More on teacher pay

[Nords]

... and Steve Tallarico as all of them learned to read, write and do arithmatic in our American Public School System.

You need to check out where Aerosmith's members received their "educations"-- about the only thing they got from public schools were evictions. But that's where the private system kicked in...

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

Nords, you have cited some excellent examples of people who have become very successful in life because of the dedicated efforts of their parents. As any good teacher will tell you, "Education begins at home." By the same token lets also give credit to the public school teachers who "made a difference" by also helping to educate Lucia & Philip Mocz, Tiger Woods, Ron Howard, The Wilson Brothers, and Steve Tallarico as all of them learned to read, write and do arithmatic in our American Public School System.

Uhh... sorry, can't resist in the context of the post: arithmatic?

P.S. BTW, I agree with the spirit of the post, if not the spelling .

 

[FinanceDude]

Uhh... sorry, can't resist in the context of the post: arithmatic?

P.S. BTW, I agree with the spirit of the post, if not the spelling .

Sarry for da spelin' errorz, I gues I waz sleepin' in Mrs. Armor's claz when she done did discuzz dem tings...........I turn oud otay............

 

[Retire Soon]

Well, I should have to write arithmetic on the chalkboard in front of the entire class at least 20 times! Reflecting on the past, I really feel guilty now knowing that I corrected all those innocent kids' spelling tests over the years in red ink, when I mistakenly thought I was such a perfect speller. Nevertheless, my untimely misspelled word does not change the fact that many famous people like Lucia & Philip Mocz, Tiger Woods, Ron Howard, Steve Tallarico, and the Wilson Brothers are all products of the American Public School System. Success stories such as these are what makes the profession so rewarding. Pleez aksept mi sinceer uhpolujee for this spelin errorr an awl fewchur wunz.

 

[Nords]

Nevertheless, my untimely misspelled word does not change the fact that many famous people like Lucia & Philip Mocz, Tiger Woods, Ron Howard, Steve Tallarico, and the Wilson Brothers are all products of the American Public School System.

Kindly cease putting words in my mouth. That alleged fact didn't come from me.

I have not said that any of those people are products of anyone's public school system, and WTE of the Mocz kids in high school I have no idea where they went to school. In fact if you'll read that previous post a bit more closely you'll see that their achievements had nothing to do with (nor were they achieved in) any kind of school. The Mocz kids put all their science-fair achievements together in their parents' labs & computers, not the school's.

My point is that parents are far more important to educational success than any school system or standardized exam scores. That accounts for the success of homeschooling & unschooling despite the interference of many government agencies.

 

[Retire Soon]

Nords,

I agree with you that, "All kids have the ability to become geniuses like Einstein or Mozart." I realize that you had no idea of whether the famous people that you cited attended private, public, or home schools, when you made the point that parents really matter in education. Well, by pure chance it turns out that every single one of your examples turned out to have attended public schools. The point that I am trying to make is that we need to be grateful to our public schools for their successes instead of blindly putting them down. Both public schools and all staff members should be very proud of their accomplishments. The following are the names of the famous people that you used as examples along with the public schools that each attended:

Lucia and Philip Mocz: Mililani High School, Mililani, Hawaii

Tiger Woods: Western High School, Anaheim, California

Ron Howard: John Burroughs High School, Burbank, California

Wilson Brothers (Beach Boys): Brian Wilson, Dennis Wilson and Carl Wilson all attended Hawthorne High School, Hawthorne, California

Steve Tallarico (Aerosmith) attended Roosevelt High School, Yonkers, New York

 

[dumpster56]

It suits the powers to say that our schools stink. Why? They want vouchers, they want to destroy the public schools, who is they?

Republicans.

 

[ladelfina]

newguy888.. I agree. "Starve the beast", they say. But the "beast" is anything that actually helps lots of average Americans. (When it comes to Halliburton, Monsanto or Exxon.. the buffet table is open.) Same thing with public transportation.. the crappier and more sporadic it is, the less people use it, so then they can say "low ridership -- why should we put more money into it?"


I think all kids have undeveloped potential. All kids do not have "the ability to become geniuses like Einstein or Mozart." When I see some of the Asian pianist talent "products" of this system of cultivation, they most usually have great technical training, but nothing in the way of genius or inspiration.

