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Comment by Bosnian Serb
A few years ago, I gave my view of the situation in the west: slowly sliding to Medieval, or even the Dark Ages. Because it was clearly visible that ignorance was taking over. Inertia from good times was powerful, so many things looked better than they really were. My family moved to Canada in 1995, from former Yugoslavia, Serbia. The standard of living was way better in Toronto, than in Belgrade, for sure. However, when one looked below the surface, the only differences were reliable and cheap supply of energy – heating gas, cheap electricity, and ever cheaper international phone calls. And of source, the subway, underground train, metro. Everything else was no better or was even slightly worse than back home. We had cars, color TV’s, summer vacations on Adriatic and abroad. I am not mentioning free education and health care, that was something people from Yugoslavia and former Warsaw Pact simply took for granted. That is typical for eastern European immigrants – taking all good things from home for granted, and only seeing what is better, or seems better in the west. Better turned to be – fancier and/or more luxurious. My kids were to young for school, but we somehow learned about the elementary and secondary school situation. Everybody I know from Yugoslavia was thinking the same thing – this (education) is bad here, could we somehow manage to send kids back home, for schooling, maybe, support them from here, and after high school perhaps bring them back here for the University? It remained a dream. Our children went to school here, good marks and all, but we saw the poor shape of the education system. When we talked about that, some of us would say “Yeah, it is all true, poor schools, but look at this country (Canada) , then look at what we left home: which one looks better?
Well at home we left war, at the time when kids were of school age, there was another war, NATO vs Serbia, 78 day bombing with depleted uranium and cassette bombs… Interesting, in every false flag in Libya, Syria, NATO and US always blame the opposite side for inhuman use of cassette bombs… We hunkered down and of course stayed here, the land of milk and honey. What made us see the situation better than it was is our employment. Somehow, most of our people were well paid, good health benefits, 4 week vacation or more, so it looked almost as before. Well, most of us arrived here with 10-15 years of professional experience, which made us good candidates for getting pizza delivery jobs. Slowly, step by step, within two years we all kind of got to social level similar to what we left (before the wars). We did realize soon how local people (we used terms English or Canadian ) possessed very limited knowledge of what they were doing. Don’t get me wrong, they were not stupid, lazy or evil, most of them like anywhere, just did not know things. We quickly learned not to offend project and business managers by revealing how much they did not know. See, to be a good organizer of things you need to be smart and have a disciplined work force which would do as its told. And it did work somehow. But most technical and knowledge based decisions and things were done by immigrants, especially Eastern Europeans. Chinese, most of them, were very knowledgeable and learned, but most of them refused to think and simply followed the orders, which worked well for the management. Until it did not, when unexpected situations happened. Very few Indo/Pakistani experts were around, but lots of not so qualified people on decent positions,in spite of propaganda wants us to believe. Significant exception was Iranians. There were not too many of them, but I never met an Iranian who was not very capable in practice, with all necessary education and learned approach to problems at work.
That was what was easily observable. Symptoms, not yet diagnosis. People may have high fever for many different reasons which are not flu viruses and bad bacteria. Then acute bursts of disease started occurring. About ten years ago, Toronto wanted to renew street car fleet (trams). No company in USA was able to do that, not many of them in European Union, either. Then a national pride, Bombardier (known for dash and De Haviland aircraft) was selected to do the work. Huge contract, 5-6 years. It turned out that they stopped producing anything years ago. No problem, we are Canadians and we have the best of everything. A plant was re-opened in Thunder Bay, alas, no qualified workers. Oh well, a street car is ancient technology, from 19th century, we are sophisticated economy, nano technologies, Nortel and cell phones, how difficult it can be to build a street car? Today, more than 10 years since it all started, only a portion were delivered, most of them required serious intervention before hitting the streets. Three CEO’s came and went, and yet no street cars. Lots of money wasted, time, to achieve partial goal with low quality. All kind of reasons were given as excuse and explanation, and never the main one – they simply did not know how to make a street car. Governments and huge corporations paid billions for modernization and improvement, to “leverage technology, you know”. For several years now, federal employees have huge problems with payroll management – they replaced old system, with new, modernized and improved – which did not work at all, then was fixed and fixed and is still being fixed. That was not result of fraud. It was pure ignorance.
