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How can we Keep Our Teachers Updated?
Keefesis continues: "The information is out there, readily available, yet it seems that teachers are rarely notified of new information. Case in point: My high school chemistry teacher still teaches us that there are only 109 elements; while element 118 was discovered almost 6 months ago. Even the planners that the school gave us list up to element 114 (every teacher uses the professor version of the same planner as a gradebook.) What does it take for our high school teachers to stay up-to-date?"
Update: 11/25 02:24 by C :After perusing some of the discussion, a lot of you feel that the system itself, not the funding, is at fault. How can we fix the system? Do we need better teachers? Better administrators? Or is this something that we just can't do without tearing the whole thing down and starting over?
When I was in high school the problem wasn't getting the new information to the teachers, it was getting them to care. Some teachers just have an apathetic attitude towards teaching new things. They would much rather stick to the books they have been using for 20 years, because they know them inside and out.
... about upcoming information and research in the physics feild. It not only taught the student and the class, but it also taught the teacher.
There was an exception though. My 11 Grade Physics teacher made us go out and find magazine articles, webpages,
In one of his excellent books (Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, I think), Richard Feynman railed against the selection processes for schoolbooks; on the selection panel he was on (can't remember where), he was the only one to actually read the books that were submitted for approval.
First and foremost, what's needed is to ensure that the teachers are using the right books. Volunteers would seem to be the ideal way of doing this, but there's the significant danger that this would result in -- amongst others -- the creationists filling as many selection panels as possible.
Okay, I don't have a solution. But I do know that the percentage of teachers that goes outside the designated books is very low. So the books have to be the best.
Every government, organization, or knitting club in history has encountered the same problem. You get together, agree on a certain set of rules and practices, and start a society.
But over time, more and more rules are added, and things start getting cumbersome. Instead of a little red school house with one teacher and a dozen students, you have a school with several teachers, a hundred students, and a principal. Then you have a few schools with hundreds of students, dozens of teachers, and a school board. Sooner or later, you have a "school district" with hundreds of teachers, thousands of students, principals, coaches, band directors, custodians, paperwork, security cameras, and even more paperwork.
Modern teachers don't spend most of their time teaching. They spend most of their time socializing delinquents, filling out sexual harassment paperwork, documenting troublemakers, grading tests, and working out the lesson plans for the next two weeks, which have to be approved by their bosses.
Teaching? That's for the copious spare time left over after they take Little Johnny to the office because he wore a "Free Kevin!" t-shirt, and nobody knows what in the hell that's supposed to mean.
A class is a board with a teacher on one end and a student on the other.
Hmm, this seems to be a problem in more areas than just IT. For example, when I was in college (admittedly more than 10 years ago), I was memorizing my way though advanced Calculus and Statistics, both of which were pretty much meaningless to me.
... I'm not sure if the past was better, but I think it was simpler ...
However, there were other areas of (applied) Math that would have been of great interest to me but weren't tought at the time: I'm thinking of stuff like cellular automata which back then were brand new and very exciting. As a software guy, this stuff was real and mad sense right away, but it was too new to have real classes on it.
I guess as our body of knowledge expands ever faster, we'll all have difficulties keeping up. I should also note that we seem to live in a complex age that defies simple solutions. It seems that this leads us into a life which is rich in knowledge and poor in wisdom
...spend more money on actually doing the educational things instead of just going for the other things that are non academic. Here is an example; my school put in a new basket ball court last year and it costed something of 500k. Now couldn't they have spent that kind of money to update their sciences and math departments. Also to maybe get a nicer computer education system. That is one of the major things that I have against my school, they do not teach any courses about computers except on how to use M$ Excel and Word. The only thing close to programming is a web mastering class where they teach you how to use an M$ Frontpage to create web pages. Couldn't they just teach the html code itself? It is rediculously simple.
Well, back to the outdating of the sciences in schools. Even if they did have money they would probarbly spend more of it on things like sports equipment or for a really big grant add another building, but still teach the old and outdated material. Another example, my school is adding a 15 million (I think) dollar building right now. I see no problem with the old one, the roof used to leak but they fixed that before I got there.
It's not the money, its they way they spend it.
Malto
For most professionals, there is an impetus to keep up-to-date on current material. Many health-care professionals (nurses, pharmacists, etc) are forced to write exams or take courses to keep certification. For other professionals, there is usually encouragement to take continuing education courses, or learn on your own. (In some fields you need to do so just to remain competitive!)
