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Teachers Union Opposes Virtual K-8 Charter School
theodp writes "'You can't sit a child in front of a computer and expect him to learn things he needs to succeed in society,' said unimpressed Chicago Teachers Union president Marilyn Stewart of the Chicago Virtual Charter School, which will open to Chicago elementary school students this fall if approved by the state board of education."
As the article says, you can't learn social skills sitting in front of a computer. And some of the people here on slashdot prove that. However, this is Chicago, and the public schools there ain't so safe. The article didn't mention it, but for families whose choices are 1) Send their kids to public schools where they'll either become criminals or get beat up by them, or 2) Use this virtual school, well, I'd keep them home. A lot of people in Chicago home school because the private schools are very expensive and the public schools are terrible.
Thanks for offering the prime example of why us techies laugh at humanities students. Or at least at the utterly retarded types who spew such cretinous stuff as "Research simply follows the fad of the day." or "Science is 95% opinion then facts" or "What about astrology, the most rediculious of the sciences!"
Guess what, simpleton? Noone considers astrology a science nowadays.
Basically all you've told me is that you're exactly the kind of ignoramus we loathe: the kind that isn't just content to be an ignorant, but tries to drag everyone else down to his level. The kind who isn't just content to have no fucking clue about real science, but _has_ to bandage his ego by looking down upon those who do.
Tired of elitism? Well, that starts at home. Stop acting like an elitist idiot yourself. The whole "I'm so much better than you because I don't understand science" ivory-tower is what gets us techies to reply with elitism right back. Most of us can accept that not everyone has the inclination or in some cases the IQ for science. Sure. Society needs painters and plumbers too. But seeing an idiot trying to present his ignorance and idiocy as proof of superiority _will_ get a sneer from those who do understand why your arguments only betray massive ignorance.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Social things learned in school:
Don't be smart around stupid people - they'll come and beat you up for it.
Avoid gatherings of other people - they'll beat you up because you 'looked funny at them'.
Don't speak to classmates - they'll chase you around the school yard for using 'funny words'.
Hate - it's difficult to learn to love people who chase you all the way home.
Should I go on?
I know, this doesn't go for everybody, but I can see that this on-line teaching will do some people a lot of good.
There's more involved in a university environment than just the final degree. A lot of the value is in being surrounded by other intelligent folks and interacting with professors who know their stuff. In a middle school kids are forced to be there, so there's less benefit (if any) from peer groups, and we all know what happens when you have math or science being taught by someone whose only degree is in "education".
Actually, with all the potential for abuse an online program could have, as with home schooling, if someone comes from that sort of background and still knows their stuff (scores well on standardized tests, etc.) they're probably smarter and/or more self-motivated than someone with an equivalent score from a regular school.
A basic element of learning-teaching is the teacher, who just can't be replaced, the kids need far more than data, need also affection, support, guidance and motivation, I find hard to believe a computer will provide much of it, not to mention that we might see physical problems later and probably conductual issues.
A common lie, every teacher knows...that it might be true for a lil' while, but later: "ain't doin' your work".
don't get me started in the lack of arts, music and p.e.
Smokin' & rubying away
There are plenty of other ways to socialize your kid beside sending them to school. You can have them go to Karate two nights a week, soccer two nights, piano/music lessons one night a week, and maybe an art class or two. Then it's up to you as a parent what your child learns, instead of some public school. Plus you'll actually meet the people teaching your child, as opposed to some 23 year old who just graduated and needed a job.
I don't think the homeschoolers of today are the same ones of 25-30 years ago. Most parents I know who intend to homeschool are not religious nuts. They just don't want their kids to go to government schools for obvious reasons.
Uhm. Since when is school the only place for kids to socialize?
Not to mention, that a harmful social environment is potentially worse than no socialization at all. It's fairly easy for a public school to become a Lord of the Flies scenario, with a combination of kids who have to be there, a self-contained social structure with no goal or purpose, and administrators who don't care.
School is supposed to be for learning, anyhow. Let the kids socialize on their own time. Maybe if they actually taught kids things in school instead of "socializing" them, things would work better in the first place.
And quit parroting the teacher union's crap they spew about home schooling.
Look, anyone can find examples of students both home schooled and public schooled and use that as reasons to support their side of the story. Fact is home school kids do just fine in society, many scoring far higher than their peers.
home schooling is villified by those who fear its results. Common methods include claims of lack of socialization with peers or religious dogma. Usually the "religious angle" is played out more up north than elsewhere.