Recently I found somewhere that USA army cannot produce or purchase tents, for lack of cloth that tents are made of. There was one supplier, but five years ago they outsourced the production to China, sold it, then went out of business. Surgical masks, protective gowns, even famous ventilators – USA is simply does not know how to produce (design, get raw material, organize manufacturing and distribution).
How to cure the disease? Level of knowledge is where European countries were in pre-industrial time. What is the difference between pre-industrial and post-industrial. I don’t know the differences, but similarity is neither have any industrial capacity. In pre-industrial time, knowledge and capital were missing. So what poor countries did – they sent their youth to study abroad, to Germany, Austria, England, France. It took a good generation to build not the workforce but the ability to produce a knowledgeable work force. In Serbia, about 1820 (a bit after Napoleon) we got mostly liberated from Ottoman Turks, (Erdogan variety), opened “A Great School”, then sent the brightest and smartest to Vienna, Prague and Paris to study. Elementary schools started work in the country. When the smart and the brightest came back from Vienna, Prague, Paris, they became professors at Great School. Few years after, we were able to produce a handful engineers, doctors, historians, geographers and such, that could actually do some work. Until then, we had to rely on foreigners, experts mostly fro Vienna, Prague or Paris. Few years before WWI, we were able to produce significant number of people who were more than just literate. Alas, WWI took most of them – there was a battalion of “1300 corporals”, university students trained for war, which they joined, and some came back, but not too many. In 1918 it was all over again, but we had infrastructure, schools and universities were established in the 1860’s and continue to work after 1918. In 1941, WWII came, the communists took over, yet educational system was pretty much intact. Communist could not send students to Vienna or Paris, so they turned to uncle Stalin and the Soviets came to teach us, just like in 1917-18 their grandparents fled the revolution. You can call communists this and that, but stupid they were not. Education was the most important thing – in order to industrialize the country. Stalin did that in 1930’s for USSR. The relationship with Stalin soured in 1945, so we were on our own, but managed somehow to get to the level of middle of the pack of western countries. Today, there is very little industry in Serbia, NATO took care of it in 1999. Slowly it is getting better. Serbian students are in high demand in Europe. Two years ago, Germany took, purchased, offered jobs to an entire generation of medical doctors. Whoever graduated that year, was offered a job in Germany, right after school. Why would Germans do that? Don’t they have their own doctors? Or maybe there are two categories of doctors in Germany, well paid Germans, and second class Serbians. It turns out, the former reason – they do not have nearly enough doctors coming from their schools. Nor for lack of knowledge, more to lack of money, you see, even their education is expensive or maybe high schools do not produce enough students of quality needed to finish medicine.
Where is Canada/USA in all of this? My bet is they are now where Serbia was in 1850. Not enough people with expertise on all levels, primary, secondary, post secondary, without foundations of a system able to produce them. Yes, that is where they are. It is worse, we simply did not have any teachers. They have a whole well off class of educators. Most of them do not posses enough knowledge to teach. Now they need to get rid of most of that and start sending people to China, Russia, Iran, Thailand, Serbia to educate them. Why there? Because in those countries there enough teachers capable of teaching in English. Yes it is that bad. Don’t ask me for sources to see how bad things are, eh, “we have the best education system in the world here in Canada, you know, envy of the world”. Maybe Iranian and Russian teacher feel envy when they hear how much Canadian teachers are paid, but that is the end of it. In some sense, I am the source. For 20+ years I have been working for a government agency that tests elementary and high school students, mainly math and English. In 1997 we delivered the first sets of data. English was so-so, but math was terrible (even Canadians admitted that). After then, English literacy improved a bit, math went slightly down. Kids who were 10 and 12 in 1997, would be 30+ today – new crop of teachers. How can students who were seriously bad in math, in formative years, become suddenly good teachers and teach the kids something? If somebody does not understand why 10 and 12 are formative years an foundation for later, please check the curriculum in Russia or China.
Yes, Canada and USA are in 1860’s now, but think they are in 2060’s. Who knows if they continue like this, perhaps in 2060’s they sink in stone age, population collapses, and rich tourists from China and Iran come to see stone age people in their natural habitat, like we go to Yellowstone and British Columbia to see grizzly bears? Maybe somebody declares them a species in danger, so we somehow protect them from extinction?
