We Need More Atheist Teachers

Originally posted by josephw
Clinton is a socialist. She would completely ignore the constitution just as did Bill. Just as all the rest, democrat and republican. The whole political scene is pathetic.

I agree that the whole political scene is pathetic. I just don't think it is a good idea to vote in someone who would institute a theocracy if he could.

Originally posted by josephw
What we need are more teachers that can teach.

That's what I said!

Originally posted by pawnhandler
No, what we need is time and opportunity to teach, as opposed to everything being about passing standardized tests that were designed to fail half the test-takers to create an artificial bell curve. Hands-on, exploratory learning is the opposite of being able to fill in bubbles, and the latter is the focus. Students are required to learn more and more ...[text shortened]... tegies that research says match students' learning styles and have the most long-term benefits.

I LOVE standardized tests. I can't believe they are only a recent invention.

Originally posted by josephw
That would help. But public education is designed to produce workers, not thinkers.

Tell that to my seventh grade math teacher who explained to us what a two dimensional drawing of a three dimensional projection of a hypercube would look like.

Originally posted by ChronicLeaky
We need state involvement in education (both state-sponsored schools and laws making schooling compulsory) eliminated, is what we need.

I completely disagree (a rare occurrence). It's very well for children who have parents who have the resources and interest to make sure their children get a good and diversified education (either providing it themselves or finding/founding and paying for a good school). Unfortunately there are a lot of parents out there who don't have the competence, ability or interest to do so. If you eliminate state involvement completely, you'll have lots of children who get a very narrow education (or no education at all), learning only what their parents deem necessary. Even though most state schools or private schools that follow state regulations obviously are far from perfect, at least the children don't get indoctrinated, and the teachers or parents can't decide to leave out important subjects for personal reasons. I definitely think there should be variety in the available choice of schools, but I also think there needs to be some control over the quality of education.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
I LOVE standardized tests. I can't believe they are only a recent invention.

Recent? They're a hundred years old.

My school doesn't teach Social Studies/history/geography because it isn't on the standardized test. Instead, we have two hours a day of math, two of reading, and the remaining hour and a half combines writing with science as well as English as a second language. Their recess is 10-15 minutes before lunch. No computer, no art, no PE. Music in 4th grade is learning to play the violin (which is cool).

I would believe in standardized tests if they were fair and valid. If there was a test that tested what children at each grade level should know, that'd be great. I'd be all for it. But they won't make a test like that because too many children would pass it. There wouldn't be a bell curve.

Originally posted by PsychoPawn
I agree that the whole political scene is pathetic. I just don't think it is a good idea to vote in someone who would institute a theocracy if he could.

He had better not. A theocracy we don't need. Then someone would try to tell us how to live. I don't want any kind of government telling me how to live.

Originally posted by josephw
That would help. But public education is designed to produce workers, not thinkers.

That used to be true. That was a critical purpose of public education in the past. But as education tried to shift, someone discovered that children who could think couldn't spit out information on a test. The government decided that this made our education inferior, and so thinking was removed and rote information-spitting was resumed.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
I LOVE standardized tests. I can't believe they are only a recent invention.

Certainly not a recent invention, but when I grew up, they weren't much in use, at least not in Germany. I don't think I have ever done any standardised test. (I don't know how common they are in German schools now.)

Originally posted by josephw
He had better not. A theocracy we don't need. Then someone would try to tell us how to live. I don't want any kind of government telling me how to live.

Don't worry, he'd probably just be telling you specifically to live as you were and are.

It's us godless folk, jews, muslims, non-christians, homosexuals of all religions that would probably have to worry.

Originally posted by Nordlys
I completely disagree (a rare occurrence). It's very well for children who have parents who have the resources and interest to make sure their children get a good and diversified education (either providing it themselves or finding/founding and paying for a good school). Unfortunately there are a lot of parents out there who don't have the competence, abilit ...[text shortened]... of schools, but I also think there needs to be some control over the quality of education.

The flaw in this argument is that only parents are allowed the possibility of mediocrity. State schools are no better than the people that run them. Mediocre school administrators or teachers affect nearly every single child at their school, or in their classroom; a bad parent here or there affects only their own children.

Mandatory school attendance means that the handful of troublemaker kids [who have zero interest in learning and are basically like prisoners in the school] mess things up for the rest.

Originally posted by pawnhandler
That used to be true. That was a critical purpose of public education in the past. But as education tried to shift, someone discovered that children who could think couldn't spit out information on a test. The government decided that this made our education inferior, and so thinking was removed and rote information-spitting was resumed.

Actually from what I hear about education here in Norway as well as what my sister told me about her children's school in Belgium, the trend goes in the opposite direction. Today (in these places), there's a lot of focus on problem-solving, working independently or together with other children on self-chosen projects, discussion etc. When I went to school (in the 70's and 80's), the main teaching model was still to have a teacher standing in front of the class doing most of the talking, although it already started to change.

Originally posted by Nordlys
Actually from what I hear about education here in Norway as well as what my sister told me about her children's school in Belgium, the trend goes in the opposite direction. Today (in these places), there's a lot of focus on problem-solving, working independently or together with other children on self-chosen projects, discussion etc. When I went to school (i ...[text shortened]... ding in front of the class doing most of the talking, although it already started to change.

The model you speak of is what is taught in colleges here. That is what current research is saying is the best model. Unfortunately, we aren't allowed to actually use our education very often. No matter. We still get blamed as if we thought up the crappy things we have to do, as if we had any sort of classroom autonomy. That's one thing I miss about teaching in a parochial school. Their standardized tests weren't high-stakes and instead we could create thinkers and questioners and problem-solvers (for the most part).

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
I mean...do you really want people like Huckabee teaching your kids to do math? People like Bush teaching them about budgets?

"I didn't major in math," the former Arkansas governor told a cheering crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference meeting. "I majored in miracles."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080209/ap_on_el_pr/huckabee

I wasn't aware Huckabee wanted to teach math, I thought he was
running for public office. 🙂 You know how liberals are and math,
increase something from what was given the year before and they
call it a cut if they wanted to give more. 🙂
Kelly