You can expect similar arguments from the Teachers Unions and those who are held in its thrall to any advance in education which leads to a loss of their power and influence.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
These are the same teachers that say, "you cant educate a child at home and expect him/her to get the skills they need to succeed in the world." Yet home schooled kids are far better educated than public school educated kids. Teachers unions will always go against anything that does not use them as the delivery system.
People want alternatives, Public schools suck, Teachers do not do their jobs, administrators do as little as possible to get by, the social atmosphere inside the school is very similar to that of a state prison. Middle School is simply 3 years of cruel punishment to kids and the public schools refuse to do anything to fix it.
Parents are seeking out charter and private schools in droves because of the poor quality of public schools, this is another step that allows the child a huge amount of educational freedom. Unsupervised, yes a kid would rather play than learn something that they would consider useless to them at that time. (Social Studies, English, Math) but with supervision a kid that understands math like it was her native language can accellerate way past everyone else including her teacher and get the education she needs. I remember being berated by a science teacher in school because I disagreed. I brough in a paper that proved that I was right and I was sent to the office for being a smart-ass. Teachers in schools hate it when they encounter a child that is smarter than they are and they lash out at those kids to get them back in line. When a kid knows far more about astronomy and astrophysics than the 8th grade general science teacher knows that teacher should STFU instead of telling the kid to STFU.
I am all for anything that eliminates the bad teachers, and that means upsetting the entire teachers union, so be it.
Private schooled kids are better educated.
Charter schooled kids are better educated.
Home schooled kids are better educated.
finally I will bet that computer schooled kids are better educated.
when compared to public schools.
It is a written in stone fact. only the fools believe otherwise.
Unfortunately, most of the poor can not afford the $200-$300 a month for their kids private school tuition.
Yeah the problem you describe is now very serious. What we need to do is to show kids that being smart is rewarded. Here is how I envision the system working. If there is an incident in school, we just assume that the smart kids were behaving apropriately. I mean no system of 'justice' actually works. In school it is the big kids who rule, in the 'real' world the rich rule. Why not set up our schools so that the individuals who win are the most useful?
Just remember that the Union has a significant interest in opposing ALL charter schools. From what I can see, most teachers unions have never met a Charter School that they liked....
Wonder why? Is it the kids, or is it the jobs/pay of the teachers...
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
you are kidding right?
Why should even some regular college degrees deserve respect? Countless colleges allow students to pass through the system with degrees simply because they excel at sports. Many pass on students who only get through sub-par course.
That college degree doesn't come with a grade point average, is a C student at your local state university going to do as well as someone with a higher average from an online university?
Besides, doesn't this smack of elitism? We still have cases where some degrees are worth more than others. Some colleges are looked down upon because in truth the education they provide is better. Why not discriminate based on the fact that applicant A's football team regulary hands your school's ass to it every year?
Education is what you make of it. Public education is no longer about turning out good students who are well balanced with the skills needed to enter the real world. Its a damn jobs program with a bunch of social engineering thrown in to convince kids that the government knows whats good for them.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
As for those that say "you will be working at mcdonalds" ,
I'm going on to so a PhD in socialolgy where I'll be line for tenure
where I have a much more rewarding job then beeing a science freak or
an engineer.
translation : I'll be a manager at a McDonalds.
You do realize that the number of liberal arts phd's around big campuses is huge? I know of 2 people I was good friends with that went to University of Michigan and one has a PHD in political science, the other has a phd in Philosiphy and a phd in music history.
He is in line for tenure as well, 15th in line, in about 15 years he MIGHT get it but right now with some of the cuts made he works part time tutoring students and still lives in the campus housing and looks like a 38 year old gen-X hippie. He is a great friend, but still dreams of driving a bmw and living in the big stone house near campus (IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN!)
That is the other path that can and will happen, when financial cuts come the "foofy" classes are the first cut. I can go to any resturant in Ann Arbor and get served by a myriad of Masters and Doctorate degrees.
It's more of an addiction to the campus and College lifestyle than seeking an education. Many of the career students in the wierder degree fields are there to fill their addiction.. IT exists everywhere though. RMS was a career student, and the IT building of almost any campus has some hermit that has several degrees but still lives there. (same for the physics and chemistry building as well.)
I'm just saying that going to be a professor is great, but dont bank on your tenure until you have it in your hand. With your education level you should know that trusting fellow humans is folly at best.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If I were to hire an employee, I would disregard any degrees from online universities
This is of course rubbish. As someone who has been in the position of hiring I can say there are many factors to consider. To "disregard" a resume based on the university is a disservice to the company and candidate. In more senior positions the education section is almost irrelevant.
