Shots Fired

"SnapUndersteer, Italian Spiderman" (dasborgen) 05/05/2014 at 07:07 • Filed to: None

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Brian Silvestro > SnapUndersteer, Italian Spiderman 05/05/2014 at 07:09

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Yeah Automatch , explain yourself!

Firewrx234 > SnapUndersteer, Italian Spiderman 05/05/2014 at 07:13

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My wife is a senior English teacher and you'd be surprised how often the parents are trying to blame my wife.

Their explanation is that "my kid is an A student in all the other classes, so there must be something you're doing wrong." And then they try to tell her what she's doing wrong without ever spending a day in her class.

Sorry for the rant. I just get to hear about a lot of this while my wife spends hours upon hours grading and planning lessons only for the students and their parents to get upset because she's actually trying to teach them something.

shop-teacher > SnapUndersteer, Italian Spiderman 05/05/2014 at 07:16

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Ugh, so true. One of the best things about getting transferred to a school in a more blue-collar area, was a reduction in that kind of attitude.

AthomSfere > SnapUndersteer, Italian Spiderman 05/05/2014 at 07:21

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On the flip side:

I remember my little brother in his Jr. year I think it was was "tested" because of his low grades (we were both horrible students). They thought he had sever learning disabilities so they had him take an IQ test among other things, turns out he was something like 3 points below certified genius. You gotta laugh at stuff like this.

Logansteno: Bought a VW? > SnapUndersteer, Italian Spiderman 05/05/2014 at 07:27

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Lol, as someone who considers himself a serious slacker in school, it's a damn good thing my parents aren't like this.

DoctorDick > SnapUndersteer, Italian Spiderman 05/05/2014 at 07:58

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I don't know if I would put all the blame on parents. I just graduated from high school two years ago and in my oppinion the entire system is messed up. I spent the entire year preparing for the standardized tests at the end of the year. The test didn't count for or against you, so I (like everyone else) simply blew them off.

The only way standardized testing mattered or was relavant to us was the fact that we had to serve a semester of remediation before school. But, I was also in remediation every year and it was a joke. You come to school early, sign a paper at the front of a class room that states you were in the room. Then you sit around for 5 minutes (no work of any kind) before they let you leave.

My point is this... Maybe the solution is to make school relavant to the students. I walked away from high school with no preperation what so ever for the future, no usefull training, nothing. I learned more from google searches then I ever did school.

Tom McParland > SnapUndersteer, Italian Spiderman 05/05/2014 at 08:15

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This is why I choose not to teach honors/AP students.

McMike > SnapUndersteer, Italian Spiderman 05/05/2014 at 08:20

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In an earlier life, (1990-2005) I employed teenagers. (adults too, but it was probably 75/25% split teens/adults.)

Think fast food shift work. Customers don't give a shit why we're understaffed and they have to wait longer, they just know they have to wait longer.

During those 15 years, I noticed something.. I noticed the first wave of the trophy generation.

There have always been "my child can do no wrong" clueless parents, but they had always been low in numbers. They were the ones that called their own kids in sick. They were the ones that when I called their house on Sunday morning wondering why their kid didn't show up for work they would immediately defend their sleeping child and claim "he wasn't on the schedule."

These parents usually got their kid fired sooner than later because of attendance. Either that, or they would come in and challenge my employee policies regarding uniforms or scheduling, etc… I didn't put up with their shit, and it usually ended in them making their kid quit. It was unfortunate sometimes, since it wasn't the kids fault - but I had a business to run, and eliminated issues before they became a problem.

Towards the end of those years, it was slowly becoming more and more of a problem. When I called their house at 0:15 past the hour wondering where their kid was, I used to get, "Hold on, I'll get him." or "I'm so sorry, I'll bring him right up," The schedule was up for two weeks, and the parents knew that.

"Are you sure?" was becoming the standard answer and it BOILED BLOOD.

I'm pretty glad I'm not around trying to teach the current generation responsibility.

I imagine this is probably the worst part of a teacher's job these days. I'm guessing when a student earns an "F" these days, a teacher is probably more worried about dealing with the parents than the failure of the student.

mazdaspeed2 > SnapUndersteer, Italian Spiderman 05/05/2014 at 08:41

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This could not be more accurate. I graduated high school last year and this was my biggest pet peeve.

mazdaspeed2 > Tom McParland 05/05/2014 at 08:48

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I graduated high school last year, and I took more honors and AP my last two years there. The other kids in those classes drove me insane. Well I should say most not all, but they were so self entitled. I actually couldn't wait to take those instead of regular classes, because I was sick of being around immature people. I wasn't expecting it to be just as bad.

mazdaspeed2 > SnapUndersteer, Italian Spiderman 05/05/2014 at 08:49

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One of the many problems with education today...

Tom McParland > mazdaspeed2 05/05/2014 at 08:52

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The thing is I quite like teaching honors and AP students. I have done several SAT prep programs and it is nice to have them in class. But that class has no grade, so they are just there to learn. That changes the dynamic completely.

mazdaspeed2 > Tom McParland 05/05/2014 at 08:59

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I think all education would be better if the focus was on actually learning and not grades. I've actually been thinking about dong a write up on that, but I wasn't sure if it was way too off topic. It would be interesting to get other opinions though.

Tom McParland > mazdaspeed2 05/05/2014 at 09:02

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There has been a ton of research done on the subject. It is the conflict between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. I'll let Daniel Pink explain- try to translate what he is saying about the workforce into a school.

