Do you support grade/discipline based segregation in schools ?

[Sava]

Originally posted by Kidicious


The problem and/or the solution is not the teachers, it's the students. Teachers in the US are already very well trained and their pay really isn't that bad especially for experienced teachers. And increasing their pay really doesn't make teachers better. The great teachers teach because they have a specific talent to teach and it's what they love to do. There is a shortage of teachers like that, but there's nothing you can do to fill that shortage.

I disagree. I am a pretty smart guy but got ****ty grades in school. I can't even recall one good teacher that I had. If the students are doing poorly, it's because the teachers aren't either challenging the students or making learning interesting for the students. Although it's not entirely the teachers fault. I'd say it's about 50% the curriculum, 40% the teachers, and 10% the students.

To just dismiss the students who do poorly as lazy or unmotivated is pure ignorance. It's the teacher's job to motivate the students.

[Kidlicious]

You can't make people learn Sava. It's completely up to the student. The teacher can give the answers, but the student needs to do the learning.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Wycoff
Our public school system isn't designed to encourage the top 10% to excel, its designed to pump out a large number of mediocre students with merely a functional grasp of reading, science, and math. IMO, it's the "gifted" students that get the shaft. They're the ones who would do the most with extra funding, and would provide the govt. with the best investment of their funds.

Depends on where you live

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Kidicious
We need to drop all this nonsense about every kid going to college. It's never going to happen. The purpose of schools can't be to give every kid a great education. It should be to educate as much kids as possible and to provide an environment for those kids who are motivated to learn as much as possible. That means seperating the students who are motivated from those who are not.

I agree with this wholeheartedly, Kid, but I think that it fits in with the problems outlined in the "automization of the work force" thread. For most of the twentieth century it was pretty easy for people with a high school education or less to make a living comprable to that of a college graduate. Blue collar industrial jobs were readily availiable. Those jobs paid well, provided benefits, and required minimal formal education.

Those jobs are now hard to find in the US. They have been largely replaced with low pay, no benefit service jobs. Construction is still an option, but it's a market that has come to be dominated by illegal immigrants. Schools don't really know what to rell their kids anymore, so they assume that all students should go to 4 year Liberal Arts colleges. The result is a large group of people who really shouldn't be going to college going and taking 6 years to get some BS liberal arts degree. In the end these people have no real skill, haven't really learned much (most of their time having been occupied with binge drinking), and are under crushing student loan debt.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Kidicious
You can't make people learn Sava. It's completely up to the student. The teacher can give the answers, but the student needs to do the learning.

Sava's pointing out that grades are not a reliable indicator of willingness to learn or even how much one has learned. This is particularly true for the upper percentiles of the population.

[aneeshm]

Re: Re: Do you support grade/discipline based segregation in schools ?

Originally posted by Kidicious


Yes I do, and I think most teachers do too.

Kid , I never knew you shared my approach to education . This is great , finally we agree on something .

[Sava]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Sava's pointing out that grades are not a reliable indicator of willingness to learn or even how much one has learned. This is particularly true for the upper percentiles of the population.

[Bosh]

I'd say it's about 50% the curriculum, 40% the teachers, and 10% the students.

Spend one day teaching and come back and tell me that

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Wycoff


I agree with this wholeheartedly, Kid, but I think that it fits in with the problems outlined in the "automization of the work force" thread. For most of the twentieth century it was pretty easy for people with a high school education or less to make a living comprable to that of a college graduate. Blue collar industrial jobs were readily availiable. Those jobs paid well, provided benefits, and required minimal formal education.

Those jobs are now hard to find in the US. They have been largely replaced with low pay, no benefit service jobs. Construction is still an option, but it's a market that has come to be dominated by illegal immigrants. Schools don't really know what to rell their kids anymore, so they assume that all students should go to 4 year Liberal Arts colleges. The result is a large group of people who really shouldn't be going to college going and taking 6 years to get some BS liberal arts degree. In the end these people have no real skill, haven't really learned much (most of their time having been occupied with binge drinking), and are under crushing student loan debt.

Yeah. It's a huge problem. I taught remedial Algebra for one year to 10th and 11th graders, because the school district wanted every student to go to college. Unfortunately 40 to 50% of students do not have the capacity to learn algebra even if they tried and that's being generous. Society is going to have to come to this realization that math teachers have already come to. We need a real solution to this.

[aneeshm]

@ Sava -

Everyone supporting seperation has provided anecdotal evidence of their experiences , while those opposing it have mostly theorised . Make your own deductions .

If still you remain unconvinced , then I have a great example - the IITs ( Indian Institute of Technology ) . Getting into them is tough as hell ( only 3,500 out of more than 150,000 make it ) , thus all who reach that place have a certain academic and intellectual level , far above the rest of the pack . What that place does is to bring it together , leading to what can only be called an explosion of creativity . Any student coming out of those institutes is guaranteed a great future - not because of a great resume , but because of a his fantastic exposure and ability to apply himself in whatever he does - which has seeped in thanks to the culture he liven in for that crucial four years of their lives .

There have been many students who have graduated from the IIT in some technical branch , taken up a completely dofferent job for which they may not even be fully qualified ( like banking ) , and done fantastically well .

[Sava]

Unfortunately 40 to 50% of students do not have the capacity to learn algebra even if they tried

I don't know whre you are getting your information from, but I suspect highly inaccurate BAM's... this just does not seem right.

[Kidlicious]

Talk to any algebra teacher Sava.

[Sava]

Originally posted by aneeshm
@ Sava -

Everyone supporting seperation has provided anecdotal evidence of their experiences , while those opposing it have mostly theorised . Make your own deductions .

I choose to not trust either side then. Anecdotal evidence is only useful if it comes from a wide variety of sources. People can be biased based upon their experiences because one person's experience may not be an accurate representation of the issue at hand.

Now, as a pragmatic individual who realizes his own personal experiences may not be indicative of the macro-situation, I want to see some professional studies on the subject before I formulate an opinion.

[Sava]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Talk to any algebra teacher Sava.

I'd rather not rely on one person's biased opinion. Show me some evidence that 40-50% of students are incapable of learning algebra.

[Kidlicious]

Why do you think that me and two other teachers taught remedial algebra for 5 periods at my school? It used to be that students who didn't do well in math never took algebra. It's different now. Teaching algebra sucks now, because you have a bunch of students who simply are not capable of learning it.