I think, too, that's it's not very useful to pick a handful of people as somehow demonstrating the efficacy of one system vs. another. The public school system serves millions and millions, and you pick a kid whose science project is "Computer-aided Identification of Cancer from Photomicrographs from Entropy Analysis"?? The fact that these kids' father was a university professor of biochemistry didn't have much do with that? To "analyse" entropy, you have to know differential equations, IIRC. To work with differential equations you have to have a good handle on calculus. I know at my public high school beginning calculus was as far as it went. Nor does it really make a case for homeschooling since few parents are university professors with unlimited access to electron microscopes.

[It's great that this handful of people had involved family mentors AND public schooling to support them... but WTF high school has to do with a career as a golfer or a rock musician or an actor/director, somebody please enlighten me.]

I don't think ONLY one OR the other alone can do it all. Homeschooling is a great option if you not only have the time and $$ to dedicate to it (gotta have 2 parents of whom one stays home, or be single and independently wealthy), but you yourself have as much of a handle on physics/music/calculus/biology/history/literature/foreign language(s) as do the battery of teachers in your local school put together. [If this is your case, hats off to you! Your kid will likely do great anyway..]. I worry about promoting private and home schooling at the expense of the kids without those family resources who then get left behind in schools which are ever in a guaranteed downward spiral. That will become increasingly costly to the US as a nation. Penny-wise and pound-foolish.

--
In Italy, my SIL is a high school science teacher, and she laments the fact that at age 15 some of her students can't convert a number in kilograms... to GRAMS. Along the lines of what Spanky suggests, though, she told me how she grades her students: 25% on having the "right answer", 25% on presentation (speaking, writing, delivery), 25% on "connecting" (putting more than one thing together to draw a conclusion), and 25% on "old material" (to make sure they are not just cramming but are retaining along the way). The educational culture here relies on country-wide standard tests, but they are oral and written (not computerized).. and there is oral "interrogation" (that's what they call it) in class basically every day. Also, the same teachers follow the kids over several years, and so have a better and more involved sense of their progress; they don't just get handed off to another teacher the following year, who starts from zero, then, with each kid. They maintain as much continuity as possible and that means the teachers get to know the kids, and also their family situations, much better. Of course the systems here is 'broken' in other ways...

----

We're a second chance society.

Maybe it would be interesting to list people who have had, or who have made their own, second chances?
Like Steve Jobs? Bill Gates? Ted Turner, Michael Dell.. all college drop-outs.

High-school dropouts include George Eastman, Ray Kroc, Peter Jennings, Richard Branson, and the Wright Brothers. H.G. Wells, Andrew Jackson, Robert Maxwell, John Jacob Astor, Michael Faraday, Jaron Lanier, Henry Ford, Maxim Gorky, John Major, and Albert Einstein. Noel Coward dropped out of elementary school.

Are there Japanese counterparts? In a rigid system of classrooms, tests and certificates, and social ostracism, I'd say unlikely.

Hurray for second chances!!! I think that's what makes America great!

 

[Retire Soon]

Sorry, I did not intend to get everyone so upset. I just thought that it was very interesting that every successful individual that Nords randomly chose attended public schools. Americans tend to be arrogant; probably because we consume more natural resources than any other country on the face of the earth. While we're busy patting ourselves on the back for being so intelligent and creative, Toyota will surpass GM in 2007 in becoming the world's largest automaker. We never learn from our past mistakes militarily either; we're now in a quagmire in Iraq in a conflict that has now lasted longer than World War II. Our children and even our grandchildren will be paying for this mistake in terms of higher taxes for the rest of their lives. The only thing we've gotton out of Iraq is a guided missile into our economy. We've never learned anything from the Japanese, nor have we learned anything from the Viet Nam conflict. We've even allowed our politicians to convince us that the millions of illegal immigrants crossing our borders are vital to the strength of our economy, while these criminals continue to drain our healthcare and educational systems.

 

[wabmester]

Maybe it would be interesting to list people who have had, or who have made their own, second chances?
Like Steve Jobs? Bill Gates? Ted Turner, Michael Dell.. all college drop-outs.

High-school dropouts include George Eastman, Ray Kroc, Peter Jennings, Richard Branson, and the Wright Brothers. H.G. Wells, Andrew Jackson, Robert Maxwell, John Jacob Astor, Michael Faraday, Jaron Lanier, Henry Ford, Maxim Gorky, John Major, and Albert Einstein. Noel Coward dropped out of elementary school.

