Cooperation not Competition...

your move now

maybe the point is that you can't blame the teachers, it's not their job to instil moral behaviours/raise the children

Go Beavers

blueandwhite wrote:

I've always wondered; is education the most despised career choice in the US? A lot of the posts on the train would lend me to believe that being a welfare mom is a step up from being a teacher in the United States.

I'll generalize about people who are negative about teachers with the following description. They tend to think that public school is a form of liberal indoctrination, they tend to be anti-union so most negatives about public school are therefore the fault of unions, they tend to have had negative school/teacher experiences. and their view is that education is means to a job.

Byrnzie

RW81233 wrote:

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/#.Tv8a8s6YIgJ.facebook

You mean when you severely diminish economic inequality, pay teachers what they are worth, and give them the responsibilty to assess students the students outperform American kids and compete with the best students in the world? I'll be damned...

Interesting article. I remember reading somewhere that Finnish school pupils spend the least hours at school of any other pupils in Europe, yet they get the best grades of any European country.

In China school pupils begin school at 7am and leave at 5pm, six days a week, with about 2-3 hours of homework to do every evening.

RW81233

Byrnzie wrote:

RW81233 wrote:

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/#.Tv8a8s6YIgJ.facebook

You mean when you severely diminish economic inequality, pay teachers what they are worth, and give them the responsibilty to assess students the students outperform American kids and compete with the best students in the world? I'll be damned...

Interesting article. I remember reading somewhere that Finnish school pupils spend the least hours at school of any other pupils in Europe, yet they get the best grades of any European country.

In China school pupils begin school at 7am and leave at 5pm, six days a week, with about 2-3 hours of homework to do every evening.

Yea two wildly different forms of schooling that have success. Finland also has a real aversion to failing students - even those that are immigrants and are learning a second language get remedial time with teachers so that they catch up.

FiveB247x

Yes - we have more self-involved people, lots more unfit people having children which sets forth a child not having the proper foundations to succeed in life and in turn puts forth the cycle for the child to grow up in such an environment and emulate it for their own children. Education and teaching come under scrutiny more because they are expected to not only teach, but to become moral leaders and baby sitters because the families are dropping the ball.

Go Beavers wrote:

FiveB247x wrote:

Perhaps the problem isn't always the schools or teachers (whether private or public), but instead the parenting of children which instill kids with the necessary attention and morals to succeed. Look around our nation, that's what has changed most and the root cause of why our education system has been on the decline...but instead of addressing that, we think we can throw money at the problem and it obviously doesn't work.

What, in regard to parenting, has changed over time that's effected education. You're saying less attention at home and moral decline?

photogirlliz

FiveB247x wrote:

Education and teaching come under scrutiny more because they are expected to not only teach, but to become moral leaders and baby sitters because the families are dropping the ball.

YES!

Something else I've noticed, in addition to parents dropping the ball, is that parents don't seem to want to hear anything negative about their children...I mean, they're perfect, right? :roll: It seems teachers are being blamed for things that children, themselves, used to be blamed for (i.e.: bad grades, bad behavior, etc...). I have found an increasing number of parents refuse to hold their kids accountable for anything now...or better yet themselves.

FiveB247x

Absolutely. We have this nonsensical mantra we try and convince society, that every child is smart, special and never needs adjustment, punishment or to work harder. Instead we adjust grading and how to move kids through the system and the end result is we have a dumber society incapable of holding their own in the real world, and the educational system and process as a result is lessened and compromised.

photogirlliz wrote:

FiveB247x wrote:

Education and teaching come under scrutiny more because they are expected to not only teach, but to become moral leaders and baby sitters because the families are dropping the ball.

YES!

Something else I've noticed, in addition to parents dropping the ball, is that parents don't seem to want to hear anything negative about their children...I mean, they're perfect, right? :roll: It seems teachers are being blamed for things that children, themselves, used to be blamed for (i.e.: bad grades, bad behavior, etc...). I have found an increasing number of parents refuse to hold their kids accountable for anything now...or better yet themselves.

inlet13

photogirlliz wrote:

FiveB247x wrote:

Education and teaching come under scrutiny more because they are expected to not only teach, but to become moral leaders and baby sitters because the families are dropping the ball.

YES!

Something else I've noticed, in addition to parents dropping the ball, is that parents don't seem to want to hear anything negative about their children...I mean, they're perfect, right? :roll: It seems teachers are being blamed for things that children, themselves, used to be blamed for (i.e.: bad grades, bad behavior, etc...). I have found an increasing number of parents refuse to hold their kids accountable for anything now...or better yet themselves.

