HS Senior rips his own graduating class.

[mr_genius]

No, they're actually very poorly done with lots of fallacious reasoning used behind them + he's been outed as being a hack moron who doesn't know his ass from educational policy in regards to his statements. That's why I'm against them.

 

 

yea

 

hey, i'm sure you and your fellow educators are doing what you think best.

 

no offense was really meant. peace bro

 

[LowerCaseRepublican]

yea

 

hey, i'm sure you and your fellow educators are doing what you think best.

 

no offense was really meant. peace bro

 

Yeah, I know. But Stossel is still an idiot who parades himself around as a supposed Libertarian but in actuality, he plays fast and loose with a lot of his facts + oft times ends up being a major league douche (i.e. when he said it was okay to price gouge supplies in hurricane ravage Katrina areas)

 

I've been around some very burnt out teachers and some teachers that don't want to 'rock the boat' as it were with materials in class. It's where I had the most fun doing that kind of stuff.

 

There's multiple causes for problems with certain schools:

1. FUNDING. The disparity in funding between individual districts is mindboggling. Check out Kozol's Savage Inequalities or Shame of the Nation for further information.

 

2. Parental involvement (or lack thereof). First the obvious, if parents are not involved -- it gets difficult in getting the kid to learn. Also, if the parent is reinforcing different behaviors, it can be difficult. Example -- during one afternoon, I broke up a fight between two 7th graders and as I was writing them up, one of the kids said "My dad said that it's okay that I did this!" No matter how many times I write the kid up, if it isn't being reinforced at home, it can cause problems -- especially if the parent and I end up disagreeing on when it is and isn't okay to give somebody five across the eyes.

 

3. Administration. Most of the time, they're good and take in concerns from staff etc., but there are the times where the admin just doesn't have your back in a situation on a consistent basis. That sucks major league ass in getting hung out to dry -- especially if you like to try new things in the classroom that haven't been tried much before. It is a deterrant to some new things being adapted.

 

4. Labor disputes between administration, community and teachers. Check out the funding stats for teachers across the nation with their wage not rising equally to their professional counterparts with the same educational level, etc. When a community either can't pay (poor district) or does not want to pay any more in taxes (greed, etc.) it causes problems for the whole school. That's not even getting into the crazy insane bulls*** that is charter schools which get to get around many of the labor laws in place to protect teachers.

 

5. Burnt out teachers/teachers that don't want to try new stuff because of either reprisal from parents or administration. There is a real detriment with the focus on low taxonomy level activities (i.e. check Bloom's Taxonomy) due to the inception of standardized testing being the focal point of the entire school year. It leads to simple memorization and dumping after the test instead of really working with and grasping the concept and being able to play around with it. The tests demand a wide bredth of material, that it demands many districts to cover 'a mile wide and an inch deep'. But there are also the teachers that just don't want to rock the boat. Some of the most fun I had during my student teaching was with my 7th graders. They really liked hip hop music so during the unit on Andrew Jackson, I said that Andrew Jackson was more of a hardcore gangsta than all of their favorite rappers. I talked about his duels, beating a would be assassin senseless with his cane, the party at the White House, doing what he wanted despite what the Supreme Court said, running banks his own way, etc. etc. Since I framed it in that manner regarding hip hop, the kids came in every day ready to hear me add to my case. On the test, I threw the question on there asking for them to discuss how Jackson was so hardcore.

 

You get a lot of people who are afraid of doing controversial contemporary issues/themes in the classroom, even though they apply to the course materials. After covering the Trail of Tears and Jackson's treatment of slaves + Native Americans, I went into a mini-unit on discrimination. I had the students research their ethnicity and their family to see what happened when their family came to the US and what happened to their family + ethnicity in the United States. Then everybody talked about how pretty much every damn ethnicity got harassed, treated poorly etc. It really hit home for them. But in talks with colleagues, some were worried that it would step on toes, etc.