To me, the more interesting question is what enabled these people to have the sucess they had. Most people will shrug their shoulders and say "genetics." But I'm sure that in many of these cases, these guys had:

1) a love of learning
2) access to an environment that allowed them to explore their world and follow their curiosity

So, how do we foster that in mainstream public schools? Do we have examples of methods that work and don't work?

Retire Soon indicated that he used to correct spelling mistakes in red pen. Personally, I think that's an example of a method that doesn't work. Who among us is inspired to learn when somebody points out our errors and simply corrects us?

Anybody familiar with Montessori schools? They basically create an environment in which students can explore subjects at their own pace. They create materials that are "self-correcting," so there is no stigma associated with making a "mistake." They foster a love of learning and self-directed exploration rather than focusing on a teacher-student paradigm of instruction. Their classrooms have students of a fairly wide age range so that students naturally form mentoring relationships.

Does it work? A lot of people think so. Some, like the founders of Google and Amazon, even credit their success to their early Montessori education.

Here in WA, there is finally a little momentum behind the idea of providing high-quality early education (say, from age 3) using proven teaching methods. It's still in the embryonic stage, but I'm hopeful. Our public school teachers will have a much easier time with kids who come out of Montessori-like early education programs. They'll be able to focus more on providing an education and less on discipline and crowd control.

 

[lets-retire]

While we're busy patting ourselves on the back for being so intelligent and creative, Toyota will surpass GM in 2007 in becoming the world's largest automaker.

This has nothing to do with education. It has more to do with management and unions.

We never learn from our past mistakes militarily either; we're now in a quagmire in Iraq in a conflict that has now lasted longer than World War II.

You're absolutely correct, but what do you expect when we turn our authority to act over to the UN. This is nothing more than an extension of the Iraq war that was started in 1990.

We've never learned anything from the Japanese, nor have we learned anything from the Viet Nam conflict.

You're correct there also. If we had learned anything form Viet Nam we should be staying in Iraq until the job is finished, not pulling out before the Iraqi government is ready to stand on its own. We've only been training their military and police forces for just short of 4 years. That is not enough for those forces to be considered veterans. Even in our own police and military forces people are not given any type of real authority until they have been on the job for several years at least 5, if they are sharp, but more like 7-10.

We've even allowed our politicians to convince us that the millions of illegal immigrants crossing our borders are vital to the strength of our economy, while these criminals continue to drain our healthcare and educational systems.

Can't argue with that. When your right your right.

 

[Patrick]

We've even allowed our politicians to convince us that the millions of illegal immigrants crossing our borders are vital to the strength of our economy, while these criminals continue to drain our healthcare and educational systems.

"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."

W. Durant - Opening Quote in Apocalypto

 

[ladelfina]

"When you're right, you're right."
I'm a 'liberal' but, when it comes to grammar, there's nothing like the red pen.

...millions of illegal immigrants crossing our borders are vital to the strength of our economy, while these criminals continue to drain our healthcare and educational systems.

Hey! Those are our new soldiers for the war escalation "surge"!!
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/w.../26/military_considers_recruiting_foreigners/

 

[lets-retire]

"When you're right, you're right."
I'm a 'liberal' but, when it comes to grammar, there's nothing like the red pen.

Hey! Those are our new soldiers for the war escalation "surge"!!
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/w.../26/military_considers_recruiting_foreigners/

DOH!! I saw that when I ran the spell checker, but forgot to go back and change it.

 

[donheff]

You're correct there also. If we had learned anything form Viet Nam we should be staying in Iraq until the job is finished, not pulling out before the Iraqi government is ready to stand on its own. We've only been training their military and police forces for just short of 4 years. That is not enough for those forces to be considered veterans. Even in our own police and military forces people are not given any type of real authority until they have been on the job for several years at least 5, if they are sharp, but more like 7-10.

There are lots of well trained veterans in Iraq. We sent them packing and they turned around and bit us in the ass. Duh.

 

[bosco]

You're absolutely correct, but what do you expect when we turn our authority to act over to the UN. This is nothing more than an extension of the Iraq war that was started in 1990.

This is a very puzzling statement. The present Iraq invasion is not a UN action. In fact, it is probably illegitimate under international law. As were the previous no-fly zones that the US and Britain imposed, citing UN resolutions as justifcation but without sanction of the UN.

Just because the UN passes a resolution does not make a vigilante action a UN action any more than it is a legal execution if I shoot a criminal after his trial and use the argument that he was sentenced to death anyway. But to turn around and say "the court made me do it--I turned over my authority to act to the court" is a gross perversion of reality.