Getting out of denial is the first step to recovery. However, historically, it takes a social revolution to seriously change the foundations of a society. If a revolution ever happens in North America, I guess it will be more like 1789 France than 1917 Russia. After all, technological situation in USA and Canada is closer to 1789 France than 1917 Russia.
Please do not understand the text as bashing Western countries. Some 40-50 years ago, it was not like this. Canadians designed and produced excellent military jet – Avro. When USA learned about it, all the work stopped, at the moment of readiness for production, documentation was transferred to Arizona, and few essential people. I learned that from my neighbour a few years ago. Robotic arm that Soyuz Station uses is made by Canadians. First computers were indeed made by USA, Bill Gates not-withstanding. Many things they have built on this continent are still what they call now “cutting edge”, some are very old. A canal connecting Hudson river to lake Eire was built in USA in early 180’0s, I believe 1825-1835. That act cancelled British advantage – St. Lawrence, in English hands, was a direct route to fur country – Great Lakes. Now the USA could penetrate fur country without needs to go to war with the English. After all, it was on the USA/Canada border that the first electrical power plant was built. Today nobody says electricity, the word is Hydro, the first plant was hydro powered. We may question the Moon landing; the fact remains in Space they did fly. Then there was Space Shuttle. It worked work at the time when Russian Space program was if not dead, at least in agony. We may also question 9-1-1, the fact that those buildings were built at the first place is extraordinary. Building them was a feat. Destroying them required different skills. Even bringing a building down to its footprint is not a small thing.
Universities are somehow still able to function, way better than elementary and secondary schools. Text books are still excellent, way better than what we had in Serbia, which I know for sure. I cannot tell about Russia or Iran. I know from experience that they were stronger than us, and still are, in mathematics and many technical branches, books or no books. Even some high school books are very good. Elementary school text books,- not so. Well, there was even no government sanctioned curriculum until after 2000! How can one write a good text book for non existing curriculum, eh? Everybody was teaching what they saw fit. The system would produce a flash of excellence, once in a while; statistics is in play all the time
Inertia is a great power, both in mechanics and in social sphere. Once good/bad system is established (i.e. education, health, transportation, energy), it is hard to destroy, almost impossible. Russian science was dismantled cruelly in 1990’s; there were even a few officially recognized ‘lost generations’ of human capital. Suddenly they make hyper-sonic rockets. It was not Putin who re-built education and technical base from zero up. The system was there, dormant and pushed aside for a while; it took Putin to wake it up. Fundamentals were built by Peter the Great; Czarism kept it in good health and appreciated education (I mean real education, not training, not skills learned on the job, no cross training). Lenin and Stalin gave it a another strong push. From feudal country before 1917, they industrialized quickly and in mid 50s were on par with USA. All the time, schools functioned and still are, more or less the same way. Peter the Great, Romanovs, Lenin, Stalin, Putin, even drunken Yeltsin run the schools the same way. They did privatize everything, even parts of health and education, but the core remains intact, not because Putin does not want to change it, but because the core naturally refuses to change. Like Newton’s inertia, good system, or bad, tends to stay in current state. A force is needed to change the state and bring system to another level, better or worse.
There is good inertia in the West too, but it is heavily suppressed at the moment. Smartness is evenly distributed, over Europe, Russia, China, Indonesia, Brazil, USA or Canada. Due to immigration, USA and Canada even have advantage in numbers due to influx of immigrants. The trick is how to use good inertia for the benefit of the people. For last 15 years the brightest Canadian kids went to study business and accounting, to became financial brokers. The studies were based on Case Studies, not much theory, not much thinking. It is politically incorrect to demand from kids to add and multiply fractions – we have phones and computers. That is true. But the purpose of learning times table is not to become good in arithmetic. It is a brain exercise, for in life and schooling brain muscles are as important as physical muscles. Interestingly, it is OK and laudable for kids to wake up 6 AM, do some skating and physical exercise, then shoot 500 pucks into the net. We are a hockey nation. Asking for kids to work on homework two hours a day is insulting. Hence, no homework is given to students.
Physical infrastructure is there – Canadian schools are spacious, well heated, well equipped, perhaps the best in the world. For USA, not sure, but great majority are in good shape and equipped. We have smart kids, good school buildings, computers and all, human capital is there. We just need someone to teach us how to teach students, and what to teach them. Existing books will do, for a while. But to do that we must eat a big chunk of humble pie. There is no shame in asking for help. However, a revolution would be necessary. I have no expertise nor experience in that domain, so no more talk from me.
