wow. . I just taught connections. . the national
management association's certified manager program.
got 50 through the process in about 3 years, as a
part-time job after hours at the plant where I worked.
connections. . where do you need to call on someone's
internal motivation? . they say, "Making them a
self-starter." . and I mention 3 or so motivational
theories, then ask, "Any good? . could you use any
of this stuff?" . and we make it up as we go along.
their work examples take us there. . lots of tough
examples in a union contract environment. -- j

learning never quits! . tonight, subaru turbochargers
and synthetic oil requirements. . and turbo vac/pressure
gauge installation. . just bought a 2006 baja.

as a mechanical engineer, I enjoy this stuff. . and
you mention "technical theatre" here -- could you
define, please? . wikibooks talks about all of the
production factors like lighting and sound, and
since I have spent a lifetime messing with sound,
I can sympathize. . whatta challenge!

good teachers, and I have had a few, are precious.
I became a ham radio person by virtue of having
a good teacher. . science comes easy because of
a good teacher. . civics, the same. . english, well,
I kinda dug it out on my own. -- j

jlc, whether school is "fun" depends on your definition of "fun" and your definition of "school" My 14-year-old technical theatre students worked their butts off and had fun. We had to make them leave. every day.

As for objective testing, how you do it depends on what you're testing. If you're testing whether all 4th-graders in Colorado know the geology of the state, you can test that with a standardized test. You can also take students to 3 places around Denver, and ask each to tell you what that site tells them about geology. Either they know it, or they don't. They pass, or they fail. Easy peasy. [OK, those last 2 words should have been in /Sarc]

sorry! I understand. My own schooling was hell, until I finally took control of it in college - 10 years after everyone else in my age cohort went.

What are you learning about now?

Kind of. I say that I don't believe in teaching more because of observing the definition than anything else: somebody standing up at the front of the room, a bunch of people sitting in the back of the room; 1 person talking and a few people listening; no connection between the material and the life, experiences, beliefs, thoughts - or anything - of the students and, usually, the teachers.
It sounds like you had some good experiences in learning, though.
Sometimes the environment and materials are in the control of the teacher, and sometimes they're not. It depends. Certainly, if you want to teach a group of people that 3 of them consistently bully the others into going along with their plans for projects, and that relying on 3 people for all the answers is a stop on the path to...well...dumb, you give them an exercise in which they have a problem to solve, together - like forming 50 feet of rope into a square on the ground. You give them the rope, you blindfold them, and you use your magical powers to strike 2 of the 3 voiceless. Up to that point, you have controlled everything. Oh, you also tell them that there is no time limit on the task. Then, having given up control completely, you sit in a comfortable chair and watch what happens. You can also pull one of the bullies out of the group and let him watch but not participate - makes 'em crazy! They learn stuff - sometimes what you hoped they would, sometimes not.

Another example, just because it's so fun: a group has to count from 1 to the number of people in the group. Each person can only say one number. If 2 or more people say the same number, they have to start over. Sometimes you have to make a rule that they can't say anything but the numbers, because you can get people who will appoint a leader and count as she directs. I had tight groups of 20 people who could do it, the second time, as fast as they could say the numbers. I had top-down-managed groups who could never do it - the managers HAD to control something.

But as usual, I digress. I think the "bones" of learning are managed by the teachers: the stuff you have to know how to do, like math, and reading, and researching, and writing, and drawing, and public speaking. But the teacher and the student, together, decide on what subjects and in what ways the learning will be accomplished. Say you want to learn about architecture. teacher: OK, please write me a paragraph that tells me everything you know about the subject. student: can I just tell you instead? teacher: sure [note to self: this kid may have some problem with writing - check that] teacher reads the paragraph and asks where do you want to go next? student: 10 of 736 possible things to know about how architecture works, its history, how you design a building, what kind of math do you have to know, what kind of drawing do you do, and can you do it on a computer, what's different and the same about all of Wright's homes, what do modern architects think about Wright? Does anybody design like he did?
You see the pathways. The job of the teacher is to make sure, as she and the student plan this learning, that the student also doesn't always play to her strengths, that she considers all the "subjects" around architecture: art, math, history, the environment, research, interviewing and finally, presenting the learning to other people. It's more a dance than one person controlling it - the student searches out the knowledge she wants to know, and the teacher acts as a guide, sometimes, and a stone wall sometime: as the student is leaving the room to go to the store room to get posterboard, the teacher asks why? and then might say, no, you cannot produce another poster about Fallingwater. You've done one every year for 3 years, and you need to do something else about Fallingwater. What's it going to be? No answer in 20 minutes? teacher: OK, make yourself a list of every parent in this school who is in any way involved with Architecture. time for a field trip. and yes, you can take one student on a field trip - but there are probably 3 or 4 more in the school who might benefit from the trip you plan, so you take them to. And your student will come back, practically DEMANDING to do an illustrated paper on Prairie Style Architecture and why it's called that and all the ways it has changed over the last 25 years. Your job is to then get out of the way.

