Teacher's view on public education system's problems

[Jackson]

"I was a teacher for 7 years, and don't remember ever getting to sit on my ass, ever. I do remember having upwards of 400 students and a workload that no human being could keep up with. And I remember being completely exhausted after 7 years."


Well you were surely overpaid and under worked. Not to mention you worked for the state gov't which means you were a "taker.".

Imagine there is a group of people who actually believe the above statement. Scary.

I had a teacher that had probably 400 or more students at one time, but that was chemistry in college. Class was held in an auditorium with a seating capacity of a couple hundred students.

I was a High School and Middle School Music Educator, which means I taught:

Middle School Band
7th grade Chorus
8th grade Chorus
Middle School General music
High School Marching Band
High School Concert Band
High School Pep Band
High School 9th grade Chorus
High School Concert Choir
The school musical.

I also substituted for the HS Orchestra whenever the Orchestra director was sick.

I never had a study hall, because my day went through from start to finish, without end. I remember days when I hit the bathroom at 6 am, again at 6 pm.

That meant putting together 6-7 marching band shows a year, plus festivals, plus competitions. Then, in concert season, the obligatory 3 concerts per year, plus sight-reading placement tests for band seating, plus local and then, if we got a I, state concert band competition.

it also meant prepping kids who auditioned for either the McDonalds national band or the NBA all honors National Band, or the All-State (Ohio) band. I usually had one or two kids who made it that far.

That also meant the obligatory 3 concerts per year per choral group, plus the prep for the school musical, everything from building the set, to doing the staging rehearsals to rehearsing the orchestra to coaching the singers to selling tickets. This also meant teaching sight-singing to most kids, who, unless they are crossovers from other instruments, have no idea what a note looks like.

This also meant organizing, hosting and preparing small ensemble for the yearly solo-and-ensemble competition. It also meant the ability to accompany my own choral ensembles and write my own marching band arrangements.

The also meant the ability to carry clarinet reeds with me at all times, never knowing when a clarinet reed would go kaputt, to having portable heaters in marching season to bring the Sousaphones halfway up to temperature before going out onto the field, to dealing with catfighting majorettes and jealous non-majorettes, to assembling the band at the last instant once because the Superindendent decided that we would play the final Bush rally in Ohio on election day, 1992. I got the call at 1 am and by 6 am, my marching band was assembled and ready to go.

This still meant writing the usual evaluations that all teachers have to write, attending in-services that didn't do me a damned bit of good, etc.

it also meant giving private lessons to kids on certain instruments, for instance, converting a High School tenor in Choir to play Horn 3 in the concert band.

This also meant attending band and choir booster meetings, fundraising to get enough money to buy the next needed oboe or english horn and also participation of the ensembles in civic activities like church ice-cream bazaars, or funerals for known community members who passed on.

It often meant teaching the full day, then having marching band rehearsal until 4, show choir until 5:30, a private lesson until 6:30, then the pep band for the basketball game until 9:30 - and then, I graded papers from that morning's general music class full of seventh graders who were still learning how to rhyme together 3 words into a coherent sentence.

I usually kept three extra pairs of clothes in my office: marching band suit, marching band practice shorts and shirt, extra suit for evening meetings, etc.

The one blessing was that the HS faculty was strongly behind me, for I also released kids in the few off days of the year to prep for their SAT tests, etc.

I had no assistant. 400 kids.

After 7 years, it was just too much.

It's amazing you lasted 7 years. My guess is you were very hard to replace! Kudos!

 

[Jackson]

... Leave it to the parents to enforce quality education.

.....The solution is to kick those kids out of school. When you FORCE parents to deal with their kids, suddenly they'll take the time and effort to make their kids do well in school.


....Instead, the solution again, as I said above... kick the bad students out. Education is not a right. It is a privilege to be earned. When students have to earn an education... they will.

Essentially, you are saying public education should NOT be manditory.

