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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (68765)	12/26/1999 7:50:00 PM
From: Edwarda	Respond to of 108807

Lizzie, this is a reasoned answer and I appreciate it. You are correct in observing that the economic valuation placed on teaching as a profession is relatively poor and that it does not attract those who are not either utterly dedicated or unable to make their way elsewhere. And we as a society must consider a remedy if we want our children to grow up with anything resembling an education. Private schools are fine for those who can afford them, but the ideals embodied in a free public school system are not being met overall throughout the country. When a substantial part of the voting populace is barely functionally literate and has never been taught to read behind the printed word to consider the agenda, we are in danger of the sort of thing that CharleyMane elsewhere has posted--not democracy but mob rule. A quick aside: You make the point But when you are looking at the reality of a career in engineering vs. becoming a math teacher... a 10-fold or more salary difference... There is a problem with this point in that it assumes a very clear choice. What about the differentials for, say, historians or lit majors or psychologists? Your own background in technology may be limiting your vision here. Like you, I am at home with mathematics and (blush) I had very high SAT scores; I scored higher on the math than the verbal, which surprised me. Yet I originally aimed to teach history and I'm still not sure that I made the "right" choice, although it was obvious from the demographics at the time that being a college history teacher would have been beyond a vow of poverty. Many people do not have the transferability that you seem to ascribe to them. What do you mean by the observation "excessive $$ put into prisons lately"? I'm not challenging; I'm asking. Some of them were in even worse shape than the schools and I'm wondering what you mean by the word "excessive." As for the talk shows, what can I say? LOL!

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (68765)	12/26/1999 11:23:00 PM
From: Grainne	Respond to of 108807

<<In general I believe that the excessive $$ put into prisons recently would be better spent on upgrading school facilities in the inner cities too. I don't know about the east coast but out here the school facilities are an embarrassment and these dilapidated structures are sitting right beside beautiful corporate HQ's - another striking contrast - why not upgrade the buildings to show the kids they are worth something to society right off the bat..?>> This is a very good point, Lizzie. America has so many, many people in prison, we have criminalized poverty and drug addiction, etc. The western European countries are much more humane, attempting to treat and reform. We simply put them in jail and throw away the key.

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (68765)	12/27/1999 4:11:00 AM
From: nihil	Respond to of 108807

Check out MSFT's urban school program that trains MCSE's and guarantees them $40,000 on graduation. The Washington pundits are merely ignorant and out of touch. We have a junior college program that trains high school grads as Cisco system engineers. They make a fortune after two years. Many an Intel fab has a cooperative program with local highschools to improve local math and science education. These are the children of the workers and they will want to work for Intel when their parents retire rich and full of options.