Re: Lessons?..I think NOT!?!?

kitekrazy wrote:
Rufus wrote:
kitekrazy wrote:
Rufus wrote:
kitekrazy wrote:
Rufus wrote:


I've since surmised that about all I learned to do in grade school was write...in high school I learned Spanish, and analytical geometry. My real education didn't even begin until I went to college.


Of course, the instruction is more specialized. I assume you had your public education at a time when there was more attention given to low level learners while higher level learning opportunities was minimal or non existent.

I went to public school in the richest county in the state of Illinois...but to be honest,<

I'm curious..Dupage or Lake?


DuPage.



Thought so. I did some pre student teaching in the Naperville area about 20 years ago.


I'm a '77 Wheaton (District 200) grad, so well before your time...sad to hear things haven't changed, and may even be worse...thoughts?



I'm not really certain as to "attention
given". I know that there were schools in the area where there were more/better opportunities than mine, and that in some cases kids my age were forwarded to classes in junior colleges while in high school...I myself rode a bus to another high school to take metal shop - so I'm not really certain that any specific "attention" was given to anyone at all during my time, unless they were notably impaired...and certainly not if they were "gifted". And that may have been part of the problem.

As I mentioned, most of my K-12 teachers were fairly young themselves - some fresh out of their student teaching rotations - my grade 7-8 teachers in particular (I used to REALLY vex my young 8th grade science teacher with what I could prove I knew without even doing my home or classwork) so I can sort of chalk it up to their not being trained and/or experienced with what to do with someone like myself.

Somewhere between 4th and 8th grade is where I wonder what I might have achieved if someone had recognized my ability and done something positive about it at that time, upon reflection. I probably might have become a physicist, a theoretical mathematician, or some other sort of research scientist instead of an engineer. Oh, well...


That's debatable.


Yeah, maybe...but it's also demonstrable...

In the 4th grade they made the mistake of having a microscope in the classroom...I'd had my own microscope, been studying anatomy, and dissecting prepared specimens since I was about four (I think I even did a frog for show and tell in 2nd grade...), so I just up and blew off the whole of 4th grade by spending it at the microscope (yeah - I could prep specimens and make glass slides, too) - that teacher was old, and past being able to control her classroom...anyway, she passed me.

One 8th grade trimester I was actually put up in front of the classroom after once AGAIN getting the highest grade in the class on my final test (I always got the highest grade - 100% of the time, for two years) without doing any (zero) of the class/home work for myself during the trimester and my science teacher railed on for 5-10 minutes about not knowing what to do with me. Like I said - I used to drive him nuts...

...again, looking over my shoulder, I never did any of the work but I used to help the other kids do theirs. Sometimes I even did it for them - I was essentially teaching the class.


I'll still hold that it's ultimately up to a teacher in a classroom to recognize an individual student's nature, bring it to a parent's attention, and then for the parents and school system together to do something about supportively accommodating that talent or deficit.<


I can't fully agree here. Successful education takes place when a seed is planted and the individual takes it another level without relying on guided instruction.


Sort of...I'll agree that the true success comes when a student exceeds the teacher. But a teacher can also stand in a student's way if he doesn't know enough to get out of it. The teacher has to facilitate the transition to that next level - particularly when the student reaches the teacher's limitations.

I failed trig the first time I took it in college - from a USA born and raised TA. When I took it again, it was from a Taiwanese TA that couldn't pronounce the word "Pythagorean"...so she used to just say - "P-Theorem". I was well on my way to failing trig again, when I dosed off in class and woke up and the board had changed...but I understood everything on it - 100%. I aced all the subsequent tests, and the class. The difference - she drew pictures of the relationships and the other guy didn't - he just made us memorize theorems by rote. Which I've already stated bores me to tears...

Same thing with my first calculus class...Professor took me aside and told me that I was probably the smartest kid in his class. That "you could hold a discussion on theoretical mathematics with any PhD on campus and speak intelligently and know what you're talking about - but you're failing my class because you won't do the homework". Because the repetition of the homework bored me - I got it at the first, and was ready for something more.

Teachers CAN suck if they don't engage the student, and move at the student's pace. They need to watch for that, and be able to know it when they see it.