PetarVN, GLI Guy, now with stupid power > Tom McParland 05/05/2014 at 09:33

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hey, I am an AP/honors student! And my GPA has dropped from a 3.8 to a 3.1 since I started honors...
OBVIOUSLY IT'S YOUR FAULT THE CURRICULUM IS HARDER!!!!
/sarcasm

mazdaspeed2 > Tom McParland 05/05/2014 at 09:50

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That is very interesting. I could be wrong, but to translate that to a school I would say that grades are the carrots and sticks that decrease motivation. So, to improve student performance, it is better to get the students engaged and interested in what they are learning than to entice them with grades?

I really like Sal Khan, and his ideas to improve education. He talked about students falling behind because the class moves on before they understand a topic, or the student who does understand and is stuck waiting for the next topic. He also talked about the fact that if a student receives a C, they pass. That means they only understood about 70% of the material that they were supposed to learn, and now they are supposed to keep going even though they are missing a good chunk of the material they were supposed to understand.

sony1492 > mazdaspeed2 05/05/2014 at 09:50

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Oppo IS off-topic

Just have a pic of an rx7 or something.

Tom McParland > mazdaspeed2 05/05/2014 at 09:55

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You are correct, but it goes bigger than that. It is beyond grades our whole meta-system for education is just a giant machine of extrinsic motivators. Ask most of your classmates why they do their homework? To get good grades right? (extrinsic motivator) Then ask why they want to get good grades. To get into a good college (extrinsic motivator). Why do they want to go to a good college? To get a good job...why do they want a good job...to make money...you can see the problem.

Had I finished my degree my doctoral thesis was going to be on extrinsic and intrinsic motivators in the classroom. But my son was born as I was about 30 credits in so I left the program.

mazdaspeed2 > sony1492 05/05/2014 at 09:55

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That was the plan, haha. I'm pretty sure an rx7 is my go to for off topic posts.

mazdaspeed2 > Tom McParland 05/05/2014 at 09:59

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Ohhh, I see exactly what you mean. I've never liked that mindset, but I never thought of it as extrinsic motivators, really eye opening. Have you ever seen/heard Sal Khan's ideas on education. I'm curious to see what you think about them.

Tom McParland > mazdaspeed2 05/05/2014 at 10:01

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I really like Khan, he is a naturally gifted educator. It is too bad we don't have people like him in charge of educational policy.

mazdaspeed2 > Tom McParland 05/05/2014 at 10:03

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Hear, Hear. I think it would be leaps and bounds better using his method.

crowmolly > SnapUndersteer, Italian Spiderman 05/05/2014 at 10:19

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And we wonder why American kids are getting blown away in knowledge-based occupations like engineering and the sciences.

Yes, the teacher/professor can take some of the blame but that should only be relevant if most or all of the kids in the class are struggling. If 22/25 are doing fine then obviously something is going OK during the teaching process.

But sometimes it is the teacher/professor.

I remember one course in grad school in particular. It was Advanced Algorithmic design and it was taught by brilliant professor. Guy was absolutely stellar in his field.

Grading broke out like this: 25% Project 1, 25% Mid term, 25% Project 2, 25% Final.

Project 1 was a beast but most of us got through it. Mid term rolls around and I studied my ass off. It was an open book test which was bad from the start. Was nasty to get through but I did it and thought I was OK.

He hands the tests back 2 weeks later and I got a 46/100 leaving me absolutely despondent. Anything less than a C in a course gets you booted out of the program. The next week he comes in and there are 9 out of 27 students left. Turns out my 46 was the third highest grade in the class and 66% of the people dropped out.

At the end of the semester he was removed from his post and a new professor was given the job. Taught the same material but with a much higher success rate since he was better at converting his knowledge into a lesson.

No, we were not bratty kids, and no, our parents were not around, but I just wanted to show that it is entirely possible for an educator to suck at educating.

Burrito de EJ25 > Firewrx234 05/05/2014 at 10:58

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It used to be that teachers were respected members of the community. Now they're reviled whenever they ask for reasonable pay raises.

thebigbossyboss > Firewrx234 05/05/2014 at 14:26

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I got an A in a lot of classes and never ever got an A in English. When I have kids, and I am fairly close to doing so, I aspire to be like a 1969 parent lol.

You can protect your kids to a certain degree, but a certain point they gotta apply themselves.

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > McMike 05/05/2014 at 14:43

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That's nuts.

Parents are embarrassing these days. But I was part of the first group of the "participation trophy" generation. My friends and I used to sit on the side of the ball field keeping score in the dirt during "Tee ball" because we were sick of all the "ties". We would say at the end WE WON WE WON. Parents said "WHAT?! IT was a tie!" When we read back the exact box score, they were pretty pissed but realized we weren't playing, practicing, and trying so hard to always get a tie.

Same applied to school and work. My parents never called me out of work and it was always my responsibility to share my work schedule with them (at the time i still needed rides to work) as soon as i received it.

It helped that my first boss (that wasn't my dad, i worked for him from age 12 and up, full 8 hour shifts), said that if we weren't 15 minutes early for our shift we were late. And we'd be docked pay, and if you were late (not 15 minutes early) you were fired after the 2nd or 3rd strike.

Tough boss, but taught us teenage idiots how to act in the work place.

thebigbossyboss > MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner 05/26/2014 at 14:48

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The tie's people enforce today are ludicrous. I played soccer all through from age 5 or so to age 13 and I was on some teams that sucked, we had one or two wins all season long. I also played on a team that won whatever dollar store trophies you can get in our league. i think we lost one or two all season.

We were never told it was a tie (unless it was actually a tie) and I survived just fine.