Dear Dr. Dobzyniak,
December 7, 2009
Allen. With regards to your question, what are the reasons for the basic failure of education today, there are several.
Recently I have put a few of my comments on my website detailing my thoughts on these matters as well as spending five hours last week with a senior editor from Time Magazine from New York. He asked me practically the same type of questions that you asked.
The number one and foremost reason is that the ivy tower elites, the educrates have taken the educational control away from the teacher and given it to those that he teaches, the students.
The second reason is the ridiculousness of our education college’s where they constantly teach that every child is an individual and then give every new teacher a stylus book and tell them to teach according to the calendar. You must teach such and such on such and such a day in such and such a way.
Third, we have taken the “privilege of failure” away from our students. In today’s educational soup everybody must pass. Nobody can fail. As you and I know some of the greatest life lessons that a person learns is through failure.
Allen, Keep the faith. I think we will prevail even though our nation is in a very precarious time.
-russ
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2 Comment(s)
Russ, You couldn't be more correct! Unfortunately, education jumps from one fad to another,effectively making quinea pigs of the students these theories affect. As a former student of yours and many other great instructors in the Dearborn School System , I had the opportunity to actually learn, and enjoy learning. Under the guise of today's "best practices" students come to class with the blase' attitude of "so what & who cares". I have to be on "the same page". this educational socialism is leaving a great void for students in american society and relegating the teacher into an instructional robot. You can follow the money through the colleges of education to see how these "ideas" advance. The same page-same day-same-way curriculum doesn't work and is like throwing jello against the wall hoping some sticks and move on. Teachers/college students fear bucking the the ivory tower elite, and must sit in silence as the educrats keep touting and praising these theories as the next best thing to sliced bread. The only analogy I see is the total resemblance to the story The Emporer's New Clothes......there's nothing there.
--by on 12/9/09 Lives: Detroit area
At the parent teacher conference this semester, I overheard a conversation that I wanted to share after reading this posting. It could not be a better example of, not only how diluted our schools have become, but how so many parents really need parenting classes.
As I wait in a line to talk to “Mrs. fail everyone” (you know, the teacher who thinks students have only one class and it happens to be hers) I over hear the teacher seated behind her talking to another parent. The parent is given a progress report for her son who is failing several courses. The teacher explains that her son routinely falls asleep in class (first hour), does not take any notes, and is unmotivated to do any work at all. He has failed or nearly failed every single test thus far. He says that he goes over tests word for word, encourages students to write down the answers, than lets them use their notes on the tests. The mom than says the magic words:
How can my son make up the tests he has failed?
The teacher says in two words the greatest answer I can imagine.
“HE CAN’T”
The parent became abusive and loud blaming the teacher for her son’s failure. He than asks her:
Did you receive the progress report I sent home?
She says:
“Yes, I did but he said he would do better”
I wanted to stand up and just scream! Just how stupid and in denial can parents be?
The teacher politely explains that his subject is “not for everyone” so I surmised that he was an elective teacher. He also explained that there are 24 other kids in the class, many of whom want to do well. He indicated that he would not deprive the others by “babysitting her son" and if he didn’t want to make a minimum effort to do well or even just get by, he would fail the course. He than told her that her son told him that he was up all night playing with his play station, thats why he is tired. He than said something that was so obvious as to totally confuse the parent:
“Not everything in life provides a do over.” “Sometimes students have to live with their failures.”
In this case, I think saying “you snooze you lose” would have done better.
Let’s face it, the majority of failing students have failures for parents. We need to stop cow towing to people who just don’t care and start spending more time with the rest of the people who do.
The world needs fast food counter people too.
--by on 12/19/09 Lives: USA