I agree with both of you. And, in my opinion, when extended... these points run 100% in opposition to the original poster's points.

In general, our society has changed from a society based on individual responsibility and competition, to a society based on shared responsibility and "cooperation".... the problem with shared responsibility and cooperation is no one wants the blame when things don't work. The blame is typically tossed at "the man"... yet, "the man" is needed. In this case, "the man" is the teacher, not the student. The teacher is also getting flack from top down. That's why cooperation breaks down. Incentives are placed on the teacher to coddle and please the student, not teach them. The teacher doesn't want to deal with crazy parents, nor do they want to deal with poor reviews and the aftermath from their supervisor. The easy out is to be "liked"... which doesn't necessarily mean "be a good teacher". To me, teachers are paid plenty... this doesn't have to do with salaries, it has to do with incentives.

The token example here is the "everyone gets a trophy" and "everyone wins" BS that is now pervasive in child sports. It's idiotic, and it helps contribute to this "gimme my trophy or grade or job or great salary" philosophy.

Competition and individual responsibility is the answer... not the problem. The problem is we've moved towards this shared approach and it's pretty much too late to get out. It's pervasive now in our culture.

RW81233

but wasn't the entire article about the fact that cooperation can and does work? saying we operate within a very cooperative educational system is just patently untrue. Finland doesn't use standardized tests, don't fail students, pay their teachers and they compete at the highest level.

FiveB247x

True - I can't speak on behalf of other posters, but my point is solely, our society and culture do no create good environments for students. Part of that could be the teachers, the system or similar, but the largest part is the fact of our parents not putting their children in the right path to succeed.

RW81233 wrote:

but wasn't the entire article about the fact that cooperation can and does work? saying we operate within a very cooperative educational system is just patently untrue. Finland doesn't use standardized tests, don't fail students, pay their teachers and they compete at the highest level.

Go Beavers

FiveB247x wrote:

Yes - we have more self-involved people, lots more unfit people having children which sets forth a child not having the proper foundations to succeed in life and in turn puts forth the cycle for the child to grow up in such an environment and emulate it for their own children. Education and teaching come under scrutiny more because they are expected to not only teach, but to become moral leaders and baby sitters because the families are dropping the ball.

I disagree that there are more families in moral decline and dropping the ball with regard to being supportive of education then there were in the past. When put in historical context, the problems related to education have been defined due to the change in societies expectations around education and what's acceptable. If you look over the last 20 years, the drop-out rate has been decreasing significantly as a result of raised expectations by communities, teachers, and school systems. If you go back far enough, it was widely accepted that someone could drop out of school around the 8th grade or so in order to work on the farm and this wasn't a problem.

Therefore, the problem arises when the expectation is set the everyone should graduate from high school. If you had this expectation 80 years ago, you would see the same lack of support (or whatever you want to call it) from families. In the past, the expectation was dropped in response to the family system that the student was in, now the expectation is raised, which clashes with certain families who aren't supporting this for a myriad of reasons. So, parents aren't necessarily worse than they were in the past, in fact there could be fewer parents proportionately that fit the definition of "bad parents" (however that gets defined).

FiveB247x

I agree with your premise, but I think it's doesn't exactly sync with reality. Albeit expectations have been raised, many more people are swept through the system, so the dropout rate may not be exact. Also and more importantly, regardless of graduation rates or not, testing has clearly shown in most basic subjects (math, history, reading levels) that our results have been declining as well in comparison to the rest of the world which tells us although people are graduating, the results of "education" are not successful and have been lowered even though the expectation of graduation and move ahead in life had higher hopes. ie..something is a miss as these two concepts are in direct opposition of one another which leads me to believe the drop out rates and graduation rates are far less significant. It's more important to see what kind of people we are producing in society as a result of education in comparison to just saying, congrats, you passed. Also, something that hasn't been mention is the size of the population which makes me wonder about the numbers of people passing through the education system ...ie, exponentially increased failures at the output of education system.

Go Beavers wrote:

FiveB247x wrote:

Yes - we have more self-involved people, lots more unfit people having children which sets forth a child not having the proper foundations to succeed in life and in turn puts forth the cycle for the child to grow up in such an environment and emulate it for their own children. Education and teaching come under scrutiny more because they are expected to not only teach, but to become moral leaders and baby sitters because the families are dropping the ball.

