Re: north county times (monday, 10/27/97)

Judy Diamondstone (diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu)
Tue, 28 Oct 1997 09:25:53 -0500

whence comes this stuff? I'm curious. how did it find us?

At 11:38 PM 10/27/97 -0600, you wrote:
>I'm not suprised! Many of the secondary school teachers in Lubbock
>Texas are graduates of Texas Tech University, yet my colleague showed me
>a flier printed by a fourth grade teacher which nearly drove me mad.
>The grammar was so poor that it took me three readings and a red pen to
>understand the first sentence! I laughed, but what else could I do? Who
>will stand up and admit that this teacher was once a student of
>his/hers?
>
>
>Allison Boroda
>Department of Human Development & Family Studies
>Texas Tech University
>home e-mail: sense who-is-at swbell.net
>Tech e-mail: aboroda who-is-at ttacs.ttu.edu
>phone: (806) 762-8145
>
>Lou Coons wrote:
>>
>> Blame 'edu-crats' for dumb kids
>>
>>
>>
>> Half of fourth-graders who took a new national science test could not
>> identify the Atlantic and Pacific oceans on a map. That fact may upset
>> you, but to go by a survey of 900 education professors, few teachers of
>> teachers are losing sleep over the news.
>>
>> Public Agenda, the New York-based policy group that conducted the survey,
>> found that only 33 percent of education professors believe students should
>> know the names and locations of the 50 states before getting a high school
>> diploma. As one Los Angeles ed prof explained, "Why should they know that?
>> They need to know how to find out where they are. When I need to know
>> that, I can go look it up."
>>
>> Is it any wonder that some schools fail when teaching professors who
>> don't care whether kids know basic facts? As the study showed, the
>> ultimate "edu-crats" demonstrate little love of knowledge. They worship
>> process. They see teaching as an exercise in helping students learn how to
>> find out things. To them, knowledge is a byproduct.
>>
>> Public Agenda asked: When teachers assign specific questions in math or
>> history, is it more important that kids struggle to find the right answer
>> or that kids give the right answer? An amazing 86 percent said that
>> struggling was more important. Only 12 percent preferred a right answer.
>>
>> Are teachers "facilitators of learning" or "conveyors of knowledge"?
>> Facilitators, 92 percent agreed; 7 percent answered conveyors. The key is
>> to turn out lifelong learners who are excited about learning. Education
>> professors are striving for a nation of ill-informed, would-be
>> autodidacts.
>>
>> Ed schools have turned into re-education camps, where the main focus is to
>> produce like-minded facilitators. Imagine education professors more
>> interested in attitude than actual knowledge.
>>
>> One question: How are kids supposed to be excited about learning when
>> they're not learning much of anything?
>>
>> One important point: Cult-like edu profs don't always agree with teachers
>> who have been pressed to practice this edu-babble in the classroom. More
>> ed profs (54 percent) than teachers (40 percent) believe in mixing fast
>> and slow learners in the same class. More teachers (88 percent) than ed
>> profs (66 percent) believe in taking persistent troublemakers out of
>> classes so that other kids can learn. Fewer ed profs (49 percent) than
>> teachers (62 percent) believe students should have to pass proficiency
>> tests to graduate into higher grades.
>>
>> "They are honest even when it does not redound to their benefit," Public
>> Agenda Executive Director Deborah Wadsworth noted. To wit: 75 percent of
>> education professors said their students have trouble writing essays free
>> of grammatical and spelling mistakes. Yet 68 percent said most graduates
>> come close to their ideal of a teacher.
>>
>> Then most profs blame the media for the public's decline of confidence in
>> public schools.
>>
>> Wrong. If you want to know where the decline in public schools
>> incubates, here's your answer. New teachers must pass a 10th grade level
>> test to become certified in California. In 1991-1992, 29 percent
>> of-graduate students flunked that test the first time they took it.
>> That number contains some foreign students, but it still smarts,
>> especially when adults who hadn't been in school for 20-plus years scored
>> better than graduate and undergraduate test-takers.
>>
>> Some minority groups have sued the state to end the test because too many
>> minorities fail it. They'd do better to sue the colleges that gave these
>> would-be teachers passing grades year in and out.
>>
>> As Wadsworth noted, the ed profs dismiss the public's views on schools as
>> "outmoded and mistaken."
>>
>> Yet they're the dons who turn out lifelong learners who can't pass a 10th
>> grade test. Maybe they do know how to learn, but they surely don't know
>> how to learn from their mistakes.
>>
>> Debra J. Saunders is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.
>
>
>

Judith Diamondstone
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