Thursday, April 07, 2005

Dammit, This Should Be Common Knowledge

As usual, I am forced to continually clarify things that I simply assume are common knowledge to every thinking human being in this country. Please folks, pay some attention to what is going on in your world. Here we go:

The only people that still think that public education is a good thing are the people that have not kept up through the "Self-Esteem" movement of the nineties or morons that adhere to this philosophy. It seems that the reason that Junior can't read is because we hurt his damn feelings but the truth is that teachers no longer are required to actually know anything or teach anything.

HERE are the requirements for a Graduate Degree in Education. A GRAD DEGREE! Please, this doesn't qualify someone to pet animals.

Okay, you say, those are the requirements for a Grad degree, obviously there is something that these prospective teachers learn before that. NOPE. HERE are the requirements for an Undergrad. Man, that is just toooooo impressive.

If you have concerns about why our students are stupid compared to the rest of the industrialized nations of the world, it is solely because it takes no intelligence or comprehension at all to be a teacher in today's public schools. Granted, you might happen to run across one teacher that actually tries to teach your kid something. People, this is the exception, not the rule. It has been this way since the mid-eighties. Chances are if you are under thirty years old, your education is very lacking or virtually nonexistant.

Oh, in case you're sitting there going, "HE CANNOT BE TALKING ABOUT ME!" If you don't know the uses in the your-you're debate, yep, I'm talking about you, sweetheart.

And for anyone that has access to a copy of a teacher's registration exam from any state of the Union, please forward it to me. I will take the test WITH supervision and guarantee that I will pass with flying colors. I will even get my fifteen year old son to take it as well and guarantee that he will pass it.

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8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, finally something I can comment on. I can tell you firsthand that I got a horrible education and unfortunately, I went to Jackson Public Schools. But I do know the difference between your and you're. I am saddened everytime I see someone that doesn't know the difference and believe me, it's all the time! I can also say that in the 3rd grade, my math teacher wasn't teaching me my multiplication facts, she was sitting in the back of the classroom cleaning out her purse and giving away expired coupons. She also wore plastic flowers in her hair and Crayola brand makeup (yeah, the kind that little girls play with). My mom had to storm up there and throw a box full of paper's from this "teacher's" class, including tests with problems that had no answers, onto the principal's desk and inform him that I would not be returning to school for two weeks because she was going to stay at home with me so I could learn math which is what she was sending me to school to do. Oh and also that I wouldn't be counted against for those days missed. To this day, I am terrible at math and I directly blame her and everyone else directly or indirectly involved. And when I was in the 7th grade, this so called teacher was finally let go from JPS. And Two Dogs, I am sure you are aware that you don't even have to have an education degree to be a teacher in the state of Mississippi. You must have a degree, period. And after that, I believe you take a two week course and the PRAXIS exam. I'm pretty sure I'm correct on this but if not, please let me know. Anyway, you're completely right about the quality of our teachers being less than par these days. I guess because of the teacher shortage, it's quantity over quality, which isn't the best method. But you know, not to knock anyone else that may contribute to this conversation, unless you're really seeing firsthand how bad off our school's are getting, (which I do every single day) it's easy to look at requirements and subjective information to base your opinions.

Anonymous said...

There are many problems with public schools, to be sure. My son has an idiot for a teacher right now. What is the difference, though, between teachers in public schools and teachers in private schools? Don't they attend the same colleges?

Paul Mitchell said...

Thanks for the recounting of your life-threatening experiences at JPS. You are correct that any degree qualifies you to teach. However, most future teachers do opt for the education degree in our great state. Again, I am serious about taking the exam. Anyone gets me ANY test from ANY state, I'll take it with absolutely no preparation.

Paul Mitchell said...

Imara, I am shocked, completely shocked, that you would even try to agree with me. I must rethink this post, I must have missed something in my searching on this topic.......

Erik Grow said...

Public schools are a very uneven proposition across the land. There are lots of great ones, and lots of really bad ones unfortunately. I went to a very good one fortunately in upstate NY, and I live in an area with very good ones as well here in northern VA, but if I moved an hour further south from here, it would be a whole different story. If I recall correctly, Mississippi as a whole has not historically fared well against the rest of the country. I hope it is getting better there. I've never even set foot in the state, so I am only going by my memory of possibly oldish stats. There are no easy answers, but that self-esteem stuff is very much overblown. I don't think there is anywhere near as much of that going on as you think. The differences in schools though are big, and they need to be addressed beyond what is being done now.

Another thing you may not know is that many of the students that we compete against are up against different standards. In Germany, they track kids in their early to mid teens and send them to different types of schools. The kids that go to vocational school and are done with formal education at 16 or 17 are not always counted in those statistics.

Paul Mitchell said...

Yes, and that is probably a good thing as well to test the youngsters for their aptitudes for certain tasks. I personally don't have the belief that everyone should go to college.

Even though the family of Two Dogs is quite possibly the most intelligent on the planet, if my son decided that he wanted to pick up trash for a living, I would hope that he would be the best trash collector in the world.

And yes, Erik, the self esteem movement has reached idiotic proportions. Perhaps you missed the news story about the school in upstate New York last week. Seems they have a problem with using red ink to correct test papers, seems it's causing all kind of anxiety for the little cwumb cwunchers. The red ink can possibly cause them to start shooting up the school and stuff like that.

Oh, I don't really remember where the school was, but I thought it would be funny if it was your alma mater.

Erik Grow said...

Public schools are a very uneven proposition across the land. There are lots of great ones, and lots of really bad ones unfortunately. I went to a very good one fortunately in upstate NY, and I live in an area with very good ones as well here in northern VA, but if I moved an hour further south from here, it would be a whole different story. If I recall correctly, Mississippi as a whole has not historically fared well against the rest of the country. I hope it is getting better there. I've never even set foot in the state, so I am only going by my memory of possibly oldish stats. There are no easy answers, but that self-esteem stuff is very much overblown. I don't think there is anywhere near as much of that going on as you think. The differences in schools though are big, and they need to be addressed beyond what is being done now.

Another thing you may not know is that many of the students that we compete against are up against different standards. In Germany, they track kids in their early to mid teens and send them to different types of schools. The kids that go to vocational school and are done with formal education at 16 or 17 are not always counted in those statistics.

Two Dogs said...

Imara, I am shocked, completely shocked, that you would even try to agree with me. I must rethink this post, I must have missed something in my searching on this topic.......