The bad students will be left at home with bad parents, who will simply drive them to the other side of the country and abandon them.

Then what do you suggest happens next?

I'm not actually disagreeing with you, but there is a valid arguement for creating some sort of "LAST RESORT." Within most school systems this is known as an "Alternative Campus." Kids are still required to attend school, but are simply warehoused seperately from other students to give those that may have an opportunity to teach and learn the chance to do so without distraction.

Expulsion is the next, and final step

If public education were thought of as a privilege rather than a right, perhaps it would be more respected. Today's college degree is yesteryear's high school diploma.

Speaking of college, it used to be a place for qualified students. Look at colleges now. They have remedial courses in reading and writing! $$$$$ instead a place of higher learning!

 

[Samson]

... Leave it to the parents to enforce quality education.

.....The solution is to kick those kids out of school. When you FORCE parents to deal with their kids, suddenly they'll take the time and effort to make their kids do well in school.


....Instead, the solution again, as I said above... kick the bad students out. Education is not a right. It is a privilege to be earned. When students have to earn an education... they will.

Essentially, you are saying public education should NOT be manditory.

The bad students will be left at home with bad parents, who will simply drive them to the other side of the country and abandon them.

Then what do you suggest happens next?

I'm not actually disagreeing with you, but there is a valid arguement for creating some sort of "LAST RESORT." Within most school systems this is known as an "Alternative Campus." Kids are still required to attend school, but are simply warehoused seperately from other students to give those that may have an opportunity to teach and learn the chance to do so without distraction.

Expulsion is the next, and final step

If public education were thought of as a privilege rather than a right, perhaps it would be more respected. Today's college degree is yesteryear's high school diploma.

So only the "priviaged" would be educated?

Like Mexico.

 

[BobPlumb]

Essentially, you are saying public education should NOT be manditory.

The bad students will be left at home with bad parents, who will simply drive them to the other side of the country and abandon them.

Then what do you suggest happens next?

I'm not actually disagreeing with you, but there is a valid arguement for creating some sort of "LAST RESORT." Within most school systems this is known as an "Alternative Campus." Kids are still required to attend school, but are simply warehoused seperately from other students to give those that may have an opportunity to teach and learn the chance to do so without distraction.

Expulsion is the next, and final step

If public education were thought of as a privilege rather than a right, perhaps it would be more respected. Today's college degree is yesteryear's high school diploma.

So only the "priviaged" would be educated?

Like Mexico.

All that want to be "privileged" would be educated. Many students are hostile to the classroom environment and do not recognize the value of an education.

 

[Unkotare]

"I was a teacher for 7 years, and don't remember ever getting to sit on my ass, ever. I do remember having upwards of 400 students and a workload that no human being could keep up with. And I remember being completely exhausted after 7 years."


Well you were surely overpaid and under worked. Not to mention you worked for the state gov't which means you were a "taker.".

Imagine there is a group of people who actually believe the above statement. Scary.

I had a teacher that had probably 400 or more students at one time, but that was chemistry in college. Class was held in an auditorium with a seating capacity of a couple hundred students.

I was a High School and Middle School Music Educator, which means I taught:

Middle School Band
7th grade Chorus
8th grade Chorus
Middle School General music
High School Marching Band
High School Concert Band
High School Pep Band
High School 9th grade Chorus
High School Concert Choir
The school musical.

I also substituted for the HS Orchestra whenever the Orchestra director was sick.

I never had a study hall, because my day went through from start to finish, without end. I remember days when I hit the bathroom at 6 am, again at 6 pm.

That meant putting together 6-7 marching band shows a year, plus festivals, plus competitions. Then, in concert season, the obligatory 3 concerts per year, plus sight-reading placement tests for band seating, plus local and then, if we got a I, state concert band competition.

it also meant prepping kids who auditioned for either the McDonalds national band or the NBA all honors National Band, or the All-State (Ohio) band. I usually had one or two kids who made it that far.

