Education issues

[Eilan]

Hi all! I'm a newbie to your distinguished thread, drawn here for reasons that will be obvious with my next sentance.... I'm the director of educational programs for a church, with a background in early childhood education.

Welcome to the thread, RomanticLass73. I look forward to reading more of what you have to say.

My kindergartener attended preschool through our local YMCA. At the beginning of the school year, I had to fill out a lot of paperwork, and I had to provide a list of people who were authorized to pick up my child. If a person wasn't on the list, then he or she wasn't allowed to pick up the child--period. The rules and regulations also stated that the teachers/program would not be a part of any custody disputes involving a child. That's not really something that I would have thought about, but I suppose it had been enough of an issue at some point that it became a rule.

 

[RomanticLass73]

Welcome to the thread, RomanticLass73. I look forward to reading more of what you have to say.

My kindergartener attended preschool through our local YMCA. At the beginning of the school year, I had to fill out a lot of paperwork, and I had to provide a list of people who were authorized to pick up my child. If a person wasn't on the list, then he or she wasn't allowed to pick up the child--period. The rules and regulations also stated that the teachers/program would not be a part of any custody disputes involving a child. That's not really something that I would have thought about, but I suppose it had been enough of an issue at some point that it became a rule.

Yeah, it's sad, isn't it? There were parents at a daycare that I consult for that had to be asked to leave the building a few times, because they would start to argue over stuff in front of kids and staff and other parents. Not good. The center didn't want to kick them out, because in that situation the kids are the ones who suffer, and to toss them out would have meant the loss of a stable place for the kids to spend their days. The parents divorced and the mom moved out of state with the kids, so it's not an issue at the center any more, but those poor kids are a mess. Their lil faces when mom and dad were fighting were so sad, and you know they were internalizing everything.

At the church where I work, we have the parents fill out sunday school registration forms every year, with the usual addy and phone and email and birthday info etc. but we also ask for allergy info and custody info - it SUCKS that you have to think about it at church, but we definately do. There are several kids with life threatening allergies, and a few with custody issues to keep in mind - dad can't pick up or whatever. I go through our attendance forms and highlight the names of kids who have allergy/custody issues, to be sure our teachers know about them. And we only have about 150 kids to keep track of. I can't imagine how those mega churches who have 1000 kids in attendance each Sunday do it.

 

[pleasteasme]

Just an FYI update:

Tuesday, upon getting back to school I spoke with the department chair of our special education department about the issue I had on the previous Friday during the set up for the dance. He told me that I made the absolute correct choice. He assured me that this was a parental issue. To compound matters, this girl's mother is addicted to morphine...so, there is more to the story than I knew in the first place.

He ended up speaking to the mother for an unrelated topic and this incident came up in conversation. He had my back and told the mother that if her daughter is going to stay after for any more events that she will need to be with her.

It bothered me all of last weekend (as you all know) and was relieved when the special ed teacher was supportive of me and my decision. *phew*

 

[Eilan]

It bothered me all of last weekend (as you all know) and was relieved when the special ed teacher was supportive of me and my decision. *phew*

Good for you!

It's amazing, as fucked up as some kids' home lives are, that they manage to function at all.

Since this thread's been bumped, I have a question:

What are your thoughts on homeschooling? I know that I've seen it discussed on the GB, but I'm not sure that I've seen it addressed here recently.

 

[EJFan]

What are your thoughts on homeschooling? I know that I've seen it discussed on the GB, but I'm not sure that I've seen it addressed here recently.

i have thoughts on home schooling... would you like to hear them?

i think it's a tough decision for some parents. do you send your kids to school with all the supposed threats to their well being or do you teach them at home and deprive them of the social skills they gain in school? for some people it's a difficult choice to make.

i think there are two major down sides to home schooling and i believe many parents are aware of them. there's the lack of social development and the concern that parents may actually not be good teachers. i think the biggest problem, however, is that parents seem to have this fear of their child failing. not necessarily in a literal, schoolastic sense but in the sense of the kid not being able to overcome a challenge.

it's quite absurd really. let your kid fail. let them be faced with a choice or a challenge and let them fuck it up. it's good experience... too many kids get babied and they wind up thinking they're invincible and/or expect to have things taken care of FOR them.

