Amy Re...Good point. How do you make parents from a well-off country feel motivated to instill this in their children? Parents from Asian countries instill this in their children because other options are way too bleak. Does the country have to go downhill before pain motivates parents?
If you owned a business and and one division was performing as poorly as the high schools are, what would you do with that division? ONe way to get get the schools to change is to give them competition. Private schools, paying schools and teachers by the number of students they teach, and how well. Focus the schools on teaching, by eliminating all distractions which prevent the schools and teachers from achieving their goals. Eliminate bussing, get rid of troublesome teachers; get rid of all quotas, get rid of the lawyers, and let teachers set the rules in their class. Have student courts discipline students, or vote them out of class, or the school. Etc.
Meet the needs of the students to get to where they want to go in life, be relevant.. Offer vocational training to those who don't want to go to college. To those who do, design their classes around preparing them for college. Instead of smaller classes/teacher, do like colleges. Have larger lecture halls, and have student TA's, teach small classes, and let students switch TA's if necessary. Give TA's extra credits,and pay TA's enough to create demand, so teaching is viewed as a reward.
Probably because more than 55% of our core science courses are filled with the best scientists from the world. In my upper level grad CS courses, there were more than 75% foreigners I believe. This is how it is in the best schools - they attract top talent. It's also probably why they are the best schools.
That answer evades the question. Why would the best foreign students come here if our colleges were teaching as bad as our high schools are? Certainly the best foreign students could chose the best college in any country. Scholarship or no scholarship, wouldn't they chose a college which could best prepare them. The answer to me is responsibility and motivation, and fun. The foreign students come here to get away from home, have fun, get a good education, and sometimes to get exposure to corporations that have the best jobs; the same as local students.
Oh heavens no. Completely different. The lower schools are very poor, while the colleges are excellent.
The way the classes are set up is better in college, the methods of teaching are basically the same. Perhaps things are different now, but when I went, the professor lectured to between 50- 300 students in lecture hall, and TA's gave lower level teaching and semi weekly tests, and full exams. I doubt if most TA's were paid better, and/or had better teaching credentials, or were more motivated, than most high school teachers.
RE: "if you want to blame the lower schools inability to fire non productive teachers, well, the colleges can't fire them either."
Universities are not geographically specific - they are reputation based. Lower schools are fixed geography.
That answer also evades the question, much like a politician. What you are saying is that the students can get away from bad teachers. Which is one of my recomendations for high schools.
The lower school system is based more upon the rich get richer philosophy.
That would be true, if money could effectively motivate students and the best teachers were always the best paid. However if you go to a college type method, where you need fewer highly paid teachers, and more lower paid TA's, then you could accomplish far more with = money, and as the colleges have shown, a better job. Lets say you had a high school with 1000 students, in english class. You then would need 10- $40000 teachers, with each teacher teaching 5- 20 students classes/day; which = $400,000. The other way, you could have 2- $80,000, teachers,each giving 10-100 student lectures/wk and 100 TA's with 3-10 student classes/ wk x $10.hr X 35 wks. = $265,000, which leaves you another $135,000 for time for TA's to correct tests and 2 assistants to co-ordinate TA's. Its not the money, but more how you use it.
Seriously?
My relative (who is getting a masters in school administration and has done some grade school teaching as part of his training), said students seem angrier in life than what school was like for him. But he's also teaching in a big city, in a not-so-good part of town.
How is what I said, that much different than your friends experience. Both ways the students are unhappy, and don't want to be there. The key is to have happy, motivated students, not angry ones.
I liked your idea about motivating people through fun. Why don't you expand on this idea?
Now that is a tough one, and probably one that I should defer on. Lets just say, I think the high schools need to facilitate a healthy rebellion, and should make the school a place the students wants to go for friendship and guidance. Using TA's, debates ,student courts,team sports etc, all will give the student a place to go for friendship and achievement .
I've heard from my friends, the teachers in India can be very nasty and even physically abusive. These aren't the good teachers, of course. But the majority seem to take their jobs seriously and their culture is more top-down, so kids are more respectful and learn. On the other hand, my friends from India tell me our creativity that our schools foster is stunning.
In your previous post, you said the US should import teachers. Now, here you say why they won't work. That is what I was trying to say. Different culture require different methods. If we can refine our methods so our students want to go, and make it so the student behaves himself, because he wants to, the change could be dramatic.
I think transporting kids into better schools should be used. Why should a kid be penalized by their family's location?
But it is okay to penalize the students you bus there. Why not leave the students and send the money. Or figure out a better way to finance the schools. It is insane to bus students.
One student's parent sued a school for their grade. Creepy.
I was talking about quotas and the lowering of admission standards to meet them. |