The minute a teacher decides that ALL students WILL learn THIS [the life cycle of the sandhill crane, for ex.] that is the teacher being in charge, starting it, and directing it. For every kid. BOR-ING!

I could go on about this for more hours than this, but I hoped I answered your question. If not, ask it again, in a slightly different way, and I'll try it again. ;)

Not sure I get your point, but I agree with your statements. My favorite history courses were ones in which the context of history was set against literature and even architecture, rather than memorization of facts and dates. I can similarly note calculus, physics, statics and other classes where the practicality and context was made apparent and interesting. your example sounds similar, interesting and effective.
Clearly learning is communication and requires action from both people involved. However teachers are largely in control of the environment and materials. It seems to me learning starts with teachers, but can end before it gets to students if their parents, the school and the students attitude set the learning process up to fail.
Is this your point. BTW, my father and mother were both teachers.

I honestly believe that there is no such thing as "teaching", for academic subjects. "Teaching" is a passive verb, and implies that the knowledge goes from the brain of the teacher to that of the students without any action by either.
There is, however, learning, an active verb. Students do it. Teachers, parents, friends, librarians and IT folks help them do it. The best learning happens when the teacher clears the way for the student and stands back. Eventually, the teacher asks a question or two - or the student does. It is a very very subtle science, and the first thing you have to learn if you want to do it is to say "I don't know." to a child.
I did it for many years, and loved it. So did a number of students, including the 3 9th graders who came to me and said "we write, and you ask us questions, so we rewrite, and on and on - aren't you EVER satisfied?" I thought for a moment and said "Satisfied? No. Impressed? Constantly." They were studying the concept of just warfare, using Bilbo from the Tolkien novels and Vietnam vets they interviewed as a framework.

I sympathize with your experience - I had parts of it as well. I am old enough that, even though I read a book all the way through every class in "junior high school" and HS, when I answered every question I was asked and aced every test, they passed me. a low pass, but a pass. The difference I have, I think, is that I never gave them anything and they didn't know what to do, so they passed me.
Then I discovered college, many years later, and loved it. Again, I took from them what I wanted, on my terms, and let their stupid "you have to pick a major" letters hit the waste can.
I also cheerfully say that reading Atlas Shrugged at the age of 16 helped me along. They couldn't stop me.

oh, do I wish that I had had teachers like you
when I was growing up!!! -- j

Nonsense. I taught "4th graders" to write their own rubrics for years - a bit younger, too, but you use a different process.
The first thing you do is ask the student to write you a paragraph on what she already knows about the subject at hand, and some questions they want answered. You go over it with her, maybe refine it a bit, and say "How are you going to show me what you've learned? and how will I know if you've learned it well, or correctly?" They know - usually they don't get asked.
My guess is that she wrote it and an adult she trusted polished it a bit.

From someone who taught at a private school where each [brilliant] student had as much input as he could do into how his education would proceed....our graduates include a student who was first in his class at Stanford, a Fulbright winner, and an AF pilot - HUZZAH! you are DEAD RIGHT!!
When we were a small school, we often had kids who didn't want to do their schoolwork. " Hey, no problem. John [the janitor] sure needs some help, and you're it this week. You know that John never graduated from high school, right?"

Schoolwork, especially that they had input into, looked much better, even after the first day.

If I could figure out how to do it online, I would. I can teach a student basic math, reading, spelling, grammar, logic, history - and a bunch of other stuff - all organized around a subject he chooses - like, say, candy! Yes, the teacher has to work really hard. Yes, the teacher has to give up being the source of all knowledge that students get; the first time an Objectivist visitor heard me say "I have no idea - let me know when you find out, OK? I have Wednesday morning free." he almost stroked out. Nobody can know all the facts that there are about ANY subject - but if you teach someone to research, evaluate, and present a set of facts, arguments and conclusions, he's on the way to being educated.

My take is that teachers' unions are the problem, and the main solution is to privatize the schools, or at least create vouchers.

I'm also in favor of homeschooling, if the parents can afford to do it. It would have solved my own issues with the bullies.

But it seems to me that finding a source of instruction is the easiest part of the problem. I would be surprised if there isn't soon a complete "school on the web" for those who can learn that way (including adults who never finished high school and want to). Then the problem is to motivate kids to learn. Offering them the "carrot" of early adult rights upon graduating ought to do the trick for those who care about their futures.