I must admit it is probably difficult to teach current information when you are using 15-year-old teaching aids. And, in many cases, teachers tend to be overworked (during the school year, anyhow) and perhaps not paid as well as many other professionals, which may be a factor in the reluctance to do additional upgrading work. I think as more schools become wired, it should at least give teachers easy access to more of this information.
Unfortunately, at the moment, only certain teachers will take advantage of this technology. (They are probably the same ones who would have sought information elsewhere, too.) Without some sort of regulation about continuing education or recertification, there is no guarantee that teachers will keep themselves up to date.
YS
"Arrr! The laws of science be a harsh mistress." -- Bender
Many teachers actually do learn on their own. I've had a number of science teachers who were activley involved in real world science (ie: my physics teacher was a particle physicist at an accelerator lab). I think many teachers don't keep up with the trends because, if you look at it...there is no reason to. Granted, the number of elements is pretty fundamental, and I bet is an exception to the rule, but teaching science isn't about teaching cutting edge stuff. It's about teaching the fundamentals, the basics, the building blocks needed to even come /close/ to understanding the cutting edge stuff. Particle physics is an excellent example: do you realize how incredibly hard it is to understand quantum theory fully without having an enormous knowledge of math, electrodynamics, and every other field of physics? It's nearly impossible. So, teachers teach the basics: (matter is made of atoms, atoms are made of quarks, etc.)..but that's it. That stuff isn't very cutting edge (relativly speaking), and it's a helluva lot easier to understand than partial derivatives and wave functions. And then again, there's always the fact that almost all of the new cutting edge stuff (in most every field) requires loads and loads of background knowledge that teachers just cannot give the students, if they have it themselves! Highschool, as much as I hate to admit it, isn't and shouldn't be about cutting edge, new, awesome science or tech; it's about learning the fundamentally accepted things, to be able to apply them in those nifty college classes everybody looks forward to, from Compiler Theory to Quantum Mechanics...you need BASICS first.
Now I think a better area that education in areas misses out is in the computer science field. My senior year programming class years back was in Basic on an apple IIe. Even there though, it was taught by a smart instructor who understood programming methodologies. I could start with that same class today, and because I had good teachers (not necessarily good teaching materials), I would arguably be one step ahead of a teacher who didn't care and half-assed taught his class Java. Sure I'd be behind initially in the college Java class, but I would really get it IF I was taught programming methodology. So even there, I think its more important to pay those teachers well.
Money does need to get everyone connected to the Internet though. All kids should leave high school with basic knowledge of the Internet and related. After all, the revolution isn't televised -- its packet filtered.
I remember hearing one of the most drastic proposals on this subject in a Usenet discussion a long while back, that schools ought to revert to teaching only maths, for analytical thinking, and speed reading, so people can teach themselves.
Most people just start screaming about elitism at the notion of this (certain people seem to believe that very concept of freedom is elitist because it hurts the stupid people), but I really think that it is fitting for the information age. School should no longer, in fact, it can no longer, teach students information. The information is readily available elsewhere, and more plentiful and dynamic than in any school to boot.
What students need to learn in school is no longer information: but how to gather, handle, and learn from the information they will be presented with continuely for the rest of their lifes.
Think about your own schooling: how much of what you learned has really been helpful to you later? I know that for me, it was extermely little. In my own subject I realized I could have learned everything I did from grade 1-12 by adding one more term at college rate study. And as for the other subjects, I have either forgot most of it, or realized from own my experience that what I thought I knew about them is probably as infinitesimal.
What I did bring with me from school, and that I am thankful for, is that it introduced me to the subject of my passion, that it taught me to think, and that I learned how to learn effiently. I think I would have been more happy weight had been devoted to these thing than trying to force me to read subjects like history and social studies which I never cared less about.
