Quote:
Originally posted by Suburbanite,
Look, I agree that teachers are not the only people to blame. But I do think having extremely strict standards on them is one of dozens of things that need to be done to restore education. Family values plays a role, though Family isn't the issue as much as society. Good intentioned parents can still fail in an environment that does not condone higher-learning. |
How can you insist on strict teacher standards when you have no control over the raw material a teacher must work with? I can give you a hammer, an nail and a board and tell you to bang the nail into it. Easy enough, but if the nail is bent or the board rotten then your job is near impossible.
A teacher must reasonably expect the children to be TEACHABLE for him to do his job. If the kid is starved, ignored at home or abused that kid is not going to learn as well as a "normal" child, and this is in no way the fault of the teacher and no teacher evealuation I'm aware of takes that into account.
And family IS an issue,
moreso than society. Society, for a child is who his friends are or what goes on in front of his house. Family is where he learns how to tie his shoes, how to wash his hands or spell his name (long before he enters school). It's where Mom and Pop teach the kid right from wrong and what is acceptable behavior.
Quote:
| The curriculum is to blame. The Bureaucracy is to blame. But teachers are to blame as well. I think if the job was more selective and higher paid then the amount of teachers trying to become teachers would increase, shit teachers should be fired based on reviews, shit schools should have new administration. |
Of course, almost everything can be assigned blame for this situation, but teachers are a LOT lower on the list than people should think. Sure, there are bad teachers but with the rotten schools, lousy parents and moronic, "feel good" curriculim, you can't really TELL the bad from the good teachers.
As for teachers being fired on the strength of a review, I am completely against that as long as the current review criteria are in place. There is a big stink here in Delaware about "teacher accountability" these days and the reviews are all based on test scores. In other words, if Ward Cleaver pounds on the Beav a little too much because work didn't go well and the kid shows up punchy and can't focus to learn, his test scores will be crap. Whose fault is that then?