I disagree that there are more families in moral decline and dropping the ball with regard to being supportive of education then there were in the past. When put in historical context, the problems related to education have been defined due to the change in societies expectations around education and what's acceptable. If you look over the last 20 years, the drop-out rate has been decreasing significantly as a result of raised expectations by communities, teachers, and school systems. If you go back far enough, it was widely accepted that someone could drop out of school around the 8th grade or so in order to work on the farm and this wasn't a problem.

Therefore, the problem arises when the expectation is set the everyone should graduate from high school. If you had this expectation 80 years ago, you would see the same lack of support (or whatever you want to call it) from families. In the past, the expectation was dropped in response to the family system that the student was in, now the expectation is raised, which clashes with certain families who aren't supporting this for a myriad of reasons. So, parents aren't necessarily worse than they were in the past, in fact there could be fewer parents proportionately that fit the definition of "bad parents" (however that gets defined).

inlet13

RW81233 wrote:

but wasn't the entire article about the fact that cooperation can and does work? saying we operate within a very cooperative educational system is just patently untrue. Finland doesn't use standardized tests, don't fail students, pay their teachers and they compete at the highest level.

I think the term "cooperation" is a misnomer and is being applied as if it's the opposite of competition, which is obviously not the case. Since I knew you meant anti-competition by cooperation, I went along with your meaning too in my last post... but, the truth is the word is inappropriately used here. For example, you can engage in competition and there can be cooperation involved. They aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, in order to "grade" or "compare" Finland to any other educational system, that is a form of "competition".

On to your point, I agree that we don't operate in a very cooperative system. However, I do believe we're moving more and more towards a very "un-competitive" system (once again - I thought that's what you meant by the word cooperation). That said, I believe we have layers of what is hoped to be a cooperative environment. Since America is so large, this turns into bureaucracy and red tape. The major issue is incentives.

As I stated in my last post, part of the problem with the educational system is parenting. Parents don't believe the problem could be their child; in general, they think their child should never "fail" (which it seems you state is a good thing in your post above). So, they blame the teacher when their child gets poor grades. The teacher shares a portion of the blame. Some teachers focus on keeping their job above teaching. Sometimes, this involves grade inflation or dumbing down. Further, in many cases, teachers continue the anti-competition mantra through unions and beliefs that the best teachers shouldn't be rewarded and the worst teachers shouldn't be fired. Finally, the system itself results in problems because it's a giant bureaucracy, particularly in America. This may not be a problem in a tiny country, but it is here. Standards shouldn't come top down in a bureaucratic way. Competition would never encourage that. Regardless, the system doesn't necessarily have incentives to properly monitor performance. In fact, monitoring performance may not make anything better, unless monitoring would allow for real improvements to take place. But, then we get back to unions and teacher rewards/punishments.

In my opinion, the cure to all this would start with blowing up the Department of Education. They do nothing well, are an old, tired and unadaptive government sect, and just add to this bureaucratic mess. This would leave educational decisions to made at the more local/personal level and, in doing so, not have to adhere to national or federal rules, etc. I think this would help in a number of areas - like encouraging teachers to be good teachers rather than well-liked teachers, and would eliminate much of the top down problems. The family dynamic (personal responsibility) may not change with this right away, but it would be forced to adapt over time... because unreasoned complaints to teachers would be turned back quickly.

CH156378

inlet13 wrote:

In my opinion, the cure to all this would start with blowing up the Department of Education.

Reported.

FiveB247x

?? I don't think this was meant in a violent manner, but merely a symbolic statement to start over. The poster made it clear with lots of info bout making changes.

CH156378 wrote:

inlet13 wrote:

In my opinion, the cure to all this would start with blowing up the Department of Education.

Reported.

CH156378

FiveB247x wrote:

?? I don't think this was meant in a violent manner, but merely a symbolic statement to start over. The poster made it clear with lots of info bout making changes.

CH156378 wrote:

inlet13 wrote:

In my opinion, the cure to all this would start with blowing up the Department of Education.

Reported.

I disagree. In these days and times you would think someone would be smart enough to choose their words more carefully. Especially when it comes to a politically charged topic. This type of rhetoric is dangerous.

FiveB247x

That's a vast over-reaction and unnecessary. You took one sentence (a few words) out of 3 paragraphs which were well articulated bout changes they felt were necessary to the Dept of Education. You took that one comment out of context - perhaps if it stood alone, I could see your point, but considering the rest was included, I find it way out of line.

I find it funny in our society that that people have become so fearful and/or hyper-sensitive, the simple act of using words or speech, that somehow creates the actions they describe. Making a comment is just words, calling someone a negative name is words; but thinking that automatically equates to the action or taking those words out of context just means you're over analyzing, witch-hunting or just so leery of society, it's beyond low and sad. This is what Orwell discusses in 1984 as well...which is quite a pathetic statement about our society and culture.

