I don't know who posted it to xmca...but it's good to see what's being
disseminated to the public, no?
Pete Farruggio
Oakland, CA
>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
> * NOTE CHANGE OF AREA CODE * (732) 932-7496 Ext. 352
>MAILING ADDRESS:
>Graduate School of Education
>Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
>10 Seminary Place
>New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1183
> * NOTE CHANGE OF ZIP CODE *