If we're talking junior technical positions (ie straight out of school) then you will be expected to take a test prior to any sitdown interview. Often that means dozens of candidates in a room with all sorts of diverse backrounds (English majors to CS grads).
Not that I want to "kill a dead horse" (yes I am a techie and do like references to things like Dilbert, Star Trek, Star Wars, etc) but I have some issue with what you say. Yes, the 'nerds' as we call ourselves sometimes DO need to step off our soapboxes, but it IS a two way street. I am bothered by your comment :
I'm going on to so a PhD in socialolgy where I'll be line for tenure where I have a much more rewarding job then beeing a science freak or an engineer.[sic]
I got an undergraduate degreee in Ocean Engineering and a Masters in Security Informatics. I LOVED the classes I took in both. Designing and building something (submarines, boats, even shorelines) or analyzing computer security 'stuff' is exciting and rewarding to ME. I chose my career and I love it. I do feel bad for all of those individuals in technical AND non-technical fields that hate what they do and don't find their career rewarding. I can also say that I've taught math to countless middle and high school students and I found that to be very rewarding too. I love the look on a child's face when he or she finally understands something that was a mystery before. I probably will, in a few years, go back to teaching or tutoring, possibly on a volunteer basis.
I will not argue that great things were NOT done in the humanities but the engineering community has brought you innovations you use every day. You typed this message on a computer, where do you think that came from? I'm guessing you use a car or form of public transportation daily other than your feet. Someone had to design and innovate it. Would Willa Cather have built an airplane? No, but I know she DID write some very important works and had some great ideas. You don't HAVE to be a techie to have good ideas, but in the same token you can't dismiss everything technical because you are not.
Anyways, all I have to do to be a engineer wold be to get my MSCE and how hard couyld that be?[sic]
Have you ever looked into the Society of Professional Engineers? For those that are not in the engineering field, many do not know this but in order to be considered a professional engineer there are not one, but two tests you must pass. Now this applies mostly to civil, mechanical and the like but computer engineering and other related engineering fields have tests and they are hard. I passed the first of these two tests (the second you actually need to work for four years under a professional engineer) before you can even take the test. The first test is an 8 hour long test that covers four years of what we learned in college. It's not for everyone. I found it easier than many would because I LIKE the material. Just as some people find it easier to write a novel than I would because that is not where my interests lie. Okay I'll get off my soapbox now too and let someone else on.
When I read Lord of the Flies in high school, all of my problems with the public school system suddenly made sense. There is so little adult involvement in K-12 that it is almost like having no adult discipline and guidance. Kids actually **need** socialization around adults and they need it much more than they need "socialization" around other kids. Two kids by themselves teaching each other how to behave is like one blind man trying to lead another.
I don't know if you've forgotten this due to age or a glorified childhood, but little kids are often nasty and cruel toward one another. They need the guiding hand of good adults, not children. There is a difference between letting kids play together and actual socialization.
I'm a firm believer in the theory that teaching a kid "Well, that's what the real world is like," too early will end up essentially keeping the same system in place. Rather than say "Go with the flow, that's the way things are," I think we should be saying "If you don't like the way something is, then change it!" Schools place too much emphasis on obedience, without teaching kids anything about thinking for themselves.
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
Oddly though, studies show homos make much better parents than straight couples.
Statistically thats true, simply because statistically ANYBODY straight person can become a parent which drags down the statistic for them. Homo couples generally adopt, and its rare and very hard for them to do so in much states, so that bottom of the barrel gay generally isn't allowed to have/keep a child.
Being a teacher I think I have a unique perspective on this. I'm sure that the online classes will work. Why? The students that are involved with the project are going to be the same ones that have parents that care and are active in their education. Time and time again I've found that to be the biggest factor in education. They would do better then the standard apathetic student sitting at home with a book and a candle. I feel bad for the teachers however, this may be the thing that takes the few students wanting to learn out of a classroom. Often these kids are the ones that make teaching worth it for many of us.
Couldn't have put it better myself. Where the hell are my mod points when I need them?
I went through the public school system; my younger brother was home schooled. Guess which one of us is the cynic? Saying he "wasn't taught what the real world is like" is a compliment; it's better not to see injustice as "normal", just because that's the way things looked growing up.
