what i learned in school today.
quotes from my education classes this semester:
"I find it offensive to have to pay for other peoples' kids..."
"be suspicious of big government"
"where we went wrong is taking religion out of schools"
"by giving special attention to certain kids [in context these 'certain kids' are students with disabilities, learning or physical] we are forsaking the other kids in the class.."
"by having to teach to the lower ability kids we are bringing the other kids down..."
"trying to focus our educational system on preparing everyone for college is a bad mistake..."
the idea was thrown about today, in class, that we should employ more tracking in schools. if, at the beginning of high school, kids are allowed to "choose" which track they want to go into - college preparatory or technical/vocational then we would be preparing more kids to enter the Real World of Labor in which something like 70% of available jobs require on-site training, 20% require a college degree or higher and 10% require formal post-high school training/technical preparation..
we need a workforce. we should use our educational system to feed the workforce. right?
i guess that goes against my educational philosophy. i don't want to teach kids to just fill a position in the wide world of poor/working/middle class jobs. (in the field i'm going into, i shouldn't be afraid of that.. i should be afraid of even having a job) what happened to teaching kids civic responsibility? what happened to teaching kids to be better people?
oh the idealism.
and while living in belfast, i heard a lot of opinions on this whole tracking idea.. y'see, when kids reach a certain age they have to take this test.. and depending on how they do on it, they'll either go towards some sort of vocational program, or they'll do their a-levels and eventually go to university.. i've heard testimony from the people who were put into the "vocational" program that felt marginalised because of the outcome of that one test. they weren't "good enough" to even try to get a college degree..
but according to some of the people in my class, that's a good thing.. we need people in this working poor, we need people to clean up after us, to work behind the counter at mcdonald's and all of that.. which.. would be fine if those same people didn't place such a condescending value judgment on those people.. hoity toity bastards..
(and just so you know.. all of those quotes come from "mature" students.. people who've had other careers but have decided later in life to go back and become a teacher... old people.. hehe..)
our society needs poor people. it's nice to feel wanted.
"I find it offensive to have to pay for other peoples' kids..."
"be suspicious of big government"
"where we went wrong is taking religion out of schools"
"by giving special attention to certain kids [in context these 'certain kids' are students with disabilities, learning or physical] we are forsaking the other kids in the class.."
"by having to teach to the lower ability kids we are bringing the other kids down..."
"trying to focus our educational system on preparing everyone for college is a bad mistake..."
the idea was thrown about today, in class, that we should employ more tracking in schools. if, at the beginning of high school, kids are allowed to "choose" which track they want to go into - college preparatory or technical/vocational then we would be preparing more kids to enter the Real World of Labor in which something like 70% of available jobs require on-site training, 20% require a college degree or higher and 10% require formal post-high school training/technical preparation..
we need a workforce. we should use our educational system to feed the workforce. right?
i guess that goes against my educational philosophy. i don't want to teach kids to just fill a position in the wide world of poor/working/middle class jobs. (in the field i'm going into, i shouldn't be afraid of that.. i should be afraid of even having a job) what happened to teaching kids civic responsibility? what happened to teaching kids to be better people?
oh the idealism.
and while living in belfast, i heard a lot of opinions on this whole tracking idea.. y'see, when kids reach a certain age they have to take this test.. and depending on how they do on it, they'll either go towards some sort of vocational program, or they'll do their a-levels and eventually go to university.. i've heard testimony from the people who were put into the "vocational" program that felt marginalised because of the outcome of that one test. they weren't "good enough" to even try to get a college degree..
but according to some of the people in my class, that's a good thing.. we need people in this working poor, we need people to clean up after us, to work behind the counter at mcdonald's and all of that.. which.. would be fine if those same people didn't place such a condescending value judgment on those people.. hoity toity bastards..
(and just so you know.. all of those quotes come from "mature" students.. people who've had other careers but have decided later in life to go back and become a teacher... old people.. hehe..)
our society needs poor people. it's nice to feel wanted.
Comments