-
We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
I'll tell you a few reasons why your teachers aren't up to date. First and foremost society expects your school to raise you instead of your parents. They might have time to look up the latest and greatest information if they weren't having to beg student to read, not take drugs, avoid sexually transmitted diseases, not shoot each other, etc, etc. The second thing is that most teachers barely make a real salary. Understand that they do make a living wage (comparable to those who are successful with no degree) but they get paid much less than any real job that requires a degree. Start someone off with twice as much work, half as many resources and half as much pay, and they get a bit behind no matter what profession they are involved in. Finally, with regard to education at the elementary and secondary level, the teachers simply need some help. Can you imagine any other profession where the most mundane details have to be handled by the people who are supposed to be using their brains? Teachers not only have to teach, they still have to make sure the window sills in their classrooms aren't dusty. They have to waste time fetching (or begging for) books, grading papers, holding fund raisers, etc. Imagine how up to date your doctor would be if he had to go around worrying about what medical supplies are in stock, or worse yet if he had to hold a bake sale to buy them. Imagine if your lawyer had to actually type up all his(or her) legal documents or look up the case law. Heck your dentist doesn't even clean your teeth, he has an assistant for that. In almost any other profession it is easy to see that they reserve the knowledge work for the knowledge workers, and the drudgery for those less skilled. Your teachers have to do both the knowledge work and the drudgery, they get paid less than the man collecting your trash to do it. (He doesn't even have to tune up the truck) The situation could be fixed, but of course the cost of education at the elementary and secondary level would be comparable per student to the university level.(I wonder why no one ever mentions cost when they continually site our college system as the best on the world and elementary and secondary as the worst) (Figure about $20,000 per student per year)(A hint California spends about $4800 per student per year) Teachers today can't even claim a classroom as their own. (put them on a year-round schedule and let them pack up all their stuff and wander from room to room) I doubt this will even be fixed. The general populace is more interested in Pokemon cards, did Hillary smoke pot, or just about anything else than raising and teaching their children. Nicholas Kelly trumptman@earthlink.net
One thing that no-one seems to have mentioned is the level at which you teach.
Let's take for an example the structure of the atom, which I was first taught at age 14 in GCSE Chemistry. Back then they wanted to keep things simple, so the model we were taught basically said there are 2 electons in the inner shell, then 8 in each shell from then on out, the nucleus contains all the neutrons & protons. This model, although simplified, worked for the calculations we were doing, however even then we would sometimes think up situations where it didn't seem to make sense - the answer from the teacher was "this model is simplified...if you do A Levels (the next set of exams) you will learn a more realistic model which will answer your question".
So along comes A-Levels...and I do Chemistry again, and indeed the first thing they say is "forget what you just learnt, this is the truth". Then they go into the d-shell, p-shell etc, the equations of a sphere, basic quantum theory and so on. Again, this model seems to work in the situations we are testing...again we find some holes. Again, the answer is "This is also a simplification - do Chemistry at University and you'll learn the truth".
Now I didn't do Chemistry at Uni so I can't complete the story, but I bet they present a model, which seems to work, and some bright spark finds a hole. He asks his tutor, who says "this model is a simplification - become a researcher and discover the truth!".
The fact is that although the frontiers of science & tech are moving forwards all the time, only a small subset of students ever need or want to be at that level, usually a simplified model is sufficient for their needs, and this simple model rarely changes. Another example of this would be in Physics, where students are still taught Newtons Laws although we know them to only be approximations. Why? Because Newtons Laws work for most people's uses and Quantum Physics & the g.t.of relativity is too complex for a 14 year old to get their head around!
You could bring a (not very good) analogy into the world of programming - do we teach C++ or asm to kids these days? No we teach them probably BASIC or LOGO or somthing like that. Is this because we want to hide the truth, or because we are lazy/underfunded teachers? I would say no, it's because the simple languages are good at getting a basic understanding going, and they fulfill the requirements of kids at that age. If they are interested they can take it further, and we'll teach them The Truth (tm) at some later date.
BTW: The real tradgedy is when people are unable to get to that higher level, because of economic, social, govermental or whatever other reasons.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
OK, I get rather pissed off when people generally blame teachers for the sorry state of affairs in US Education. Both my parents are teachers, and a large number of their friends are, so, while I am considerably biased here, I also have a very big insight on what goes on in a teacher's life, and how this affects the schooling of the typical student.
In the long term, if you want to keep teachers updated, you have to pay for it in increased school taxes. What a better teacher? How about this: Every 4 years, a teacher spends a semester where they teach a half-day, and spend the other half day taking unversity classwork AT THE PUBLIC EXPENSE. PAY for 2 or 3-day seminars where the teachers get TOP-NOTCH instructors from relevant fields to come lecture them on advances in their field of instruction. And, even better, have the School Boards LISTEN TO THE TEACHERS when they tell them what works, and what doesn't. Having school boards (and for that matter, state legislatures) dictate exactly what should/should not be taught in the classroom is STUPID. They don't deal with the kids. They don't have professional degrees in the subject. They don't really get it. What other profession has complete outsiders dictate how they work to them, and yet expects them to do a good job? "Oh, excuse me, Mr. Engineer, but we can't have you design/build that bridge without direction from our committee - oh, and did we tell you that our committe consists of a minister, a librarian, a policeman, two shopkeepers, and a streetsweeper? They're be alot of help, and they're really concerned..."
-Erik, who usualy doesn't get this pissed off...