It's often easier said than done. It's a bad habit they learn in college.


Yeah...I often like to say that "a college education severely hinders me from achieving my true earning potential"...like when I hear things like that Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard...

I once had an opportunity to keep doing a job I'd been doing as a one-man company once if I'd have put in a bid for it - it was suggested that a $2 million dollar bid would make me a shoe-in, but I didn't do it because I thought I had to have a "job"...more thoughts on this subject to follow...


I grew up in a small town of 4000 in La Salle Co. In college I didn't have to take the intro music theory class because I tested out of it and it went beyond just reading notes.
Did my school district offer music theory? No.
How did it happen then?


Nobody taught me any music theory either - not while I was playing viola, not when I took up sax, not when I was forced into organ lessons. I didn't even consider thinking about looking into music theory until after I'd been playing guitar for about 20 years (with other people, I might add). And even then I did that on my own, too.

Recall what I said elsewhere about thinking about music in terms of learning language? Yeah - that's how you/I/we did it. You actively listened and learned the rules of the language of music - for yourself. You did that "intuitive" thing I mentioned that I can do when it comes to math and machines - the same way you learned to speak as a child.

It's also how I excelled in honors Spanish...I was sitting in class one day, asleep, and the teacher woke me up and immediately made me translate a sentence on the board - which I did correctly. Then he asked - "ok, now tell me why it's THAT verbal tense". My answer - "because it sounds better that way"...to which he replied - "that's ok for us natural speakers of the language, but can anyone ELSE tell me WHY it's that tense?"

...or more likely I should say how I approached learning Spanish had a great deal to do with how I approached teaching myself to play guitar.

The seed was planted when the teacher at that time showed us the blues scale and spent a little time on improvistation. Next step-I seen an issue of Downbeat Magazine in a store. I seen the word "Mixolydian" .


...I never bothered with any of that stuff...not until about 8 years ago or so. Now I know it, but I don't use it. Much. I think...

So my curiosity was off and on. Next year different teacher. Didn't do anything the teacher did the year before. Still curious about how a mixolydian scale may do something for my life, I talked to the teacher about and he let me use his college music theory book. I went beyond just knowing the mixolydian scale. I wasn't assigned a chapter, given a test or anything. This was a time when the net didn't exist.

So who's to blame? Who gets a pat on the back?


First teacher is to blame for holding you back...second teacher gets a pat on the back for moving you forward.


There is no correct answer. I never bothered to ask the first teacher.


Yeah...and that's where I was getting to by saying that as children we are generally not encouraged to speak up for ourselves to adults. Yours is another prime example...parents do that to us, and the system also does that to us - by encouraging the "average", IMO.


...you get a whack with the ruler for not speaking up in the first place. But then, we're taught not to speak up as children.

Being a belligerent sort of child from a very independent and strong family, I used to speak up all the time - I just couldn't get anyone to believe me (not even my own family) because I was usually so far ahead of them, and so far ahead of my own age group...I mean, what sort of 4-6 year old studies gross anatomy on his own in his spare time?..let alone is able to handle a scalpel?..or even knows what one is?..


As
has been pointed out, we're not all the same - no matter what the politicians would have us believe...


Glad you see it that way.


I think one of the worst things that was done to me was to be convinced by the system to see myself as "average", or being "like everyone else". I clearly wasn't "average"...but that didn't really start to sink in with me until I was about in my 40s or so. Again looking back, it's probably colored my expectations of just what people are capable of to an awkward extent...the "if I can do it, you should be able to do it - because I'm just an average sort of guy".


American Society does that in general. Just watch TV.


Agreed - definitely in line with what I said above...


I was once being pushed heavily to turn in an application to be an astronaut...but I didn't because of my "average guy" thinking. Then I got drug to a NASA recruiting presentation by two astronauts (one of which lost her life in the last disaster) and found out I not only met but exceeded a most of the qualifications...if I spoke Russian I'd have been a shoe-in...but astronaut is a job I really don't care to take...

When I turned up as a National Merit Finalist out of high school, I had zero idea of what that meant - I was just doing what was expected of me. I laughed when I said no to Harvard...and wouldn't even talk to the folks at Loyola that wanted to give me a full ride. I had no idea of the meaning of what I'd achieved (or might have) until FAR down the road. Now I try to pass it on in hindsight to young folks so they don't over look it all the way I did.