CH156378 wrote:

I disagree. In these days and times you would think someone would be smart enough to choose their words more carefully. Especially when it comes to a politically charged topic. This type of rhetoric is dangerous.

catefrances

"Here in America," Sahlberg said at the Teachers College, "parents can choose to take their kids to private schools. It's the same idea of a marketplace that applies to, say, shops. Schools are a shop and parents can buy what ever they want. In Finland parents can also choose. But the options are all the same."

and herein lies the problem, one we have here in australia as well... not every parent can choose which school to send their little darlings to. here in australia, or should i say new south wales, you must send your child to the local school. though you can apply to send your child to an 'out of area' school there must be a valid reason, such as closer to parents workplace... that kind of thing. and even then theres no guarantee cause the school has to have room for your 'out of area' child and your need must be greater than some other parent. sibling precedence can play a part as well. you simply can not send your child to any school you desire. if you live in a low socio economic area you cant bypass the local school purely because you know of one that is better staffed, has better resources, has less 'problems'. oh hang on a minute yes you can, you can send you child to a parochial school, an independent school or a bank account draining private school which chances are youre helping to fund to an extent anyway cause the government funds them to an extent too. as you can imagine i do not see this as a choice.

CH156378

FiveB247x wrote:

That's a vast over-reaction and unnecessary. You took one sentence (a few words) out of 3 paragraphs which were well articulated bout changes they felt were necessary to the Dept of Education. You took that one comment out of context - perhaps if it stood alone, I could see your point, but considering the rest was included, I find it way out of line.

I find it funny in our society that that people have become so fearful and/or hyper-sensitive, the simple act of using words or speech, that somehow creates the actions they describe. Making a comment is just words, calling someone a negative name is words; but thinking that automatically equates to the action or taking those words out of context just means you're over analyzing, witch-hunting or just so leery of society, it's beyond low and sad. This is what Orwell discusses in 1984 as well...which is quite a pathetic statement about our society and culture.

CH156378 wrote:

I disagree. In these days and times you would think someone would be smart enough to choose their words more carefully. Especially when it comes to a politically charged topic. This type of rhetoric is dangerous.

Just words? I'm surprised. I've seen some very interesting things here on the train and have learned a great deal. I would say I was a little bit taken aback when I read the disscussed post. This was the first time I have ever read a threat of violence here on the train. It wasn't just some random sentence. It was the first sentence of his final paragraph/opinion. Threats should be taken seriously. In fact someone ought contact the proper authorities in cases like this.

inlet13

FiveB247x wrote:

That's a vast over-reaction and unnecessary. You took one sentence (a few words) out of 3 paragraphs which were well articulated bout changes they felt were necessary to the Dept of Education. You took that one comment out of context - perhaps if it stood alone, I could see your point, but considering the rest was included, I find it way out of line.

I find it funny in our society that that people have become so fearful and/or hyper-sensitive, the simple act of using words or speech, that somehow creates the actions they describe. Making a comment is just words, calling someone a negative name is words; but thinking that automatically equates to the action or taking those words out of context just means you're over analyzing, witch-hunting or just so leery of society, it's beyond low and sad. This is what Orwell discusses in 1984 as well...which is quite a pathetic statement about our society and culture.

CH156378 wrote:

I disagree. In these days and times you would think someone would be smart enough to choose their words more carefully. Especially when it comes to a politically charged topic. This type of rhetoric is dangerous.

FiveB247x: I wouldn't worry about arguing your point here; although I don't post with the frequency of some here, over the past 6 months I come in occasionally and do post. My point of view is not the majority opinion, which is fine... I'm pretty much a libertarian. That doesn't really matter. Anyway, this individual "CH156378" doesn't like what I have to offer and uses any chance he can to try show that, but unfortunately does so in a immature manner (at least in my opinion). If he/she actually offered alternative ideas, I think that would certainly add to the debate. But, this is another example that he/she doesn't really wish to do such.

In conclusion, you're absolutely right. I would never advocate violence and obviously did not mean blow up literally, but rather meant it as a term meaning quickly dismantle or do away with quickly legislatively... personally, I think it's very 3rd grade that I would have to explain this and know for certain that PJ staff would agree.... hence why his/her reporting will do nothing, but make him/her look silly. In fact, I'm quite sure every single person who disagrees with my point of view in this thread would quickly say that CH156378 acting irrationally for bringing this up, particularly if they read the post in full context.

Now back to the point of my post and not this side-tracking...