That also meant the obligatory 3 concerts per year per choral group, plus the prep for the school musical, everything from building the set, to doing the staging rehearsals to rehearsing the orchestra to coaching the singers to selling tickets. This also meant teaching sight-singing to most kids, who, unless they are crossovers from other instruments, have no idea what a note looks like.

This also meant organizing, hosting and preparing small ensemble for the yearly solo-and-ensemble competition. It also meant the ability to accompany my own choral ensembles and write my own marching band arrangements.

The also meant the ability to carry clarinet reeds with me at all times, never knowing when a clarinet reed would go kaputt, to having portable heaters in marching season to bring the Sousaphones halfway up to temperature before going out onto the field, to dealing with catfighting majorettes and jealous non-majorettes, to assembling the band at the last instant once because the Superindendent decided that we would play the final Bush rally in Ohio on election day, 1992. I got the call at 1 am and by 6 am, my marching band was assembled and ready to go.

This still meant writing the usual evaluations that all teachers have to write, attending in-services that didn't do me a damned bit of good, etc.

it also meant giving private lessons to kids on certain instruments, for instance, converting a High School tenor in Choir to play Horn 3 in the concert band.

This also meant attending band and choir booster meetings, fundraising to get enough money to buy the next needed oboe or english horn and also participation of the ensembles in civic activities like church ice-cream bazaars, or funerals for known community members who passed on.

It often meant teaching the full day, then having marching band rehearsal until 4, show choir until 5:30, a private lesson until 6:30, then the pep band for the basketball game until 9:30 - and then, I graded papers from that morning's general music class full of seventh graders who were still learning how to rhyme together 3 words into a coherent sentence.

I usually kept three extra pairs of clothes in my office: marching band suit, marching band practice shorts and shirt, extra suit for evening meetings, etc.

The one blessing was that the HS faculty was strongly behind me, for I also released kids in the few off days of the year to prep for their SAT tests, etc.

I had no assistant. 400 kids.

After 7 years, it was just too much.

Wow, imagine how exhausted you would have been if you had been teaching a real subject!

 

[Unkotare]

Today's college degree is yesteryear's high school diploma.

Are you saying that "yesteryear" only 34% of Americans earned high school diplomas?

 

[Jackson]

I had a teacher that had probably 400 or more students at one time, but that was chemistry in college. Class was held in an auditorium with a seating capacity of a couple hundred students.

I was a High School and Middle School Music Educator, which means I taught:

Middle School Band
7th grade Chorus
8th grade Chorus
Middle School General music
High School Marching Band
High School Concert Band
High School Pep Band
High School 9th grade Chorus
High School Concert Choir
The school musical.

I also substituted for the HS Orchestra whenever the Orchestra director was sick.

I never had a study hall, because my day went through from start to finish, without end. I remember days when I hit the bathroom at 6 am, again at 6 pm.

That meant putting together 6-7 marching band shows a year, plus festivals, plus competitions. Then, in concert season, the obligatory 3 concerts per year, plus sight-reading placement tests for band seating, plus local and then, if we got a I, state concert band competition.

it also meant prepping kids who auditioned for either the McDonalds national band or the NBA all honors National Band, or the All-State (Ohio) band. I usually had one or two kids who made it that far.

That also meant the obligatory 3 concerts per year per choral group, plus the prep for the school musical, everything from building the set, to doing the staging rehearsals to rehearsing the orchestra to coaching the singers to selling tickets. This also meant teaching sight-singing to most kids, who, unless they are crossovers from other instruments, have no idea what a note looks like.

This also meant organizing, hosting and preparing small ensemble for the yearly solo-and-ensemble competition. It also meant the ability to accompany my own choral ensembles and write my own marching band arrangements.