The Chinese have 80,000+ ideograms. We have 26 letters in the alphabet.
The brain of Chinese students is far more developed as it progresses toward literacy.
The brain of US students is stultified by control freak education monitors (teachers, administrators, disciplinarians) who exert behavior management techniques over educational modeling for children. Sit down, shut up, behave. And for boys, no running.
You get what you produce.
Chinese (like Vietnamese and Japanese) respect learning.
Americans use school as a baby sitter system and when the kids are home, TV, streaming and games suffuse their children’s environment.
Of course, many immigrants are valuable. The natives have been dulled down, turned off, misled, abused.
*In elementary school, Chinese pupils are expected to learn about 2,500 characters which are the most used. Then they assimilate about 1,000 more specific ones during middle school and high school. In the end, Chinese students that have finished high school know about 4,500 characters. For reference, the Chinese government puts literacy at 2000 characters. Well-educated Chinese people know anywhere from 8,000 characters and upwards. That’s really far away from the 80,000 Chinese characters! Only specialized linguists and scholars get closer to those 80,000.
4500 to 8000 characters to know doesn’t sound too bad, right?”
It’s a similar situation with Japanese, although due to having three different writing systems in their language, the need for Kanji knowledge isn’t so great. Even so, you need about 3,000 Kanji to read the average Japanese newspaper.
In Japanese, a word can begin in Hiragana, use Kanji in the middle, and then switch back to hiragana at the end. Or even use Kanji for everything, or perhaps Hiragana for everything (usually very short words.) Technically, you can write valid Japanese only in Hiragana, but because there are no spaces between words, it’s pretty difficult to tell words apart unless you know the exact spelling of each.
Japanese children learn their Kanji with small Hiragana written above the Kanji, so they know what it sounds like (and what the equivalent in Hiragana is). These small annotations are known as Furigana, and they are a nicely accessible linguistic step-ladder for those learning the language.
The cool part about Kanji is that it’s based on context. You can learn individual Kanji, but the power of association really starts to help when you learn them in words together. The meanings can be quite poetic, too: For example, the Kanji symbols “heaven” and “spirit”, when written together, mean “weather” (ten-ki); “flower” and “fire” written together mean “fireworks” (hana-bi), and even “electric” and “talk”, written together, mean “telephone” (den-wa). So, once you’ve gotten past 600-700 Kanji, your brain starts to accrete them pretty quickly.
Learning how to read (again) is also interesting: When I studied Japanese (before life circumstances changed and I had to focus on German instead), I experienced as an adult what it’s like to be illiterate. Once you’ve worked with the characters in your head for a couple of years, something funny happens: You are suddenly able to scan a page of information, looking for a word. It’s a higher-order reading skill, but it’s interesting to experience it again as an adult. Learning a different script really does do very interesting things to your brain.
Next up, I think I’m going to try my hand at Russian, but to handle that I’m probably going to have to give up on studying German – I’m not a linguist, unfortunately. Russian grammar is pretty difficult, though – but after having to learn articles with each word, I’m delighted that you can tell the gender of Russian words just by their ending. However, from the short taster course I did, I got to learn that the rest of the language is bloody difficult.
I’m going to have to see if I can find a school that will teach my toddler Russian from an early age. Based in Switzerland, he already gets German and English in the house from his parents, and he’ll get Swiss German and French at school. I was only raised with English, but unlike most of my peers living in countries like the UK, I think foreign language abilities are very important – and if you don’t learn them when you’re young, you will pay a very high price later (kind of like my experience with German…)
“The Chinese have 80,000+ ideograms. We have 26 letters in the alphabet.”
Hello Larchmonter445, if we combine our small 26 letters into words, we also have something between 75,000 and 100,000 words=ideograms, even more, if you want. So we have letters *and* words like Coreans or Japaneses, not only ideograms. Don’t think so bad about yourself, just use it and make the best of it :-) We all have a brain, and even animals, even snails and plants are intelligent :-) Intelligence is not only literacy, but also heart, right acting :-) Sometimes I think, that stone age people like Papuas are more intelligent than much other literate people, because they believe in God and know the right way. But literate people with all their atomic bombs/power stations and industry is ending up in dictatures, as we see now. Nature is more important than literacy.