Interesting though that all the bad habits in public education came from college education.

Yeah...and that is sort of the core of how I see it - BTW, my dad is a retired Chicago Teacher. And my ex-roomie's wife is an El-Ed teacher in Shaumberg, so I get a lot of input on the state of education these days.


You're dad would be an interesting guy to talk to. There is a lot of negativity about CPS but Whitney Young H.S. reminds me more of a college than a high school.


....yeah...that's sort of where I was going with the ""I'm not really sure". There's so much variation - supposedly so that schools can serve the desires of the local community - that it's hard to know what's where and how without actually being in the trenches.


I put the blame more on administrators than teachers - I think teachers mostly know what they need to do for kids (after they've been at it for a while), but are usually tripped up by whatever administrative, politically "correct", "feel good" social policy of the moment.


You nailed it! To a point administrators are the puppets of the politicians. I'm trying to figure out when teachers go thru the process of getting a Masters in Administration, at one point do they get brainwashed and forget what works? Your statement also proves why the black community will continue to regress. There is this program called PBIS which is really an affirmative action behavior plan aimed at them.


....I used to always wonder how one could even get a Masters in Administration, or an MBA...now I can see how doing that fosters a culture in which the requirement to actually know something about the business one is in has been replaced with a socio-political model through "education" and the "leveling of playing fields".

The trial balloon I've heard the present Administration floating about an "American University" and trading volunteer time for an education really, REALLY scares me...where have we seen THAT done before?...

American originality, creativity, and responsiveness - the things that built our industrial and financial leadership - are being "educated" out of our culture in the so-called interest of being "competitive" on a global scale. Why can't we just do what we already KNOW how to do?..the best way WE know how to do it? That worked/works within the context of OUR culture. Which is all but vanishing...

My school district model the politics of the city of Chicago. Our Superintendent has never been in a classroom. His stupidity is obvious. He thinks you can treat teachers like managers treat sales associates at Marshall Fields. It's a very unhappy environment. Our grade schools are K-8. It was designed that way to segregate.


Yup...that's the Chi-town I remember...

It's pretty pathetic in Kalifornia...UCLA did a study not long ago and found that the only state that sends fewer students directly from high school to four-year colleges than CA is Mississippi.

The JCs in CA are districted, and all their funding HAS to come from the state gov in Sacramento - so they can't even enhance their own programs themselves through community/alumni/industry fund raising. In my community, the local JC is more about high school finishing and maintaining jobs for the staff than actually serving the needs of students - that's the insight I got after dating one of the local student "counselors" for 3.5 years and getting some insight into how the CA system and it's politics and policies operate.

What's missing in this "business based model" for education is the concept of the student as a consumer - and the ability of the students/parents to have choices to force quality through market action; i.e., selecting for themselves...that's why the system's failing, IMO.

This will most likely be my last year there. I'm moving to Az. My mom has a condo and house there. So who knows, I may be delivering pizzas next fall.


My ex-roomie's wife in the Shaumberg system has about had enough herself. Last time I dropped in on them she said she was about ready to hang it up, too.

For ex. - did you know that the system is so screwed up in Kalifornia that one isn't even required to have a high school diploma or GED to attend a JC? I have a friend at work that has a kid that came out of high school with a 0.0 - they tossed him after four years...and he went to a JC on a full ride football scholarship...which of course, he blew. It's nuts out here...

This is a really good discussion that really isn't suited for the web since talking sure beats typing.

Yeah...far too much intellect involved for the web...;)


Do you still live in Dupage County? I live in Will.

No - I graduated from U of I in Urbana in '82 and have since lived on all three coasts and a lot of places in between - I heard someplace that the average American moves 12 times in their lifetime, and I've moved 11 times before I was 30...

I presently live in the middle of the high Mojave desert in the people's republic of Kalifornia, since about 1987 or so. The majority of my family still live in the Dupage county area, and I get back there about once a year on average.

Trying to figure out where I want to retire to...it will definitely be somewhere west of the Mississippi river...

--
- Rufus
.

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