The also meant the ability to carry clarinet reeds with me at all times, never knowing when a clarinet reed would go kaputt, to having portable heaters in marching season to bring the Sousaphones halfway up to temperature before going out onto the field, to dealing with catfighting majorettes and jealous non-majorettes, to assembling the band at the last instant once because the Superindendent decided that we would play the final Bush rally in Ohio on election day, 1992. I got the call at 1 am and by 6 am, my marching band was assembled and ready to go.

This still meant writing the usual evaluations that all teachers have to write, attending in-services that didn't do me a damned bit of good, etc.

it also meant giving private lessons to kids on certain instruments, for instance, converting a High School tenor in Choir to play Horn 3 in the concert band.

This also meant attending band and choir booster meetings, fundraising to get enough money to buy the next needed oboe or english horn and also participation of the ensembles in civic activities like church ice-cream bazaars, or funerals for known community members who passed on.

It often meant teaching the full day, then having marching band rehearsal until 4, show choir until 5:30, a private lesson until 6:30, then the pep band for the basketball game until 9:30 - and then, I graded papers from that morning's general music class full of seventh graders who were still learning how to rhyme together 3 words into a coherent sentence.

I usually kept three extra pairs of clothes in my office: marching band suit, marching band practice shorts and shirt, extra suit for evening meetings, etc.

The one blessing was that the HS faculty was strongly behind me, for I also released kids in the few off days of the year to prep for their SAT tests, etc.

I had no assistant. 400 kids.

After 7 years, it was just too much.

Wow, imagine how exhausted you would have been if you had been teaching a real subject!

It seems his shoes would be hard to fill. I wouldn't be degrading it as you are doing.

 

[Andylusion]

... Leave it to the parents to enforce quality education.

.....The solution is to kick those kids out of school. When you FORCE parents to deal with their kids, suddenly they'll take the time and effort to make their kids do well in school.


....Instead, the solution again, as I said above... kick the bad students out. Education is not a right. It is a privilege to be earned. When students have to earn an education... they will.

Essentially, you are saying public education should NOT be manditory.

The bad students will be left at home with bad parents, who will simply drive them to the other side of the country and abandon them.

Then what do you suggest happens next?

I'm not actually disagreeing with you, but there is a valid arguement for creating some sort of "LAST RESORT." Within most school systems this is known as an "Alternative Campus." Kids are still required to attend school, but are simply warehoused seperately from other students to give those that may have an opportunity to teach and learn the chance to do so without distraction.

Expulsion is the next, and final step

That kind of logic, is the same as the 'if we reform welfare and food stamps, kids will be starving in the street'.

Yet in the 90s, we reformed welfare, kicked people off welfare and food stamps, and people simply got jobs, and fed their kids.

My answer: People are not going to just 'oh well my kids will just be stupid'. No people will do what is required to motivate their kids to get good enough grades to stay in school. They will suddenly have an interest in talking with the teachers to make sure their kids are not kicked out.

The point of my post is that the system we have in place, encourages the behavior we are seeing. We make it law that it's government job to educate, and that everyone is 'entitled' to an education.... then we're shocked parents don't care to be bothered with it? We're shocked parents have the attitude of "it's your job to educate my kids, so do it"?

Most parents do care about their kids being educated, they just simply believe it's government job, and they shouldn't have to bother with it. Let's eliminate that belief system first. That will solve (I believe) a great deal of the problem.

Ever wonder why parents of students at private schools are extremely involved in the progress of their children through the system? Well of course the answer is very obvious.... they are paying for it. If their child starts getting lousy grades, they kick his butt out of the private school, and all the thousands on thousands they paid for that private education is completely lost. There is no possible way they are going to let that happen. They will have that kid locked in his room, with a text book taped to his face, before they lose that investment.

Now as for the parents who really truly don't care about their kids

I would argue there is no policy, no system of any kind that we can do for them. At least I know of no such system that works. If the parents truly don't care, and the kid doesn't care, there is nothing I know of that you can do.

Typically kids that care, don't need to be isolated. All you have to do is remove the bad kids who don't care, and the ones that do will snap to.