 

That's all I can think of off the top of my head at damn near 2 AM CST.

[mr_genius]

all good points

 

teaching is a hard job, especially if parents don't do their part.

 

i can understand the frustration that at times must be involved. i guess i would get a bit pissed too if someone was telling me what was what when they've never done the job themself.

 

[My Dixie Normus]

First off, don't get me wrong. I am not anti-teacher. My sister is an assistant prinicple at my second oldest school. It is part of the system that is broken beyond repair.

 

I have not ignored all the data. I have read the article and many like it that are written by the teachers unions and the NEA. I just consider the source. The IFT is hardly an unbiased source on the issue.

 

And teachers may work long hours but you know what? So do the rest of us. Most of the working world does spend personal hours doing company business. I am not going to feel sorry for teachers. The average entry level teaching position in this state pulls down $37k (IFT data). Other states pull down over $50k plus. Not bad for 9 months of work. Within a few years on the job they are making pretty damn good coin.

 

Privatizing schools is merely code for "let's give the rich a good education and f*** everybody else."

 

That is what is happening now. To blame the current condition on the recommended solution is… well, as you say, moronic. The inner city and rural poor schools are already suffering under THIS system. Every current failure measurement is 20% greater in these areas. The teachers unions do a good job of distributing blame, as do the politicians and administrators. The rich are already getting a good education. It is this system that is f***ing everybody else.

 

The rich will always have nicer schools, teachers with higher degrees and bigger gyms. They also have bigger houses, faster cars and wives with bigger, firmer boobs. That is what money buys you. Better s***. It is what motivates people to get rich in the first place. But that is not the reason that the inner city schools fail. Stop blaming successful people for the failures of everyone else.

 

Public education fails because success is not a component of the mission statement. The mission under a government run education system is equal access. A for profit education system could thrive in the inner cities with money already being spent there. It would produce better results than the 32% success rates we are getting now. They might not be able to play Lacrosse when they graduate but they will be able to read and write. Those skills come in handy when you are filling out your college application and financial aid applications.

[NorthSideSox72]

This thread is hilarious. The same right-wingers (to borrow a phrase) who complain about the schools sucking are calling this kid, who agreed with them and had the balls to express it in the open, a whining f***tard who couldn't get a date.

[RockRaines]

the kid who stood up to the blind eye of administration and the aforementioned dumbass athletes. Schools aren't farm leagues for sports, they are supposed to be a place of learning, one that was being corrupted by a bunch of duke lacrosse assholes.

Duke lacrosse assholes? It was being corrupted by several athletes who were falsely accused of rape by a stripper? I dont even see how that makes sense?

 

Here's the real story behind this: This kid was a complete loser in school, didn't have any friends and just hated high school all together. So he decided to come out and b**** about the school.

 

Everything he said happens at every single high school.

Ding!

[LowerCaseRepublican]

First off, don't get me wrong. I am not anti-teacher. My sister is an assistant prinicple at my second oldest school. It is part of the system that is broken beyond repair.

 

I have not ignored all the data. I have read the article and many like it that are written by the teachers unions and the NEA. I just consider the source. The IFT is hardly an unbiased source on the issue.

 

And teachers may work long hours but you know what? So do the rest of us. Most of the working world does spend personal hours doing company business. I am not going to feel sorry for teachers. The average entry level teaching position in this state pulls down $37k (IFT data). Other states pull down over $50k plus. Not bad for 9 months of work. Within a few years on the job they are making pretty damn good coin.

 

 

 

That is what is happening now. To blame the current condition on the recommended solution is… well, as you say, moronic. The inner city and rural poor schools are already suffering under THIS system. Every current failure measurement is 20% greater in these areas. The teachers unions do a good job of distributing blame, as do the politicians and administrators. The rich are already getting a good education. It is this system that is f***ing everybody else.