Pindo “education” got progressively (pun intended) abysmal a few decades after WW2. Sadly pindo “values” permeated western education in the late ’90ies, and the whole Eu system, including the EEu one (which was almost on par with the soviet one) was completely destroyed in the coming decades. That proves that “inertia” isn’t enough.
As a side note, the first real computers were made by Konrad Zuse, not pindos. Even the soviets had better computers than WEu in the fifties. Pindos had the advantage that after WW2 their industrial base was left intact. Another big advantage was (still is) their main export item: greenbacks.
Third advantage: the English language.Today’s Lingua Franca. It is the common denominator of most educated people everywhere.
This has helped the US attract international talent and is also useful in diffusing their propaganda.
The US educational system has been on a downward path for decades. Here is a chapter in a book from the country’s memory hole, Archive.org. Written in the early 1950’s.
https://web.archive.org/web/20071109221310/http://www.shunpiking.com/books/GOD/Chapter03.htm
III. WAR ON THE MIND
BY ALBERT E KAHN
Chapter 3 from The Game of Death
The book points out how the education system was deliberately undermined in order to get people to think uncritically. Here is an example:
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Schools have systematically been defunded in favor of lower taxes, Proposition 13 in California, for example, was passed to provide property tax ostensibly for retirees. But in fact it cut property taxes on corporations. California’s school system deteriorated ever since.
With college tuition now bound up with debt, and with education being shunted into pure ‘marketable skill’, the level of science and math teaching has fallen. This is the reason why the F-35 and other weapons don’t work. The quality of engineering and other skill needed for high tech stuff has fallen.
The country is essentially illiterate, scientifically, intellectually, socially and politically.
By defunding health and education, the two most important things needed for a functioning society, Capitalists don’t realize that by enriching themselves at the expense of the rest of society, they set the stage for slow motion national suicide.
Around 20 years ago I saw an interview with an Australian professor.She said she gave a speech in the US about pollution destroying the earth.An older very rich man ( millionaire,billionaire?) in the audience came over to her after the speech.He thanked her and said he agreed with her.But then shocked her by saying “but I don’t really care.I’m very rich and I’ll live very well for the rest of my life.What comes after that I don’t care about”.I’m not sure they aren’t aware of the problems we have.But like that man,just don’t care about them.
California Proposition 13 destroyed education nationwide? Really? Integration destroyed education.
British Pilgrim society instructed their members in north america concerning education of the masses
source
https://www.fbcoverup.com/docs/library/1912-02-17-The-24-step-Pilgrims-Society-Corp-Imperial-Fed-Strat-to-Return-America-to-British-Rule-by-Lillian-Scott-Troy-by-Hon-J-Thorkelson-MN-1940-SF-Leader-GPO-George-Mason-Feb-17-24-1912.pdf
First exposed and published by American journalist
and suffragette Lillian Scott Troy in The San Francisco
Leader, Feb. 17, 24, 1912.
point 20 out of 24 reads
20. Education of the masses must be discouraged, in order to create harmony with the desires of the wealthy and the several trusts, who will see in such a suggestion a strong tendency to reduce wages from their now unreasonable heights to the basis of wages paid in Great Britain; also, the suggestion that the ignorant cannot organize so formidably as the educated masses will be widely appreciated as dissension and suspicion of their own leaders can be more easily advanced.
Good article Bosnian Serb. I have a college from Belgrad. She intended to move here for good (Scandinavian country) due to more job opportunities in her field (medical expert). She brought her family with their only son. Soon she started to complain about the school system here that hardly asks kids to do work at home. She moved partially back to Serbia so her son could go to school there and now works part time here commuting by plane (difficult now of course due to the corona crisis). BTW kids from western european countries are performing increasingly bad in the PISA tests as compared to for instance asiatic kids.
” kids from western european countries are performing increasingly bad in the PISA tests ”
Here in Norway i have to tutor my nephew and teach him, the school here will not help kids that are above average intelligence bc the “dumber” kids feelings may get hurt. My nephew is bored at school bc he finishes the books/papers b4 everyone else and the “teachers” get annoyed and tell him to “dumb down” and not believe he is smart instead of giving him more complex work that is on his level.. He is only in 2 grade and i already use 9 grade material and he finds that to too easy often. Sadly im just average at math so i have been trying to find a eastern European tutor that can help him there, i have hope to find one soon since there is a lot of eE living here.