Therefore, why should we waste the money on the bad ones? This is exactly why we spend more money on education than nearly anyone else in the world, and yet have relative to that spending, lousy educational outcomes.

I've seen those 'tough love' things, and my experience is, kids will go through them, and snap to just long enough to get out, and then they end up just as bad as not having them go at all.

The kids that truly don't care, there is nothing I know of that works for them. If you can't reach them through the parents, and they themselves have no interest in learning at all, there is nothing you can do. No program you can put them in, no work shop, no boot camp, nothing.

A man convinced, against his will, is of the same opinion still.

Remember that? That's an old truism for a reason. Because it is absolutely true. If someone doesn't want to learn, you might be able to force him with brutality, but ultimately the moment he's free, he'll go back to the way he was.

So my opinion is, all those kids who don't want to learn, should be set loose. They'll either learn from the school of hard knocks, or they won't. But I don't believe there is any reason to think we can force them to suddenly 'wake up' and realize they need an education.

 

[Andylusion]

Essentially, you are saying public education should NOT be manditory.

The bad students will be left at home with bad parents, who will simply drive them to the other side of the country and abandon them.

Then what do you suggest happens next?

I'm not actually disagreeing with you, but there is a valid arguement for creating some sort of "LAST RESORT." Within most school systems this is known as an "Alternative Campus." Kids are still required to attend school, but are simply warehoused seperately from other students to give those that may have an opportunity to teach and learn the chance to do so without distraction.

Expulsion is the next, and final step

If public education were thought of as a privilege rather than a right, perhaps it would be more respected. Today's college degree is yesteryear's high school diploma.

So only the "priviaged" would be educated?

Like Mexico.

Yes absolutely. Privilege meaning, those that have earned the privileged.

Just like driving. Driving is not a constitutional right, and we don't want it to be a right..... do we? You want everyone entitled to drive a lethal machine at high speed? Of course not!

Well education should be the same. Why are we hiring teachers with PhDs, to spend a hundred thousand a year, to teach kids that honestly could not possibly care less, and will absolutely refuse to learn anything?

Why? What's the logic there? And then we wonder why we give schools more and more money every year, and get worse and worse results??

 

[Andylusion]

Today's college degree is yesteryear's high school diploma.

Are you saying that "yesteryear" only 34% of Americans earned high school diplomas?

He's referring to the value of the diplomas. It used to be that if you were in college, you were already well educated, and the term 'higher learning' meant you were being educated in something well beyond the education of a high school.

Now, in today's American education system, we have colleges that teach you what you should have learned in high school.

I've seen this first hand. I met a 11th grader, that didn't know how to do a division problem on a calculator. You know like press the 5 key, press the / key, press the 2 key, now press the = key.

He didn't know how to do the division problem. 11th grade. Basic division.

This is the reality of our education system now. And by the way, that student was not a dumb student. He wasn't. He just didn't care. He was more interested in chasing girls, and playing video games. He didn't care, and I bet you a paycheck, his parents didn't care, or he was in a broken home. Either way, no one was pushing him to care.

 

[80zephyr]

After 7 years, it was just too much.

Seven Years seems like a pretty good stint.

What was it that finally broke you?

Sousaphones halfway warmed up?

Carrying clarinet reeds?

Catfighting majorettes?




Seventh graders.

I am enjoying this thread. Can I ask you a few questions?

Are you teaching now?

If not, why not?

Mark

 

[Esmeralda]

I have heard many people who have taught in the past and left say that teaching is the hardest job they have ever had. If you are doing it right, it is. But it is the most rewarding!

All of us were capable of choosing another profession with higher salaries resulting in the finer things in life. But other jobs are not a "calling" like I feel teaching is.

Bless those teachers that make a difference. And many of them are in this thread, I think!

Quite right.