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
I enjoyed your hidden agenda slam against creationists. They of course would say that you have to be careful of the textbooks that claim that any theory is proven unless it actually is. Just because the average humanist scientist believes in evolution doesn't mean it should be taught as fact, but rather as a plausible theory.
I agree, sort of.. No good science textbook should be teaching evolution as fact any more than it teaches anything as fact. You have the common misconception that scientists believe evolution to be fact. They don't. Scientists do not believe ANYTHING to be fact.
In science, a "theory" is merely a hypothesis which has been backed up by a lot of evidence. In science, EVERYTHING is potentially wrong, since we know our observation techniques are imperfect. Newton's laws of motion (at low speeds), Maxwell's equations, evolution, these are all "theories" in science, yet we use apply them every day.
We could potentially find out that Newton's laws of motion are wrong (and we did.. though only at high speeds), or that our cherished laws of electromagnetism are wrong, and that the computer you're using now is really being run by something we don't understand at all.. It's JUST NOT DAMN LIKELY. Similarly, evolution is a "theory" because we must always be open to the possibility of our observations and logic being faulty, but it has been so well supported that it's just not damn likely that evolution is completely wrong.
In short, if you want science books to teach only "facts", then you'll start seeing some really empty science books with nothing but blank pages.
Science books must therefore teach scientific "theories", which are hypotheses which have been supported greatly by evidence. Among these theories is the theory of evolution.
And of course, I must plug The Talk.Origins Archive, which has lists of this and other common misconceptions about evolution.
What does it matter if Joe High school student is not aware of 5 or 6 rare elements? Most of these, the rare ones, are soon forgetten anyhow. Education is more about learning how to learn, than it is cramming "inert knowledge", as Whitehead would say.
I believe there is too much emphasis of "accurate" (newer) information, and less on the quality of the material or instruction. I am of the belief that a more traditional education serves the individual far better, even in today's high tech environment, than the more modern/"accurate" education. Furthermore, in the attempt to obtain the latest materials, they effectively dumb it down, ignoring the quality of the material. I think most every modern text book is pretty horrible. I'd rather have an older and outdated one (not to mention less P.C. stuff), than what is normally seen today.
The same can be said for "computers in the classroom". There is such an emphasis in education these days in "technology", that they ignore the important stuff. In one particular inner city system that i'm familiar with, the district spent a couple million dollars wiring each room with ISDN lines and the like, yet a good many of them were unable to use it because their electrical system couldn't even support the computers. In this same system, the kids are not even remotely literate. WTF are these educators thinking? A computer, or any technology for that matter, is not a cure all. Maybe, past a certain stage it can help. But for kids who can't read and write or do basic arithmatic, it is a poor return on dollars. Meanwhile, when you examine most private schools, they frequently have lower spending per student, and they pay their faculty significantly less across the board, yet they send the %95 to top schools.
Our public education system simply isn't rigourous enough; not enough is demanded of the students or teachers. It is premature, and most likely entirely unnecessary to worry about how old these text books are. The question is, does the system make students THINK and LEARN. It must be challenging above all else.
The basic problems with the US education system have to do with attitudes of the parents, NOT failures in the formal school system. Everyone has noted that the money spent on schools in the US is very high; and in fact teacher educational requirements in the US are quite high too. Why is it in fact that this money does not deliver the desired result? The process has been studied and benchmarked to a fair-thee-well so if it were a problem with the process it would have been found by now.
This money is in fact wasted if the parents fail in their job to deliver a kid willing to learn to school.
The sad fact is that PARENTS are unwilling to accept any responsibility for the performance of their children in school, yet in fact they have FAR FAR more influence than teachers do. When Johnny can't find Canada on a map, the reason is because his PARENTS didn't treat learning achievement as important in the upbringing of the child.
The American media likes to trumpet low standardized test scores as evidence of the schools failing. Baloney. If you look at the DISTRIBUTION of test scores you will immediately see that the top 10-20% of American students perform equal to or better than the top percentiles in any other country in the world. If schools were incompetent this would not happen. These students were taught by their parents that learning is important.
Those that do not achieve are students whose parents have failed to do their part.
I'm a teacher, and I stay up to date. But why should I even TRY to teach a class when most high-school students are just interested in chasing skirts and joking around?
I deliver interesting courses. No book reading here. I have them work on the computers, make interesting labs, and deliver interesting theory. But most high-school "jocks" aren't interested, and when a student feels he's taking a course for nothing, he'll never listen.
An uninterested student leads to an uninterested teacher. Most teachers get so sick of teaching, that when they start a new semester, the first thing on their mind is "how can I get rid of this bunch of students the easiest way possible".
