc, you got a genius on your hands who falls well outside the domain of the school system and needs special attention as they indeed have special skills. Donnie B, you got a good idea there about scholarships for younger kids.
Trish, I don't know if you want more of my thoughts, but I'll throw 'em out there anyway. With regard to the bombardment of images and information that kids today undergo on TV and in their video games, I think it does affect them. I see the effects in my boys. It seems to be a serious stressor, handling all that information that quickly, and it burns them out. As I stated before, I get dizzy and frantic when I watch them play. So many inputs coming so fast gets my adrenaline going, gets me on edge like i'm under threat. I think too much of that desensitizes a person, and maybe induces mild shell shock. Again, this is just my opinion based on personal observations and experiences. So take it for whatever that is worth.
PHDreamer, I don't know how well that would fly, but it's probably worth looking in to. Don't know if it's the same in Canada.
Just because we're hypnotized, that don't mean we can't dance. - Tonio K. |
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Trish
SFN Addict
USA
2102 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2002 : 17:41:19 [Permalink]
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First, I did not mean to imply that I was not interested in others opinions when I asked specifically for PhD and c-billyboy. It's just I know they are teachers - I probably should have included Zandermann since he also is a teacher. It's just that on a more fundamental level they are actually as close to these kids and sometimes closer to them than their own parents. I really was curious as to their opinions regarding whether video games seem to affect the attention of students in their classes. Or if they see the possibility of a corellary. (I know I'm misspelling that word.)
Yeah, Badger - she's extremely intelligent and getting bored with school. That first grader was my kid, five years ago. LOL, I wonder what happened. She ran into one bad teacher, one bad math program, and one bad school. Now we have to go back to pick up somethings she's missed. Hopefully, we'll fix it - and she still made the Honor Roll in school this last time round.
Now if I could just find those scholarships!
There is no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. It underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've known. Sagan |
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gezzam
SFN Regular
Australia
751 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2002 : 17:59:05 [Permalink]
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quote:
Trish, you're comparing entertainment to learning. I know where you're coming from as the big revolution in video games when I was 13 was Pong IN COLOUR. Now adays, watching the boys play their games, I just get dizzy and frantic. And in the classroom, there is a kind of unwritten doctrine to keep the student's attention, to keep them interested and entertained. And back in the "good ole days, when I used to walk 2 miles to school and backin chin deep snow uphill both ways" we were EXPECTED to PAY attention. It was one thing we were to learn. We memorized things, did multiplication tables endlessly, wrote the alphabet, and sentences hundreds of times.
It was the same in my day, we were not even allowed to use calculators until year ten. I look at my niece and nephew now and their grasp of mental arithmetic is terrible. They use their mobile phone calculators for the simplest of sums. This is why I am working my guts out now and putting 50 dollars a week into a bank account so when I do have kids (hopefully), I can send them to a good school so they get the best start possible to life.
Although, I might add, most of the things I learnt in school I do not use today in my career, however the knowledge that I gained, mostly through my own reading (I can't stress the importance of good books enough to kids) I do use. I read somewhere that as a race we are getting “stupider” - is that a word?? I look at most of the kids around, notice the way they talk and analyse things, and I have to agree. There is a wealth of information out there, but they prefer to sit in front of the telly with their Playstation.
Maybe we shouldn't go to senior school until we are adults, then we would be old enough to appreciate and absorb what we are being taught.
"Damn you people. Go back to your shanties." --- Shooter McGavin |
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PhDreamer
SFN Regular
USA
925 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2002 : 21:25:35 [Permalink]
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quote:
I wonder then if there isn't at least a corallary inherent between the faster pace of video games and movies that our children play with and watch and the slower less *exciting* (for lack of a better term) pace of the learning environment.
A child is exposed, bombarded really, by fast, constantly changing, colors and sounds in the tv and in the video realm. This is designed to keep the attention and interest of the viewer. This is a deliberate and measured occurance when creating advertisements and video games. There are even studies to see how fast the mind can process images that are used when creating advertising. And the rate at which a person processes information from visual stimili has increased. Something like just under half a second is enough to process information. I know I improved my ability to see defects in my own animation despite running it at real time. I can even see a dropped frame going from CA to video which run at different rates 30fps vs. 27.73 fps. I know this because I had to learn to see dropped frames.
Gosh, I love it when you talk all psychological Trish!  
Seriously, this is a perfect example of induction and IMO a worthy avenue of study. I'll admit that I don't know enough about attention to be of much use, but I don't think this contradicts anything I have learned. I have a few comments, though. It is possible that the parts of the brain that are most involved in video gaming have little to do with learning Shakespeare or the Pythagorean Theorem. Physiologically, learning is just about perfectly correlated with region-specific increases in the number of connections between neurons. It is true that some neurons form new pathways easier than others. The motor skills that are used for gaming are probably more evolutionarily useful than the methods of extracting meaning from poems. This is a similar theoretical justification why many educators have kids do various worksheets and other in-class manual tasks rather than
strictly verbal tasks.
quote:
How does this expectation of changing stimuli affect a child in the learning environment where the changing stimuli is at a much slower pace? And is this in part the problem we are seeing with teaching kids in a standard classroom environment? In part the problem we are seeing with kids assumed to have ADD or ADHD when in actuality it is an inability to become absorbed in the slower pace of the classroom?
I honestly don't have a clue how different rates of stimuli presentation affect learning. I imagine it might be quite complex and I'd just about guarantee that someone's already studied it. It is interesting, though, that you bring up environment. This is one of the things about attention that I do remember: most studies have shown that recall of learned information is significantly better if learning, studying and recall are all done in the same place. Once again, this is a complex issue, because things like studying at the school but in a different classroom will have lesser but varying effects. Even simple things like having a desk at home that mimics one's school desk will show measureable effects. Boy, I really ought to reread my attention textbook before my memory fails me (if it already hasn't).
Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things. - Silent Bob |
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PhDreamer
SFN Regular
USA
925 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2002 : 21:40:31 [Permalink]
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PHDreamer, I don't know how well that would fly, but it's probably worth looking in to. Don't know if it's the same in Canada.
My failure to use emoticons dooms me again.
One of the more insidious methods that U.S. Christians (yes, I'm singling them out) have taken recently to force vocal Christianity back into public schools is the 'moment of silence.' "It's not just prayer time," they say. "Kids can gather their thoughts or meditiate," they say. Well, I ain't buyin' it. My local school district last month voted to institute one minute of silence at the beginning of every school day. My roomate, the Latin teacher, said something along, "Jeez, just what we need, another time during the day when we have to make kids be absolutely quiet." I showed up at the school board meeting and didn't make it to the podium, so I wrote a couple of letters to the editor of the daily paper as facetiously as I could manage describing my displeasure with the school board's vote. Well, so far I have four responses of the 'atheist scum' motif and one supporting, from a guy in New York who was here on vacation ferchrissake!
Long story short, I was trying to be sarcastic and failed... Won't happen again... The failure thing, not the sarcasm thing.
Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things. - Silent Bob |
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