For the unmotivated, I would be inclined to let them go work a low-wage job and live on their own for a year or two. Then see if they want to continue that or would rather resume their education. (This choice is one the parents, not the state, ought to offer, but the state should not stand in the way of it.)

But I don't support forcing kids to go to school, because I don't think it works. If a kid doesn't want to be there, his attitude will keep him from learning much.

An amazing performance by a young lady destined to be a Producer.

However I am surprised by so many people thinking that the word rubric is outside the vocabulary of a young student today. It was uncommon when we went to school and I must admit I was unfamiliar with the term when my kids came home from school using it. Yet when the teacher gives them a sheet telling them how they will be graded and it says rubric at the top..... Clearly a young lady such as this would be comfortable in using it.

That said, it was obviously ghosted and she practiced it enough to include the appropriate hand gestures. This takes away nothing from her performance and I believe she understood and agreed with its message. Sadly, only a small percentage of adults could deliver a prepared speech this well.

If I want to tweak my liberal friends, I point out that lower literacy rates simply mean good job insurance for us as we grow older...

But the truth is quite different: In order to maintain a technological society, we need a pool of thinking, literate people. The question is 'how to get there'.

I do not have children (did not ever want them) but I watch what is going on and it does not fill me with a sense that the people we are educating will do more than be a burden on society. I am (somewhat regretfully) willing to pay education tax...if education generates such an imagined literate, capable society. I have tentatively concluded that it will be necessary to have a public school system with required attendance in order to have any sort of productivity - human nature being what it is, I genuinely do not see an alternative.

What are your ideas jdg? How do you think this should function?

Jan

and you should be -- callous teachers damage our
kids, and their value systems are forming then . . . .
for better or worse. -- j

in my time, we did the best that we could to disrupt
the classes of the bad teachers, and with a measure
of success I might add. . wrong tactic? . well, we
were young then. -- j

I don't like government schools and I mostly don't like school being compulsory either. At most I would tell the kids themselves, "The state will declare you an adult when you can pass a high school equivalency exam", and let them figure out how to achieve that goal. That would motivate them!

Different people learn better in different ways and should be allowed to choose, when reasonably possible. I especially don't approve of any kid being forced to continue to go to a school where he gets bullied.

The students need to figure out that it's a good thing to finally get rid of some of the bad teachers the union has been protecting.

I know 8-9 year olds who might have used the word "rubric"...(but you are probably right that the speech was ghosted).

I am bothered both by the statement that 'school should be fun' and by the assertion that objective testing is not good. I have no problem with learning being exciting, but making 'school' == 'fun' puts school at the level of entertainment.

Objective testing (that is not graded by the teachers or the school which gave the tests) IS the best metric for success. And that girl would probably have done well at it.

Jan

That kid has it right. Wow.

Don't get me wrong: I am against public education
on principle; it has nothing to do with protecting
man against force/violence, or punishing same; al-
so it puts the government in charge of teaching
thought processes, and so should be abolished.
But, like some of the others, I do not believe
that that little girl wrote the speech herself; "rub-
ric"? Come on!--However, she did do a good
delivery.

My hatred of school dates from when I was
in the fifth grade; (although the second grade
had rather traumatized me, I was willing to pass
that off as a bad experience,that teacher had a
bad reputation anyway, and, furthermore, when
I returned for the next term, she was gone); but
in fifth grade, the teacher turned the class into
a homework station where you came to dump
your homework and get more, rather than learn
the lesson in class and do homework as a sup-
plement; I recall wanting so badly to go to bed
at night, and staying up late working on that crap
(don't like that word? all right, I know one much
more vulgar). I don't recall the homework as
being especially difficult intellectually, just time-
wasting; copy this, copy that, etc. I did not see
what right anybody had to turn me into a slave,
and still do not. Tests I was not that worried
about. But it bred a deep hostility in me toward
school; it gave the impression of "Give those
b--t--ds an inch, and they'll take a yard!" It has
been more than 50 years since then, and I am
still the same.

Sydney is right on all counts, more though, this is all crony capitalism at work. ETS, ADP, and other multinationals were and still are slavering with excitement over the profits they will make from this, some estimates put the cost per student, to the school boards at over $800.00 per student for a $90.00 test. There is no question that we need Common Core STANDARDS for graduation from 8th and 12th grades as well as from the 16th, 18th, and 20th year advancement in Higher Education. That standard must not be abridged in any way, and should be the confidential property of the student, their parents, if they are not adults, and the school. Only statistical numeric data should be shared with the municipality and only general trends should be reported to the state. NOTHING should be shared with the Federal Government except Statewide Trends. We do not need Standardized Testing unless such tests are equalized in every possibly conceivable way, i.e. gender, ethnicity, language, intelligence quotient, interpretive ability, & etc..

Isn't it interesting when children make more sense that adults?