Many things need change in the ed system. Not just the teachers. Some of those changes can start at home, with Mom and Pop.
OK, I really hate having to respond to people like this, but this really burns my ass.
First off, the $300b is TOTAL OVER THE ENTIRE US. And, in case you aren't familiar with the statistics, school funding in the US is about as uneven as you can get, primarily due to the fact that most of it comes from local property tax. Of that $300b, maybe $50b or so is evenly distributed. The other $250b is concentrated in the school districts in wealthier neighborhoods. So, no, your Indianapolis Public School is almost certainly NOT getting $8000 per student. I'd guess maybe half that, or less.
Secondly, the major reasons why public schools have gone downhill in the last 20 years has nothing to do with teachers and the schools, and less to do with funding; it's all about society. Schools (and by extension, teachers) no longer simply get to teach knowledge - they are expected to be surrogate families, social workers, psycologists, policemen, and daycare centers. The family and community structure that used to provide this have dropped their responsibilies squarely in the lap of the schools. So, no wonder why they're doing poorly.
As for school vouchers: this is one of the WORST IDEAS to ever come up. Let me tell you why:
Fundamentally, I think there is only one way to really save the US school system: fund them exclusively via income tax, fund all school equally, and REQUIRE all children to attend PUBLIC schools. That's right. From a societal standpoint, private and parochial schools are BAD. Just as many people advocate (and many countries require) univeral military service to create a common ground for all citizens, we should require everyone to attend the same school system. That way, we ALL have a stake in how well it's doing, and ensure that EVERYONE gets a fair start.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
One of the things I noticed about a few of the teachers I have had over the years of my schooling was how they stood out from the rest. How their classes got higher grade averages than the rest of the country. And how they managed to keep the students captivated.
They showed us how to learn, and where to find things. They didn't expect us to just soak up everything in the class, but to use our brains. And most importantly they showed us how to apply what we were being shown in life with examples, in many cases relevant to what we were interested in, or later on, what courses we were attending.
The system itself tends to bring this about, as it doesn't allow for much in the way of corrective feedback to fix any of the problems. And the students are often left out of the loop as well, even as they approach the end of their schooling.
I don't think the answer is teaching only maths and speed reading, but mebbe teaching less of the subject and encouraging more learning in an of itself, in and out of the classroom. There are many subjects that simply must be learned at a very basic level to encourage individuality, and to encourage these people to take different careers. It might be nice for the IT industry if a whole year level was to be focused on computing, programming and system administration, but the woodworking, metalworking, textile, produce, marketing, et al, industries might get a little peeved.
I attended a public school all my life, so this isn't just the dedication of private school teachers that is rubbing off on me. In fact I tend to see the opposite here in Australia, where they teach to what is required and nothing else simply because the contracts at private schools are so long, and the pay is reasonable.
I was in the unfortunate position at school during my 8th year of education wanting to do Electronics but ending up in Accounting because there was one student under the class minimum required. My mother (thankfully) stormed up to the school, and after garnering support from other student's mothers, raised a petition to get the class running.
Something that I am also proud of is that while I attended school, I never did much in the way of homework out of school hours, preferring to do so within the school environment, and enjoying myself outside of school. In most subjects (unless they seemed utterly ludricous, or the teachers specifically did not understand what they were teaching) I did exceptionally well, because I learned the subject, and not just absorbed the information.
Those that I refused to participate in, I usually refused to do almost any work in at all. History in my 9th year of education was one such subject, where I failed deliberately. The subject matter was in fact the exact same course information that I did the year before. Only a very few parts were removed and new bits replaced. I did all the new bits, but refused to re-do all the work I did last year. Near the middle of the year I suprised the teacher when they started teaching new parts of the subject for the first time and I got 90+% for each of them. She apparently thought, even despite my complaints, that I had a learning disability. It's amazing what it takes to convince some people.
Unfortunately, one thing that some teachers are not good at is learning from their mistakes. It's a pity really, because this simple thing makes so much difference. Unfortunately because of this, the system on a whole suffers the same fate, despite the few good teachers out there.
Yep, this is offtopic, but if anyone is looking for the reference, it's:
1 Kings 7:23
7:23 Then Huram cast a large round tank, 15 feet across from rim to rim; it was called the Sea. It was 7 1/2 feet deep and about 45 feet in circumference.
Not sure which version this is from, since I've never seen it in feet before. (The "New Living Translation") But here's YAT (KJV this time)
7:23 And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.
and one more, this time NIV...
He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it.
So there you have it...3 translations, two different units, pi=3.
Have fun with this one, literalists.
regards,
-efisher
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