I think it depends on the situation, but overall, what we need is not a universal approach to educating each individual student, a universal idea of what is good teaching and what isn't. For example, in one of Jackson’s posts, she said that teaching a lesson and then quizzing the students on it was effective. It is to an extent as far as acquiring facts. It's an effective way of teaching first or second graders, as Jackson was doing. But as the student develops and ages, there needs to be different levels of questions, as is outlined in Bloom's Taxonomy. As the student matures and begins to develop critical thinking skills, a quiz is not enough to ascertain what a student is learning

The point is that what is appropriate at one level is not appropriate at another. As well, Jackson mentioned she was teaching at-risk students. Again, teaching methods would be specific to those types of students.

One thing I would do is reinstitute tracking. I would estimate that at least 50% of the student population country-wide are not academically inclined and should not be pushed through a program that is meant to prepare them for university study. There should be tracking once students have completed elementary school, from 6th grade on. Students who are not meant for university studies should be in vocational schools, vocational programs, and then they would not be so unhappy, so frustrated, so caught in a trap when it comes to school. They would be studying something they like with some basic courses in reading, writing and arithmetic.

I believe this simple change would have a monumental effect on education in America. We made a huge mistake in taking away tracking. Students should not be forced into any specific track. It should be a choice of the student and family, involving a consultation with the teacher. If a student begins the tracking program and wishes to switch from an academic program to a vocational program, and visa versa, she would be able to.

 

[Samson]

After 7 years, it was just too much.

Seven Years seems like a pretty good stint.

What was it that finally broke you?

Sousaphones halfway warmed up?

Carrying clarinet reeds?

Catfighting majorettes?




Seventh graders.

I am enjoying this thread. Can I ask you a few questions?

Are you teaching now?

If not, why not?

Mark

No.

Why not = Money

 

[Andylusion]

I have heard many people who have taught in the past and left say that teaching is the hardest job they have ever had. If you are doing it right, it is. But it is the most rewarding!

All of us were capable of choosing another profession with higher salaries resulting in the finer things in life. But other jobs are not a "calling" like I feel teaching is.

Bless those teachers that make a difference. And many of them are in this thread, I think!

Quite right.

I think it depends on the situation, but overall, what we need is not a universal approach to educating each individual student, a universal idea of what is good teaching and what isn't. For example, in one of Jackson’s posts, she said that teaching a lesson and then quizzing the students on it was effective. It is to an extent as far as acquiring facts. It's an effective way of teaching first or second graders, as Jackson was doing. But as the student develops and ages, there needs to be different levels of questions, as is outlined in Bloom's Taxonomy. As the student matures and begins to develop critical thinking skills, a quiz is not enough to ascertain what a student is learning

The point is that what is appropriate at one level is not appropriate at another. As well, Jackson mentioned she was teaching at-risk students. Again, teaching methods would be specific to those types of students.

One thing I would do is reinstitute tracking. I would estimate that at least 50% of the student population country-wide are not academically inclined and should not be pushed through a program that is meant to prepare them for university study. There should be tracking once students have completed elementary school, from 6th grade on. Students who are not meant for university studies should be in vocational schools, vocational programs, and then they would not be so unhappy, so frustrated, so caught in a trap when it comes to school. They would be studying something they like with some basic courses in reading, writing and arithmetic.

I believe this simple change would have a monumental effect on education in America. We made a huge mistake in taking away tracking. Students should not be forced into any specific track. It should be a choice of the student and family, involving a consultation with the teacher. If a student begins the tracking program and wishes to switch from an academic program to a vocational program, and visa versa, she would be able to.

There is some truth to this.

I would say that some consistency in teach methods would be beneficial.

That doesn't mean that there is one teaching style that need implemented across the entire country, but I would suggest that having a consistent style in each individual school system would be helpful.

My personal experience was that students (like myself), would learn skills that fit a particular teaching style, and then you would go to a different class under a different teacher, and suddenly everything you learned was useless, because the teaching method was completely different.