 

[RomanticLass73]

Tuesday, upon getting back to school I spoke with the department chair of our special education department about the issue I had on the previous Friday during the set up for the dance. He told me that I made the absolute correct choice. He assured me that this was a parental issue. To compound matters, this girl's mother is addicted to morphine...so, there is more to the story than I knew in the first place.

He ended up speaking to the mother for an unrelated topic and this incident came up in conversation. He had my back and told the mother that if her daughter is going to stay after for any more events that she will need to be with her.

It bothered me all of last weekend (as you all know) and was relieved when the special ed teacher was supportive of me and my decision. *phew*

I'm SO glad everything worked out well in the end! There's little worse than having your supervisor not back you up when they ought to.

 

[pleasteasme]

Thanks for your continued support I'm glad it is all straightened out and everything is "OK."

Good for you!

It's amazing, as fucked up as some kids' home lives are, that they manage to function at all.

Since this thread's been bumped, I have a question:

What are your thoughts on homeschooling? I know that I've seen it discussed on the GB, but I'm not sure that I've seen it addressed here recently.

You are SO right about not knowing about their home lives. The thing that irks me was back in the teacher credential program several teachers had this notion that the home lives of a student does NOT influence their performance at school and the theory that it did was total nonesense. I never bought into that.

On homeschooling, I don't have any hard and fast thoughts, just some observations and speculations from the four years I have been teaching in the public school system.

I believe EJ hit all of the major points. I have only known 6 students that were homeschooled. Five of which are from the same family and seemed to do very well (ages ranging from 7 to 18). The other one is currently a student of mine. She was homeschooled from K - 10th and then came to my high school last year as a Jr. I would say that she certainly lacks some social skills and is entirely too comfortable with "teachers." She perceives them as equals *IMO* and pipes in when she should not. She is a challenge as she is a student and also works for our department in a paid secretarial position. I have had to have several talks with her about what is appropriate behavior and what is not.

One thing I wonder and honestly am not familiar with is if homeschool students are required to take the same standardized tests that other students take? I would be quite curious to see how they rank, if they take them.

 

[Eilan]

The thing that irks me was back in the teacher credential program several teachers had this notion that the home lives of a student does NOT influence their performance at school and the theory that it did was total nonesense. I never bought into that.

What a load of crap. My parents went through a nasty divorce during my senior year of high school, and a lot of the issues that led to it became public knowledge (oh, the joys of living in a small town ). My grades didn't suffer, but I sure as hell had trouble concentrating on my schoolwork.

Every child will be affected differently, but to assume that his or her home life has no effect whatsoever?

 

[Nightbird]

Ok I work in the Public School system here in the Great White North in a Highschool.. Grade 9-12...

Anyhow, when students are participating in after school events like sports practises or a dance they are pretty much left to their own devices on a way home. Sometimes the teachers will check with anyone who is waiting at the front door to see if they need to use a phone or not but more often than not the Teacher's just leave and the student's are usually still waiting for a ride.

 

[Guest]

 

[silverwhisper]

scalywag: the problem w/ the idea of paying teachers on "merit' is how do you quantify "merit"? is it in graduation rates? average class GPA? performance on standardized tests? each of these criteria will necessarily produce skewing in how a teacher teaches a class, and none of the meaningfully related to how well students absorbed the material the teacher presented.

ed

 

[Guest]

 

[EJFan]

scalywag: the problem w/ the idea of paying teachers on "merit' is how do you quantify "merit"? is it in graduation rates? average class GPA? performance on standardized tests? each of these criteria will necessarily produce skewing in how a teacher teaches a class, and none of the meaningfully related to how well students absorbed the material the teacher presented.

ed

i understand.

the inherent problem with any incentive based pay program is that the "system" gets tweaked so that the incentives are met. it's nearly impossible to attach incentives to students actually LEARNING things because i don't think anyone can agree on what it is they need to learn and no real, accurate way to measure that for an incentive payment program... unless they wait for the student to become socially/economically/culturally relevant in the real world 10 years after getting out of high school.