 

The rich will always have nicer schools, teachers with higher degrees and bigger gyms. They also have bigger houses, faster cars and wives with bigger, firmer boobs. That is what money buys you. Better s***. It is what motivates people to get rich in the first place. But that is not the reason that the inner city schools fail. Stop blaming successful people for the failures of everyone else.

 

Public education fails because success is not a component of the mission statement. The mission under a government run education system is equal access. A for profit education system could thrive in the inner cities with money already being spent there. It would produce better results than the 32% success rates we are getting now. They might not be able to play Lacrosse when they graduate but they will be able to read and write. Those skills come in handy when you are filling out your college application and financial aid applications.

The average is a poor data set to choose for this argument because certain districts can greatly skew the data comparatively to a district who can't afford to pay as much. And I don't know how equal doing company work at home is to "coming home, grading 95+ 3 page papers, putting those scores in the gradebook, looking over the text for the next lesson, preparing overheads/media (if needed), preparing the lesson plan to appease the state standards, preparing all the supplements you'll need for class discussion/presentation and deciding what their new homework should be". It can easily take 7+ hours to get all that done (excluding 20-30 minutes for food)

 

The system can easily change by not having property taxes being the primary funder of schools. It gives every school the basic common ground to at least start things even compared to schools that can't afford to have science equipment, etc. because their district can't get the proverbial 'blood from the turnip'.

 

Hell, I'm an advocate of the 240 day school year -- with fewer classes being taught per day in smaller classrooms (19-20 students) which allows for more student/teacher interaction on homework, topics, discussion, etc.

 

The idea of a for profit school system is good in theory but it has failed to work since it was first introduced after Brown v Board in 1954. It started as a way for white parents to avoid integrating. Public schools fail poor and minority students for a number of reasons, including the nation's inadequate and savagely unequal structure for distributing public school resources between and among schools and school districts. Voucher programs will worsen that by draining money from the poorest public schools and providing public subsidies to private schools that tend to have middle- and upper-class students over children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

 

http://www.zmag.org/content/Race/vouchers.cfm -- a lot more info about school vouchers and their failure.

[Rex Kickass]

The Valedictorian of my high school class had to get an injunction to be allowed to speak at our graduation ceremony because of what he wanted to say. This happens a lot more often than most realize I think.

[bmags]

Duke lacrosse assholes? It was being corrupted by several athletes who were falsely accused of rape by a stripper? I dont even see how that makes sense?

Ding!

 

the duke lacrosse players have been alleged to have been the biggest douche bags at the school, guilty or not of their crime, and therefore have become the symbol of asshole "jocks". I was not implying that the duke lacrosse assholes corrupted this school. Anyone with a reasonable intellect could have figured that out.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

This thread is hilarious. The same right-wingers (to borrow a phrase) who complain about the schools sucking are calling this kid, who agreed with them and had the balls to express it in the open, a whining f***tard who couldn't get a date.

 

Right wingers were the one trashing this kid? Im the king of the right wingers around here and I praised him.

 

[EvilMonkey]

And I don't know how equal doing company work at home is to "coming home, grading 95+ 3 page papers, putting those scores in the gradebook, looking over the text for the next lesson, preparing overheads/media (if needed), preparing the lesson plan to appease the state standards, preparing all the supplements you'll need for class discussion/presentation and deciding what their new homework should be". It can easily take 7+ hours to get all that done (excluding 20-30 minutes for food)

You do this every day? Your students must hate you , having to turn in a 3-page paper every day. And don't you prepare the basics of your lesson plan earlier than the day before you need it? And what are the actual hours you are working at the school? My older kids classes run from 7:45 until 2:15pm. That's 6.5 hours. That includes 'lunch', and 'study hall'. I work almost twice that every day. I guess it is your turn for the small violin to play.

[Soxy]

You do this every day? Your students must hate you , having to turn in a 3-page paper every day. And don't you prepare the basics of your lesson plan earlier than the day before you need it? And what are the actual hours you are working at the school? My older kids classes run from 7:45 until 2:15pm. That's 6.5 hours. That includes 'lunch', and 'study hall'. I work almost twice that every day. I guess it is your turn for the small violin to play.