It might be helpful if each school system had some basic guide lines on teach method. Not that all schools would be the same, because obviously some kids do better with one style over another.

Of course, this idea involves students / parents, picking schools that suit their kids best, which of course involves a voucher system and the freedom to choose the school you want.

It's just an idea anyway.

 

[Esmeralda]

I have heard many people who have taught in the past and left say that teaching is the hardest job they have ever had. If you are doing it right, it is. But it is the most rewarding!

All of us were capable of choosing another profession with higher salaries resulting in the finer things in life. But other jobs are not a "calling" like I feel teaching is.

Bless those teachers that make a difference. And many of them are in this thread, I think!

Quite right.

I think it depends on the situation, but overall, what we need is not a universal approach to educating each individual student, a universal idea of what is good teaching and what isn't. For example, in one of Jackson’s posts, she said that teaching a lesson and then quizzing the students on it was effective. It is to an extent as far as acquiring facts. It's an effective way of teaching first or second graders, as Jackson was doing. But as the student develops and ages, there needs to be different levels of questions, as is outlined in Bloom's Taxonomy. As the student matures and begins to develop critical thinking skills, a quiz is not enough to ascertain what a student is learning

The point is that what is appropriate at one level is not appropriate at another. As well, Jackson mentioned she was teaching at-risk students. Again, teaching methods would be specific to those types of students.

One thing I would do is reinstitute tracking. I would estimate that at least 50% of the student population country-wide are not academically inclined and should not be pushed through a program that is meant to prepare them for university study. There should be tracking once students have completed elementary school, from 6th grade on. Students who are not meant for university studies should be in vocational schools, vocational programs, and then they would not be so unhappy, so frustrated, so caught in a trap when it comes to school. They would be studying something they like with some basic courses in reading, writing and arithmetic.

I believe this simple change would have a monumental effect on education in America. We made a huge mistake in taking away tracking. Students should not be forced into any specific track. It should be a choice of the student and family, involving a consultation with the teacher. If a student begins the tracking program and wishes to switch from an academic program to a vocational program, and visa versa, she would be able to.

There is some truth to this.

I would say that some consistency in teach methods would be beneficial.

That doesn't mean that there is one teaching style that need implemented across the entire country, but I would suggest that having a consistent style in each individual school system would be helpful.

My personal experience was that students (like myself), would learn skills that fit a particular teaching style, and then you would go to a different class under a different teacher, and suddenly everything you learned was useless, because the teaching method was completely different.

It might be helpful if each school system had some basic guide lines on teach method. Not that all schools would be the same, because obviously some kids do better with one style over another.

Of course, this idea involves students / parents, picking schools that suit their kids best, which of course involves a voucher system and the freedom to choose the school you want.

It's just an idea anyway.

You are confusing teaching method with the content that is taught. Teaching methods have to do with, for example, using different levels of questioning, such as are outlined in Bloom's Taxonomy. You learn the same material whether a teacher uses that method to help you learn or not.

If you go from one teacher to another and feel what you learn with one teacher is useless with another, it may be the terminology to discuss what you learned that was different, but it wouldn't be methods that would cause you to feel that knowledge or skills about a subject were different.

One thing that happens is that different text books have different ways of structuring material and different terminology to discuss it. So, if you use one text book with one teacher and a different one with another, it seems like you're learning different skills with different teachers.

Even if there is no text book, one teacher might learn how to teach structuring the material one way and using a particular terminology, while another teacher structures it another way and uses a different type of terminology. This is confusing, I agree.

The way to fix that is to have an agreed upon curriculum and curriculum delivery in any one school. Thus, you go from one year to the next with the same text book publisher and curriclum program. For example, your math books in all your classes throughout grammar school come from one publisher with a year to year outlined curriculum, using the same type of presentation and structure to teach math and a consistent terminology.