 

[silverwhisper]

EJ: bingo. the problem w/ teaching is that as a profession doesn't produce a product: it's a service. identifying and evaluating quantifiables in a service is extremely difficult.

ed

 

[EJFan]

EJ: bingo. the problem w/ teaching is that as a profession doesn't produce a product: it's a service. identifying and evaluating quantifiables in a service is extremely difficult.

ed

thank you... i can always count on you to explain, in brief, what it takes me four paragraphs to say. you got skillz.

 

[silverwhisper]

phear me!

seriously, though: it's something i've discussed ad nauseum on another forum for years. you're the beneficiary of my having distilled a lot of those arguments to their essences. :>

ed

 

[Guest]

 

[silverwhisper]

scalywag: frankly, i agree that teacher's unions are, like many unions, a product of a bygone age that have survived past the point of usefulness. there's so much caselaw now that's pro-worker that the kind of abuses that unions were first created to combat would be unthinkable in the US and indeed, i wager that's true of most first world nations.

that said: maybe the issue is that we should ditch school boards and teachers unions? heck, EJ and i live in a state that's more or less the teachers union's bitch.

ed

 

[midwestyankee]

<snip>

I wish they would just dissovle the union and pay teachers based on merit. But unfortunately somewhere along the way (probably many years ago) they were not being treated fairly and thus the reason why unions began in the first place. But the union also presents a safe haven for those that are mediocre. It's time to change that. I wish I had a solution.

Scaly, I make my living helping companies find ways to improve the performance of their employees. I am also a certified teacher, having taught at every grade level from 5th through graduate school. Further, my wife of umpteen and 8 years has taught high school her entire adult career. This subject is something that I've thought about and talked about at great and discouraging length.

Teachers' unions came into being to protect teachers from political actions. Since public school teachers are employed by the local government, changes in politics at the local level used to result in sweeping staff changes in the schools. I don't believe that teachers should belong to a union because it reduces their standing as professionals. On the other hand, if a union is the only thing keeping my childrens' best teachers (who might have strong political beliefs) or my family members who are employed as teachers from losing their jobs every time there's an election, then so be it.

The fundamental problem with trying to pay and/or reward teachers on the basis of merit is simply this: no teacher can control the outcome of his or her actions. Even the brightest and most highly motivated students occasionally choose not to learn or to do a mediocre job on an exam (witness what happens in most senior-level classes after all the college applications have been filed and graduation approaches). Anyone who would accept a reward system that depends on outcomes that he or she cannot control is foolish.

 

[Guest]

 

[EJFan]

i'm just wondering if we should unionize the students. imagine that... they'd actually be COMPELLED to meet some sort of criteria as opposed to doing as they felt necessary. just a thought... not a fully analyzed one but a thought.

edit to add:
we actually DID this in 8th grade. as part of our social studies class, we students unionized. we worked out a contract with the teacher regarding any point we wanted to include (homework quantity, note-taking limitations, test parameters, etc.). there were a LOT of various kinds of results from this but the two things that stay in my mind the most are that

1. the confines of the contract were observed but always got bent to suit the situation. if, for example, notes could only be on one panel of the chalk board and there were three panels' worth of notes to be taken, the writing got VERY small... VERY VERY small.

2. no one actually did any better or worse. good students got good grades and bad students got bad grades. the contract actually had no affect at all.

 

[silverwhisper]

scaly: i'm fairly certain that anything either side says is carefully crafted for maximum spin potential.

EJ: er...except that students are the ones ostensibly being served by schools...

ed

 

[Guest]

 

[Eilan]

EJ: bingo. the problem w/ teaching is that as a profession doesn't produce a product: it's a service. identifying and evaluating quantifiables in a service is extremely difficult.

Seems to be different at the college level these days, at least where I used to work. A lot of the students have the "Pay your fee, get your B," mentality.

Can't say I'm missing it all that much.

 

[Guest]