Lesson plans cannot always be fully anticipated. Some (seemingly easy concepts) can take students an entire lesson to grasp, while other (seemingly difficult) concepts they get quickly. Granted my teaching experience is at a university, but I would say that for every hour I am in class teaching I spend 4-5 hours prepping (when I am lecturing only I usually spend between 8-10 hours writing and researching my lecture). So, don't act like teaching isn't a real full-time job.

[EvilMonkey]

Lesson plans cannot always be fully anticipated. Some (seemingly easy concepts) can take students an So, don't act like teaching isn't a real full-time job.

I didn't intend to. I just wanted to point out that he wasn't doing all that, every day. There will be days of 4-5 hour prep, and there will be days he can pick his nose. We all work hard for our money. And as he pointed out, not all teachers are in 'rich' districs. Likewise, not all are in 'poor' districts. Teachers in moderate to well-off districts can make out pretty damn well, especially in the benefits area, which more and more of the working population do not have.

[LowerCaseRepublican]

You do this every day? Your students must hate you , having to turn in a 3-page paper every day. And don't you prepare the basics of your lesson plan earlier than the day before you need it? And what are the actual hours you are working at the school? My older kids classes run from 7:45 until 2:15pm. That's 6.5 hours. That includes 'lunch', and 'study hall'. I work almost twice that every day. I guess it is your turn for the small violin to play.

I usually give homework every day except for test day (or if they already have a project to write) so almost every day I'm grading an assignment of some sort. Sometimes it is short answer questions, sometimes projects, etc.

 

My professional hours are 7:45-3:15 pm Mon-Fri. (that's not counting if I had to hand out class detentions which would make me stay longer as I'd be watching those detentions myself)

 

After that is food, grading (even the short answer stuff can take a while to grade because you have to run through 90+ papers, write comments, make sure they hit the major topics/points, etc.), the paperwork of the formal lesson plan which takes a long time merely because I have to look up the very malleable state standards and see how I could get them to apply (they're either incredibly specific or obnoxiously vague) and write out what I want to do for that lesson. Then it is finding the supplements, getting them ready for copying (sometimes this means typing them up, other times getting them out of books -- Reasoning With Democratic Values kicks major league ass as a resource) If you're using music, you gotta edit dirty words out and check it before hand. Same thing with screening movies beforehand.

 

I have the basics of what I want to do for the whole unit planned out to start with -- it is the nuts and bolts of making the individual lessons that becomes the tricky part because each individual class during the day may have different styles of 'getting' information so you have to accomodate for that.

 

It really gets time consuming really fast.

[3 BeWareTheNewSox 5]

"The high school senior in Punta Gorda, Fla., has gained national attention after giving a graduation speech that depicted his school as full of cheating, drug use and preferential treatment for athletes".

 

Sounds like every high school in America, mine included.

 

I give the kid credit though, I had (still are friends with) many high school friends, kept closer those that I shared interests with, but was still annoyed with the drug use. I dealed with it, just refused when offered, but don't fault him for making it a presentable issue.

 

Don't care about what people do on their own time, but got sick of the marijuana stench from the kid in front of me in my class at 7 am, and found it funny that I had to pay $75 for a bogus ticket but frequently saw smoke coming from the stalls or kids with joints while walking to school or during gym class.

 

Jock preferrential treatment was also true. If I was late or absent I had to go to the dean's office and go under a congressional type hearing only to get detention or suspension, while the basketball player was able to come in a couple hours late after the admitted excuse of being a little tired from the basketball game last night (doesn't help when the basketball coach is the dean)

 

Cheating was easy for friends, many teachers were oblivious to some of the methods being used. Always a way to beat it.

 

Also wanted to add though, it says he's going to the University of Florida, yeahh, he'll see that a lot of things don't change