I don’t know how accurate this is, or how fair. Having just read it, I simply want to applaud. This is the sort of irreverent and eye-opening comment we need to see more often. It’s really candid and unfiltered – “straight from the liver” as we say in my language.
Living in Ontario, I am familiar with the education system Bosnian Serb writes about. My oldest (6 years old) goes to French Catholic school, which although gets the best results in standardised tests in the province, still leaves much to be desired. You see, my wife went to a school that was still good in the post-soviet space and has that experience to compare what we are seeing now.
As our son goes to Russian school on Saturdays (at least he did before this Covid nonsense) we can also compare his school with teaching from Russians that aren’t even teachers but who know how to make things interesting and have standards to boot. Reading, writing (calligraphy) , numbers, you name it the difference is startling from Senior kindergarten. Now that we are seeing the kinds of conditions that are being considered for the school return in Sept (more like a prison camp than a school) we are seriously considering alternatives such as private school (jury is out if they will be any better) or home schooling (which would be very challenging for us I must say). But what else do you do?
I would like to get in touch with you Bosnian Serb, if that is OK with you. I will send my email to the moderator, would love to have a conversation with you given your knowledge and experience…
I will never understand the “neo-Western” (it wasn’t always like this, thus neo) propensity that treats education like a Disneyland theme park experience, instead of the military school experience that it should be (figuratively saying). I suspect their SJW/neo-liberal insanity had a hand in subtly turning their education system into trash. The utterly brainless, breeding more brainless.
Oldies who remember the internet in early 90s till about year 2000 can ponder about BBS postings of that era. Qualitatively better – in terms of information given, its depth, correct grammar and even spelling (which folks nowadays seem to make light of). Today? Massive regression. Reasons are complex, however the overarching principle is simple – lower the bar, you get more trash. Q.E.D.
The same thing applies to education. The proof is already in the pudding.
Yet the proof evades those with faulty CPUs.
When a student asked me how long should the assignment be, I was tempted to say, “like a girl’s skirt long enough to cover the main points and short enough to make it interesting”. Early in my career I used to say it, but I would not recommend it for today’s teacher. Today’s teacher would get reprimanded for such an answer. Why? Most parents simply do not understand their children, and many do not understand that their children are well on their way to independence. I always used to say to my students use the KISS principle but here I go being a teacher again. Why not I loved it.
Many members in the community, when speaking about teachers, will tell you that teachers have an easy job which includes a short day and long vacation periods. This is far from the truth. Most teachers report working forty to fifty hours per week and their holiday time in comparison to other professions with equivalent education is not out of line. Many teachers feel that the compensation for the work that they do is inadequate when compared to other professions and teachers with families are often forced to hold part-time jobs to make ends meet. So why do people go into the teaching profession?
An minimal number of teachers report love for children as the reason for choosing the profession. Others who chose the profession did not dislike children, but this was not their main goal in choosing teaching. Like other persons who chose vocations or professions those that chose to teach did so “because of the professional values inherent in it, an interest in or desire to teach a subject, or likening for children [would say] that their expectations had been fulfilled and that they would be likely to select teaching” as a profession if they had to make the choice again.
In most professions one sees the start and the end of one’s efforts, thus the job is much easier to define and value. Elementary and junior high school teachers do not see the end product of their teaching they only see the effort, while those in the community who see teaching as an easy job seldom see the material, effort and the end product of teaching and that, and the fact that teachers don’t promote the profession well is why there is so much misunderstanding about teachers and teaching.
Teachers, unlike many other professionals who work one on one, work with twenty or more individuals simultaneously who are involved in many tasks at once. Consequently, a teacher not only multitask helping individuals learn, but they at the same time also attempt to recognize the child’s understanding while providing constructive instruction, remediation, and motivation. Teachers on the daily basis seek to achieve curricular goals, instill love for learning, develop good work habits, and promote respect for others while teaching information. These are all learned processes, while the conditions under which teachers do these things can be modified but the workplace, accountability, standard testing, and curriculum seldom permits modification. Consequently, every hour teachers multitasks information and concerns about their own ability to teach.
