Daily Dose of Sultnpapper 08/21/18> A new school year and … the end of a career.
The beggining and the end...
Monday marked the day that all school age children dread, or I should say; most school age children dread. It was the first day of the new school year, at least here in Texas anyways. It also marked the first day of retirement for one of my older brothers. After 40 years of teaching and coaching he decided to call it quits and I can’t blame him one bit. The last 15 years of his teaching career have been extremely difficult for him.
Forty years will see changes
When your career spans 40 years you most certainly will see changes in your profession. Some of the changes might be for the better and mark a big improvement and others might not be as good. The teaching profession takes a certain kind of person. I don’t want to piss off any teachers here since I know there are some here on steemit, but if you are honest with yourself I think you would have to agree with me when I say, “a certain kind of person.”
I wouldn't have made...
My brother was that kind of person and still is even though he is no longer teaching. Personally, I couldn’t do the job of being a teacher; my brother lasted 40 years in a profession that if I were in it I wouldn’t have lasted 40 hours. I am just not that kind of person.
April 20, 1999
Before I get sidetracked, which I have been able to mange quite well lately, let me explain why the last fifteen years have been difficult for him. A lot of teachers who have been in the profession for a while will always point to April 20,1999 as the day the teaching profession started to really change, but if those teachers knew anything about history, which is a subject teachers teach, they would know that what took place that day had been going on in the schools for over 100 years at that point.
Words have meanings...
The education profession, ever since the early 1900’s hasn’t been about educating young minds, it has been about teaching, and words have meanings, different words can sometimes be substituted with no loss of meaning but there is a difference between teaching and educating.
Basics...
The basic definition of” teach” means to show or tell someone how to do something. Education or educating on the other hand is a more involved process and involves stimulation of the mind of the person who is being educated, education involves thinking.
Back in the early 1900’s wealthy men like Andrew Carnegie and John D Rockefeller needed workers for their factories. They didn’t need educated thinkers that might end up being in competition with them so they started foundations that had to do with education. Donating money is the easiest way to get what you want and they knew it, so by donating to schools and universities it was easy to influence exactly what would be taught and how.
So, you won’t be going to meet your son or daughter’s educator in the next few weeks when open house rolls around you will be going to meet their teacher. School districts don’t hire educators to work in the class rooms with students they hire teachers for that line of work.
Dumb down for a reason
People in the USA were dumb down for a reason and it still continues to this day, probably more out of habit than any other reason, since most factories and plants have moved manufacturing to foreign countries for cheap labor and less government restrictions.
When you have done things with a purpose for well over 60 or 70 years it is hard to break that cycle even though the initial reason for the action no longer exists. The factories really started closing up in the 70’s and 80’s here in the USA, that is where the 60 or 70 years comes from, the last 35 or 40 years has just been the continuation of the practices, old habits are really hard to break.
On the edge...
I said I wouldn’t get side tracked and I’ll be damned if I am not just right on the edge of that, but it is important to know the history if even just a little bit of it.
Back to my brother...
Back to my brother, the last 15 years were tough on him because I always kept bringing up the fact that teaching kids how to memorize answers to state required proficiency tests is not giving the kids an education. It is adding to the problem in my opinion. There isn’t much opportunity for people who can’t think and thinking is something that has to be practiced and learned by trial and error in some cases. The more times we had these type discussions the more he started to see that what I was saying was in fact true.
History and science...
Seeing how he taught history and science, which I actually like both of those, he would occasionally get questions from me about particular items that interested me in those areas. “Just how fast is this ball we call earth spinning by the way?” I would always tell him that it didn’t seem to spinning any faster than 800 mph to me, I just can’t believe it is going at 1,000 mph.
Millions of barrels...
And just how many dinosaur carcasses does it take to make a barrel of oil? This planet had to be wall to wall dinosaurs in order to make all that fossil fuel we have been pumping out of the ground at millions of barrels a day for well over 100 years now.
The more I questioned him on the things he was “teaching” the more questions he started having going through his mind. That is why the last 15 years have been tough on him, none of the kids in any of those classes he was teaching were asking any questions, and if he they did all he had to do was point to the book and page and tell them to read it or he would read it to them.
Magical forces...
My favorite question was always about gravity. You know gravity right? It is that magical force that keeps the water in the oceans so it doesn’t fly off the surface of this spinning ball we are on, yes that gravity. The same gravity that leads us to say what goes up must come down.
Up , up and away...
How can a force that is so strong as to keep the water on the surface of the earth not be strong enough to keep a little helium balloon from floating away? I don’t know what Sir Isaac Newton was drinking or smoking when that apple fell from the tree but I would damn sure like to have some of it, I might be able to come up with some theories of my own if I did.
The more we talked, and I questioned, the less he was maintaining that “certain type of person” characteristics.
Damn lucky...
I never was a good student when I was in school, in fact a good case could be made that I was one of those kids who slipped through the cracks of the education system, and came out of school uneducated. Man looking back on that after all these years I feel damn lucky.
Life lessons...
I have learned a lot of life lessons in those years and I learned a lot about just how things are and why. Those are things that are not taught in schools and for good reason, if they taught those things it would be harder and harder to find those certain type of people needed to keep the myths alive.
Enjoy your retirement brother, I promise not to ask any more questions.
Until next time,
@sultnpapper
The most important question a teacher can ask themselves after a lesson is: What did my students actually learn? If the answer doesn't disappoint or haunt the teacher most of the time and leave them hoping to improve their lessons, they are probably an awful teacher, but a perfect fit for a public administrator of education.
Well said @abitcoinskeptic, well said.
