DailyDirt: Educational Materials
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
The education industry is experiencing some disruptive events -- with public school budgets getting huge cuts and all sorts of new initiatives to try to identify why some schools are better than others (attempting to replicate the successes). There aren't any magic-bullet solutions, but there are a lot of things that haven't worked so far. Here are just a few more educational tidbits that could help some teachers out there.- If you know an awesome teacher who you'd like to nominate for The Great American Teach-Off, you have until February 20th, 2012. (Yikes! That's today...) You'll have to write up a 200-word essay with your nomination, so hopefully, your teacher taught you how to "write good." [url]
- According to some psychologists, unstructured horseplay helps young kids to learn better social skills. But how do schools enforce various zero-tolerance policies for touching/bullying and still allow kids to be kids? [url]
- Math and science is hard -- about 40% of possible engineering and science majors switch majors or drop out. But most of the attrition comes from pre-med students who figure out that their plans to become a doctor aren't so viable with their lackluster organic chemistry grades... and that there are easier career paths. [url]
- There's no shortage of lesson plans for K-12 classrooms -- just check out one of the online marketplaces where teachers can sell their educational materials. How does "free market merit pay" for teachers fit into the educational system? [url]
- To discover more interesting education-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]
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Filed Under: careers, classrooms, education, grades, horseplay, k12, teachers
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just remember: teachers are only paid for the time they actually work!
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Re: just remember: teachers are only paid for the time they actually work!
I would also like to add that ain't is not a word, and the fact they neglected to teach you this shows that whoever provided your education was being overpaid. A problem I see far too often these days.
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They don't. The school's job is to provide an education, not to babysit them while they develop social and physical skills. Those are things that the parents are supposed to be doing with them at home.
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It's called "physical education."
Also, "recess."
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Also, the so called 'Physical Education' classes were really only meant to provide exercise, not education. They were originally brought into the schools because society started to become overly sedentary and this was considered an effective way to ensure that the children became more active. Given the apparent increase in childhood obesity it seems that effort was insufficient. I grant that along the way it has evolved to provide some educational value, but that still does not make it a primary purpose of the school system.
The fact remains that schools have always been intended as a place were children can learn the academic and industrial skills needed to enter the adult work force, not a place for 'kids to be kids' or to learn social skills. This doesn't mean those aren't important parts of our children's childhood experiences (indeed they are extremely important), merely that parents should not expect the schools to provide them. Parents need to stop pushing all the responsibility onto the teachers' shoulders and start getting more involved in their own children's development.
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That said, I do agre with you to a point, to wit:
"But how do schools enforce various zero-tolerance policies for touching/bullying and still allow kids to be kids?"
They should not be enforcing zero tolerance anything. School boards need to stop abdicating their responsibility for their own and the schools staffs' actions by using zero tolerance, and return to having to use their own judgement to decide when and how severely these actions require intervention and/or punishment.
This whole trend of "suspend anyone for any infraction" so that no one can blame the school is gutless. And parents are partly to blame. If teachers and administrators had allies amongst the parents against the types who caused this reaction, there might be a chance to reverse the trend.
My kid was not allowed to run on the playground in his elementary. Under threat of suspension for repeat offenses. Seriously.
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Apparently NOT "as I said" before.
However, I meant it.
Why aren't you psychic?
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Okay, I accept your amendment. As I was trying to say earlier, I agree that these things can be a meaningful part of the curriculum.
My real issue with is with the idea that the school - and by extension the academic teachers - should be held responsible for the children's moral and social development. I feel that teachers should be responsible for imparting academic skills and knowledge, not for babysitting.
These new zero-tolerance rules are an effort to make the teachers lives easier, and I honestly can't blame them even if I don't agree. If more parents took the time to apply discipline at home (and I don't necessarily mean horse-whipping) then the children would be more respectful at the schools and the need for such draconian rules would be reduced.
Likewise if parents were encouraged and allowed to volunteer and/or otherwise participate in the schools then there would also be less of these issues. When I was a kid my mother actually quit her job so she could spend time helping out at the school, which welcomed her support. Recently a friend tried to volunteer at her daughters school and was told her presence was not allowed - this despite the schools claims that parents were welcome (apparently that only applies on a short term temporary basis).
My point - I seem to have been wandering - is that I don't believe schools should bear the onus of teaching morality or social behaviour. They have enough on their shoulders imparting the ever-increasing load of academic skills.
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Math and science dropouts
I'm working on a Ph.D. in IS/IT Management and have read many studies that talk about getting people more involved in "stuff" (whatever the study is concerned with) inevitably leads to better results. Whether it is a company that gets employees involved in rolling out a new computer system or a classroom that has more student participation an fewer lectures, the more involved people are the more likely they are to succeed.
Empowering people and giving them a stake in an outcome encourages them invest more in a situation. Traditional classroom teaching has been shown to be ineffective in the vast majority of situations, whether it is in a school or a business training session.
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Re: Math and science dropouts
It seems that many studies have not accounted for the Hawthorne Effect....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect
I'm not against incorporating technology into the classroom, but just throwing gadgets at kids isn't really effective, either.
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You don't. Those things are incompatible, and zero tolerance policies are stupid.
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