As a side note, he's become the more gregarious of the two of us. I'd say anyone who assumes you need public school in order to become socialized is either completely ignorant of what they're talking about, or else their cross section of "home schooled" kids are the previous generation of religious kids who were taken out of school by their parents.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
Schools place too much emphasis on obedience, without teaching kids anything about thinking for themselves.
Dude, kids are incapable of thinking for themselves, especially in the grade school years. They need to be taught the difference between right and wrong before they can be taught how to ascertain whether something is right or wrong.
The real problem is that parents have too many escapes nowadays from parenting. The TV and video game consoles offer more stimulation to children than anything else, so they are captivated by it. And parents need to get things done, so they don't mind dumping off their kids in front of the TV for a few hours while they do some house work. Seems to me people have the attitude that if my kid is in front of the TV, at least I know they are safe, right?
Few children will actually turn of the TV or the Video Games and open a book and do some reading. When a child reads, they become better spellers, and better writers. They learn good habits. The TV is a waste of time, even educational shows.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
The Underground History of American Education.
It's very simple. The NEA and local teacher's unions are the equivalent of the RIAA/MPAA. They're frantically trying to protect their mostly-obsolete delivery system, while compromising the quality of the product. The government school systems are failing their students, yet the educational bureauracy seems to be mostly concerned with maintaining the status quo. I somewhat expect a media campaign linking alternative education (homeschool, charter school, etc.) to child abuse, in the same way that media sharing is called piracy.
It's not about education - it's about maintaining power.
These two are mixing to produce the category of behavior we're interested in:
I went to public schools my whole life (except for one year in a private school in 6th grade). In college and after, I have known several dozen people (between my age -- now 29 -- and younger -- 21-ish) who were home-schooled. Some of them were Christians, some were not. There were plenty of ill-adjusted homeschool people of both the religious and non-religious variety, and plenty of ill-adjusted people of the home-schooled and public-schooled varieties.
There are two types of disconnect among these groups that are being perceived as identical but are not. On the one hand, there is a social ill-adjustment by which a person is unable to interface with others in social situations due to a lack of exposure and a lack of instruction about social graces. On the other hand, there is a social disjunct arising from a desire to be separate from certain behaviours or experiences viewed as undesireable (profanity, pornography, lude speech, self-righteousness, judgementalness, prudishness, or whatever else they may perceive to be objectionable). In this latter case, the disjunct is often complementary; that is, those who would like to distance themselves from lude speech, for example, may not interact freely around those who use such speech, whereas those who do speak in a way they consider lude may not interact freely around those they consider prudish. In such cases, each tends to perceive the difficulty as coming from the other exclusively.
This is categorically different than the former sort of difficulty, in which there is no reason for the separation -- that is, it is not by choice on any level -- but it is for reason of inability.
Having said this, the cause of the former sort of person -- people who are unable to interact socially -- is parents who do not know how to socialize their kids or instruct them in social matters. There are lots of people who homeschool who don't know how to socialize or instruct their children, and there are lots of people who farm schooling out to the state who don't know how to socialize or instruct their children. There are lots of Christians who don't know how to socialize or instruct there children, and there are lots of non-Christians who don't know how to socialize or instruct their children.
The other difficulty is one of choice. It stems from Christians not wanting to be certain behaviors (whether from weakness or strength or whatever), as well as from non-Christians not wanting to be around certain behaviours (whether from weakness or strength or whatever). It stems from Christians not wanting to accomodate people (Christian or otherwise) who engage in certain behaviors, and non-Christians not wanting to accomodate people (non-Christian or otherwise) who engage in certain behaviors. Some parents -- Chrisitan and non-Christian -- pass on these preferences to their children, often passively, but sometimes actively.
The "loony" behavior to which you have alluded is the latter sort -- choosing things you consider ridiculous to choose (I know you do because you ridicule them by calling them "loony"). Going far down any branch of choice makes the decisions of those on other branches seem ever more peculiar (and I'm not one who is for "moderation at all costs" -- it seems to me we should do something all the way if it's worth it to us). I have a relative who always talks about "those damn Republicans" in such a manner as that he sounds as though he believes they are these impish wretches rubbing their hands together and plotting how best to destroy other people. I have a friend who seem
Remember that jerk in school who used to punch a select few nerds in the head as hard as he was able? Remember how the teacher always ignored it?
Go try that in "real life." Punch someone in the office like that. Or even your neighbor. Let me know how it turns out.
The absurdly antisocial behaviors which go on in schools every single day are things that no adult would put up with in the workplace for an instant.
The Internet is full. Go away.