I am a product of 15 continuous years in said institutions. I learned perilously little in that time. I memorized a lot of shit (sorry, I have no other word for it) and got decent grades because I could. I wasn't an honor student by any means and I was a bored, ornery kid. And now, 50 years later, I remember very little of the stuff I memorized.
But I have learned. I am a reader, have been all my life. Probably why I was bored in school. Do you know that 30% of Americans never read another book after they leave school? And that 50% read less than 10? They get their continuing education from the TV. A scary thought all by itself.
We could argue gravity and the rotation rate, and I'll just say that the math seems to check out from my perspective. I am a big fan of mathematics.
All that said, my good buddy Erv did much of what your brother did. Except that Erv never stopped questioning for an instant (I don't think he's capable). His most recent foray back into education didn't end well and Monday he is starting in a project aimed at making lives better for 'mentally challenged' individuals. It'll be interesting to see how he does. I'm guessing those young people will actually learn some things if he has his way :)
Good for Erv, I wish him well in that new endeavor.
Math is a interesting subject and it always seems "they" can get math to check out correctly but when "they" do make it check out it is always with a slight little change that has to be made with regard to distance, time, or speed in a lot of cases, which are all variables. So as long as you have the liberty to change the variables, you should be able to get the math to correspond to what ever it is that a person is trying to prove mathematically.
If memory serves me correctly the distances between the sun, earth and moon have changed at least three different times that I can vaguely remember since we changed from a fixed stationary planet Earth that was the center of our solar system and went to the system we currently have where we are flying through space, orbiting the sun and the moon orbiting the Earth.
I guess the good part is that we could both look at a glass of water that was half full and we might differ on whether it was half full or half empty and that would be based on our perspective. The good part is we both see it and agree it is a glass and has water in it, the rest is just ....
Congratulations to your Brother on his retirement
I to could never be a teacher and I think your brother must have seen so many changes in the education system and sadly for the most part not for the better.
I think it was so different when we went to school, the parents in a lot of ways supported the teachers and proper behaviour of kids, it seems to me kids these days have a sense of entitlement and expect to just get a pass for attending school and not paying attention or putting any effort in
Kids now days will only put out what is demanded of them, if that. The big problem with that situation is that parents no longer try to parent and are more interested in being the kids "friend", and most friends don't demand anything of each other for fear of losing a friend.
If the parents won't demand their kids do something how can we expect that a school would be allowed to demand they do something? We can't, and plenty of parents will go up to the schools and defend their kid not doing anything if the school calls the kid out for lack of effort.
Now it isn't about education any more, it is all about money. Having kids butts in the seats everyday means the school district will get federal money for each kid each day, and schools like having money to spend on things like sports fields. We have high school sports stadiums here in Texas that cost in excess of $70 million dollars for one football field.
@sultnpapper thats all so crazy times sure have changed and for the worst
sometimes it's not about how well you start, it is how well you end.
=) happy retirement to your brother
I'll pass those retirement wishes along to him since he doesn't read the daily dose. Although, he may just start now that he is retired. I might just have to send him a link, thanks for making me think about that.
I did not get my education through school. Yes, I physically attended school and passed the said exams, but my real education began before I started school when my mother taught me to read. I always asked 100's of questions in school and never got what amounted to satisfactory answers for me. I made sure that my sons got an education and didn't regurgitate what the government system said they needed to memorize. I wanted to teach them to think outside the box that the education systems like to put young minds.
Congratulations to your brother on his retirement. He made it! I had a couple of cousins who changed careers partway through because they became so disillusioned with the system.
I think @zen-art could explain why a helium balloon doesn't crash to earth (I only have a vague memory about mass x gravity from my physics class, so I'd better not try...) However I get your point and I'm in complete agreement. Pupils are taught how to be obedient and compliant workers, not to think for themselves. We are taught to think for ourselves, but only within certain boundaries. We are taught to think about which political party might suit us, not about whether the political system is corrupt. We are taught to think about how to add up our money, but not how to invest it. If you're programming someone you have to fill their mind, so that they don't have the capacity to think for themselves.
Yes, @zen-art can explain, and she will... in a post...soon... For now, spoiler alert: buoyancy.
Interesting read @sultnpapper btw, I agree that we have a wrong approach when it comes to educating. I always say that we have to teach kids how to think, not what to think. When we teach them how to think, we teach them not to be sheep. The reason why we are not teaching them that is because politicians need sheep, not people. Like you said, dumb down, and yes, it is for a reason. Imagine how the world would look like if people were able to think, not much profit there for certain groups, is it?
I am aware of buoyancy , gravity is the one I am interested in.
I am glad we agree on that we both believe that education officials have taken the wrong approach on educating.
Sheep have plenty of wool to be pulled over their eyes , thinking people have not so much. It isn't a secret that the rich factory owners drove education to where it is today, the politicians just continue to capitalize on it. Certain groups surely would suffer if more people did in fact know how to think and made the effort to do so.
I like the way you put it @sultnpapper - yes, sheep have plenty of wool to be pulled over their eyes. I think we're all on the same page :)
The essence of this story should be the first in every teachers 'education program'.
O wait thats wrong, a teacher should not be a 'programmer'. :-D A teachte should only teach how to make mistakes. And by that I mean, do something wrong , and then show options on how to do it better.
Yes, it is funny here that the people in management of the schools refer to themselves as educators but the people in the classroom working with the class are teachers. Both are not doing the kids a bit of good when they are focused on state competency test results as the primary goal of education.
Bureaucrats decide about education, yet bureaucrats have 2 left hands and can't even fix a toaster, but they are good enough to decide about education?
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