However, those are not teaching methods. Teaching methods have to do with levels of questioning; addressing different learning styles; or some teachers being more traditional in their approach to teaching, like mostly lecturing, and other teachers being more creative, with students doing lots of group work or hands on work.

Really good teachers are artists in a way: they are inspired and have their own style. If you force all teachers to teach in one style, you will lose most of your really good teachers because you will be boxing them into a uniform style that does not allow them to, essentially, fly, as all artists do. You cut off their wings. That's not good.

 

[Statistikhengst]

I had a teacher that had probably 400 or more students at one time, but that was chemistry in college. Class was held in an auditorium with a seating capacity of a couple hundred students.

I was a High School and Middle School Music Educator, which means I taught:

Middle School Band
7th grade Chorus
8th grade Chorus
Middle School General music
High School Marching Band
High School Concert Band
High School Pep Band
High School 9th grade Chorus
High School Concert Choir
The school musical.

I also substituted for the HS Orchestra whenever the Orchestra director was sick.

I never had a study hall, because my day went through from start to finish, without end. I remember days when I hit the bathroom at 6 am, again at 6 pm.

That meant putting together 6-7 marching band shows a year, plus festivals, plus competitions. Then, in concert season, the obligatory 3 concerts per year, plus sight-reading placement tests for band seating, plus local and then, if we got a I, state concert band competition.

it also meant prepping kids who auditioned for either the McDonalds national band or the NBA all honors National Band, or the All-State (Ohio) band. I usually had one or two kids who made it that far.

That also meant the obligatory 3 concerts per year per choral group, plus the prep for the school musical, everything from building the set, to doing the staging rehearsals to rehearsing the orchestra to coaching the singers to selling tickets. This also meant teaching sight-singing to most kids, who, unless they are crossovers from other instruments, have no idea what a note looks like.

This also meant organizing, hosting and preparing small ensemble for the yearly solo-and-ensemble competition. It also meant the ability to accompany my own choral ensembles and write my own marching band arrangements.

The also meant the ability to carry clarinet reeds with me at all times, never knowing when a clarinet reed would go kaputt, to having portable heaters in marching season to bring the Sousaphones halfway up to temperature before going out onto the field, to dealing with catfighting majorettes and jealous non-majorettes, to assembling the band at the last instant once because the Superindendent decided that we would play the final Bush rally in Ohio on election day, 1992. I got the call at 1 am and by 6 am, my marching band was assembled and ready to go.

This still meant writing the usual evaluations that all teachers have to write, attending in-services that didn't do me a damned bit of good, etc.

it also meant giving private lessons to kids on certain instruments, for instance, converting a High School tenor in Choir to play Horn 3 in the concert band.

This also meant attending band and choir booster meetings, fundraising to get enough money to buy the next needed oboe or english horn and also participation of the ensembles in civic activities like church ice-cream bazaars, or funerals for known community members who passed on.

It often meant teaching the full day, then having marching band rehearsal until 4, show choir until 5:30, a private lesson until 6:30, then the pep band for the basketball game until 9:30 - and then, I graded papers from that morning's general music class full of seventh graders who were still learning how to rhyme together 3 words into a coherent sentence.

I usually kept three extra pairs of clothes in my office: marching band suit, marching band practice shorts and shirt, extra suit for evening meetings, etc.

The one blessing was that the HS faculty was strongly behind me, for I also released kids in the few off days of the year to prep for their SAT tests, etc.

I had no assistant. 400 kids.

After 7 years, it was just too much.

Wow, imagine how exhausted you would have been if you had been teaching a real subject!

It is a real subject, and a critical one at that.

Did you know that until the 1700s, Music was classified as a science, and not an art, in terms of education?

Music stimulates parts of the brain that no other auditory form can. Music is mathematics in sound.

It is a VERY real subject, and only the best of the best have the stuff necessary to teach it effectively.

 

[Unkotare]

It is a real subject, and a critical one at that.

Oh, of course. I mean, if you can't play the oboe you're pretty much finished for life.