Ok I was going to write a brief response to this post but it turned into a rant the education system pisses me off I could go on forever.
I've thought about this for a while I think the fact the teachers are payed shit is indicative of a wider economic problem. Solve the problems of the cost of living or the decline of real wages, the national debt that would be a start. There is also the screwed up US budget, why not take some money out of military expenditure, or whatever else and funnel it into the education system?
Yeah the low salary is part of the problem. If the salaries were higher, I'm sure there would be more motivation for others who love teaching to actually get into it. Increasing salaries alone won't do it, that's for sure. But its part of it. Why not pay teachers more and pay, for example, professional athletes and actors/actresses less?
I think thing like the the yearly standardized testing system should be reformed. Teaching to the test is not going to make kids wanna learn. But there is a real need to measure the effectiveness of schools. If I were the president this is what I would do. First of all give biannual standardized tests to the nations schools, if there is school who gets an especially low rating conduct a survey at the school, of teachers, students, admins. off., what have you. That would probably be the best way to figure out what the problem with the school really is and then act to solve it.
Standardized testing is definitely overrated and needs to be changed in many ways. You're right, teaching to the test often takes away the love that children have for learning. Children love to learn believe it or not. They're probably the most curious group of the population. But focusing so much getting them into the habit of having to get high grades all the time and training them to do well on these exams basically screws up the whole point of learning. The point of learning is to actually learn and be able to understand, apply, evaluate things on a higher thinking level, not just to be able to recall information for some state exam. Getting a high grade on these exams tells you little about how intelligent the student is. What it does tell you is how well trained the student is and how good of a test-taker they are. And that's exactly what the system is doing at this point: training children to become good test takers instead of actually educating them.
It is important to note that in my plan standardized tests would not be put on a kids permanent record, affect the amount of funding a school gets, what is taught at the school, and should measure only essential knowledge.
I like that idea. And you can see how the No Child Left Behind Act goes against your ideas completely. This is why the system is so screwed. The schools that get higher grades get more funding. The schools that don't get high grades, even if they improve a lot, do not get extra funds. It's sad.
I also think that we should change the way we educate teachers.
I don't know much about the current system but it seems to inadequately prepare teachers for the practicalities of the classroom. They should teach things like how to keep a classroom under control, and how speak in public, how to make lessons interesting. I think more people would be willing to become teachers if they felt prepared on the first day of school.
I agree with you. The teacher is one of the five main components of education, I think its safe to say that teachers are the most important component. Preparing teachers successfully = having teachers educate their students effectively = more intelligent citizens. The main problem with teacher preparation programs is that colleges and universities that provide this teacher preparation don't put enough funding into these programs. They tend to put a large majority of their funding into programs that relate to science and things like that. Another problem with teacher prep programs is that they don't give prospective teachers enough hands on experience before they actually become teachers. Sometimes these programs focus too much on educational theory and are not practical enough to give you a real sense of what its really like in the classroom.
Lastly I think we should stop underestimating our nations kids. I feel like a got "education light" when I was in primary school high school etc. For example I picked up a grammar book the other day while I was flipping through it I thought to myself... "Wow I was only ever taught about a quarter of this in school."
That's so true. The only students in New York that are really taught grammar in depth are ESL students. I also realized that I don't know a lot of grammar. I mean I know how to use it intuitively but I don't know it formally.
To give another example in my state they don't start teaching kids foreign language until they are thirteen. Can anyone point out the problem with that one?
In many countries, they're taught foreign languages when they start elementary school. We are so behind here. Second language acquisition starts
slowing down around 13. It should start at a very young age, and research shows that people who learn more than one language at a young age have better meta linguistic awareness than others.