Teachers know that a class not on task is not a class engaged in learning. Consequently, the teacher is constantly thinking about all kinds of issues related to the students and their own performance in the classroom. Teachers, particularly new ones, constantly question their standards on discipline, assessment, and student learning. They ask, am I a Scrooge or a Santa Claus, do the students like me, what do the parents think of me, does my principal think that I am doing a good job, what do my colleagues think of me and how well will my students do on standardized tests? Since all teachers want to open the student desire to learn rather than turn it off, while at the same time they are accountable to the students, parents, administration, school, and the wider community it is normal that they would be concerned about these issues.
How do teachers open the desire to learn with the constraints and expectations? To open the desire to learn the teacher needs to understand that basic skills and knowledge is important. For students to reach their potential the teacher must exercise good classroom management. These two things the teacher can control, while externalities such as lack of parental interest, school size, administration, and lack of resources are related factors but a good teacher who is fair, organized, has realistic expectations, and lets his students know that they are liked will be successful in getting the students to learn. Even though, teachers may meet all the above criteria many ask is this good enough or how can I do better.
Teachers question their ability, particularly if during the lesson the student does not respond as the teacher expected. These teachers immediately question their skills without taking into consideration that Johnny might have had a fight on the bus, Susie argued with her sister before she left for school, Billy’s father came home drunk, or Mary’s dog died last night. There are myriads of reasons why a specific lesson might not go over well for a student, and a good teacher will see the reason in the broader context of the classroom dynamics, and will adjust, review, add, and not jump into the conclusion that it is the lesson.
Most teachers are afraid to take time out of their lesson to talk about Mary’s dead dog, alcohol abuse, bullying, and family dynamics in the middle of a math lesson. A teachable moment will be lost. A good teacher is not a clock watcher but will understand the teaching moments when they arise. These teachers will not worry the curriculum for this lesson will be left for the next day or not covered at all. They will use the teaching moment and digress to expand on the student’s curiosity and critical thinking.
One of the most important elements in teaching, which teachers neglect, is critical thinking. Teachers are afraid that the extra time it takes for students to clarify their thinking is opportunity lost to teach the curriculum. Curriculum should be secondary to understanding and thinking. The following questions will go a long way in helping students think critically. Questions such as do you agree; can you add something; will you paraphrase what was said; is that better or worse than; can you think of a different way of doing that; would you like this to happen to you, why or why not; can you sum up the main points; what does that mean; can you say that differently; would someone in another country agree with you; would a female have a different answer from a male and why, and many other critical thinking question allow students to critically evaluate their thinking as well as their judgment. Even though, curriculum is important otherwise we would not follow it, understanding and learns should be the goal. How do we know if the student understands what was taught?
Government tests and norms pressure teachers to test their students, therefore many teachers feel that if they cover the curriculum the students will do well on the tests. This is a fallacy. Students do well on tests when they acquire skills to analyze and critically evaluate problems and issues. Students do well when they know how and where to seek answers. Students do better by doing rather than by memorizing. The old First Nations “proverb: Tell me, and I’ll forget. Show me, and I may not remember. Involve me, and I’ll understand” should be the teaching strategy for every classroom.2 Unfortunately we all remember the teacher who droned on about this or that as he/she read from a textbook while our mind was on the soccer game or lunch. This teacher gave us a quiz next day just to punish us because he/she put us to sleep.
The teacher should evaluate what the student knows not what he does not know. The evaluation of students should always be positive and encouraging and must provide direction for both the learner and the teacher. By a variety of processes of gathering information, as indicated in the unit plans, the student can be guided to meet the acceptable standard and at the same time the teacher can gain insight into the effectiveness of the teaching materials and strategies used in the classroom. The objective of evaluation should be to monitor progress, look at ways to improve learning, and describe student performance over time.
John Goodlad, educational researcher, writes that when teachers are restrained by the workplace, curriculum, and accountability learning does not take place. Frustrated teachers are dissatisfied and consequently less effective. Student performance is compromised and quality of education declines. Teachers understand these constraints. Therefore, good classroom management, consistent expectations with consequences based on trust caring, respect and co-operation will go a long way to achieve educational goals.
Almost every day I drive by a school where I live in BC and read on the sign in front “knowledge is power”. I am tempted to go in and tell the administration that knowledge is GIGO. The real powers lies in understanding.