I know people like to blame lots of ridiculous things on the UN, but in this case it's patently absurd. What this has to do with teacher's pay however...

If we had learned anything form Viet Nam we should be staying in Iraq until the job is finished, not pulling out before the Iraqi government is ready to stand on its own.

If we had learned anything from Viet Nam, we should have realized that people have a national identity and hate invaders. Just because the invaders are sanctioned by a puppet government doesn't mean the hearts and minds of the people will buy into it. You cannot impose democracy. It must be home-grown. A little more effort on preserving ours and a little less on cramming our version down other people's throats might be more productive....certainly cheaper.

 

[flipstress]

If we had learned anything from Viet Nam, we should have realized that people have a national identity and hate invaders. Just because the invaders are sanctioned by a puppet government doesn't mean the hearts and minds of the people will buy into it. You cannot impose democracy. It must be home-grown. A little more effort on preserving ours and a little less on cramming our version down other people's throats might be more productive....certainly cheaper.

Yehey, bosco--you da man!

 

[Retire Soon]

Iraq has nothing at all to do with education. However, it does serve as a good example of the arrogance of the American people. This is the same arrogant attitude that explains why we believe there is nothing to learn from another country's educational system, chiefly Japan. It's the same arrogant attitude that explains why we would attempt to impose democracy on a country in the Middle East. The "Domino Theory" that we incorrectly applied to a civil war in Vietnam cost us the lives of nearly 60,000 Americans. We falsely believed that if South Vietnam were to fall to communism, that surrounding countries would do the same.

After learning absolutely nothing from our mistakes in Vietnam, we attempted to justify an even newer philosophy for war, the "Reverse Domino Theory." That is, if Iraq would suddenly after many centuries become a democracy, that other countries would rise up and become democratic as well. Unfortunately, more than 25,000 American men and women are now dead or wounded because our congress was drawn into the now obvious ineptitude of this newer theory. On December 7th, Republican Senator Gordon Smith from Oregon had this to say on the Senate floor about the war in Iraq: "I, for one, am tired of paying the price of 10 or more of our troops dying a day. So let's cut and run or cut and walk, but let us fight the war on terror more intelligently that we have because we have fought this war in a very lamentable way."

Toyota will become the world's largest automaker in 2007. Their success is very simple: they manufacture more dependable cars, trucks, and SUV's. Due to this intense competition, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler are being forced to improve their vehicles, but Toyota is still may years ahead of them. One only needs to look at the surveys of vehicle owners in "Consumer Reports" to verify this as being fact and not merely opinion. Simply speaking, it's very misguided to blame unions for the fact that we see more American cars and trucks disabled on the sides of American highways and freeways than we do Japanese vehicles.


Toyota has better management, engineers and factory workers because they educate their citizenry more effectively than does the United States. It is specifically the same collective arrogance and false pride that caused needless, senseless and unnecessary involvement in foreign wars that also prevents us from humbly opening our eyes and learning something new from successful foreign educational systems.

 

[HFWR]

Would this be a good time to point out that many Toyotas and Hondas are manufactured in the USA?

Or maybe it would be better to change the subject to "boobs"...

 

[Retire Soon]

Whether a Honda or Toyota is manufactured in the United States, Mexico, or Japan, it's still a Japanese car, built with high Japanese standards for quality in factories designed by the Japanese. I would simply not purchase another Toyota Camry if it were built with General Motors or Ford quality standards. Don't forget that it is Ford and GM that are having serious financial problems, not Toyota.

 

[lets-retire]

This is a very puzzling statement. The present Iraq invasion is not a UN action.

Both you and Retire Soon are correct this has nothing to do with teacher pay, but since Retire Soon brought it up I felt it was necessary to comment.

I view the current increased escalation of military missions as nothing more than a continuation of the "first" Iraq war. We NEVER stopped bombing for any significant amount of time. Iraq had refused to comply with the UN resolutions passed. Iraq refused to live up to the agreements it made to keep the UN form kicking it's butt, and now the less willing are stating this war was for nothing. Sorry but in any past war if the losing side refused to live up to it's end of the peace treaty it would be forced into compliance, just like Iraq.

DonHeff--Many of those trained veterans were fighting against us and were loyal to the old Iraqi regime, only a fool would give them a gun and expect them to support the new government.