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Made in us
5th God of Chaos! (Yea'rly!)




The Great State of Texas

sebster wrote:I have a few friends who’ve just become teachers, or are studying to become teachers. The thing to remember is that while the tests they take are the same as the ones they’ll be teaching, the passing mark is much, much higher. As in, kids pass if they kid half the test right, teachers pass if they get 95% correct. It’s at the level where a careless error can take you from a perfect score to a narrow pass or a fail.

Without information on the test itself and the passing mark required, it’s pretty hard to judge whether this really is all about inadequate teachers, a test with the bar set too high or some combination of the two.

The US might be completely different, of course. This might have been a straight up test just like the kids do, but I seriously doubt it.


I call BS. If you can't get a 100 on elementary school math, then you shouldn't be teaching, or operating heavy machinery, or light machinery for that matter. In fact, your only clear career path is politician...

I should posit, in our school system the teachers are generally quite good. However, I've had run ins with teachers in previous districts who had basic problems spelling.
Usually its the administration that sucks though.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2009/05/27 12:17:40


-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
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[MOD]
Anti-piracy Officer






Somewhere in south-central England.

I bet there are possible questions I would fail, although I can handle maths perfectly well. My elementary school days are 40 years ago and I don't remember the legal names for doing things, I just do them.

(Product, Sum, and so on.)

I'm writing a load of fiction. My latest story starts here... This is the index of all the stories...

We're not very big on official rules. Rules lead to people looking for loopholes. What's here is about it. 
   
Made in us
Dwarf High King with New Book of Grudges




United States

Railguns wrote:Not really contributing, but wow Dogma, what school system did you go to?


A district in the Chicago suburbs. The county I lived in is routinely ranked in the top 5 of 'best places to live', so the schools receive a lot of revenue from property taxes.


Frazzled wrote:
I call BS. If you can't get a 100 on elementary school math, then you shouldn't be teaching, or operating heavy machinery, or light machinery for that matter. In fact, your only clear career path is politician...

I should posit, in our school system the teachers are generally quite good. However, I've had run ins with teachers in previous districts who had basic problems spelling.
Usually its the administration that sucks though.


Yeah, the filtration process for elementary school teachers is pretty lax, though not as abysmal as you seem to think. It really isn't surprising though, something about the terrible compensation seems to drive people away.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2009/05/27 17:52:52


Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh. 
   
Made in us
Mutilatin' Mad Dok




Indiana

dogma wrote:A district in the Chicago suburbs. The county I lived in is routinely ranked in the top 5 of 'best places to live', so the schools receive a lot of revenue from property taxes..

Somewhere near Oak Brook I take it?

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http://youngpride.wordpress.com

 
   
Made in us
Dwarf High King with New Book of Grudges




United States

Yep, DuPage County.

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh. 
   
Made in us
Mutilatin' Mad Dok




Indiana

Nice area. My parents live there; I was always jealous that they moved their after I graduated. Jerks.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2009/05/27 18:20:49


DT:80+S+G+M-B--IPw40k08+D++A++/hwd348R++T(T)DM+
http://youngpride.wordpress.com

 
   
Made in us
5th God of Chaos! (Yea'rly!)




The Great State of Texas

What can they say-kids are to a wallet what a blackhole is to space and time. I know. Oh I knowwww....

-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
 
   
Made in us
Dwarf High King with New Book of Grudges




United States

youngblood wrote:Nice area. My parents live there; I was always jealous that they moved their after I graduated. Jerks.


Its nice, but boring. Good place to raise kids, and go to high school. Not much reason to stick around after college though. At least not until you want to raise your own kids.

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh. 
   
Made in us
Rampaging Carnifex





Mandeville, Louisiana

Sounds nice. On topic, I know many, many people in education by way of a music education program, the route many band kids end up in college when they can't seem to do something else. The compensation sucks(especially in LA). My 28 year old trombone professor Dr. Everett who spent 10 years in school to get his doctorate makes about $35k, as I recall. The only way to make a comparable salary to others is by teaching in a high risk area such as inner New Orleans, which is a nightmare on just about every level.

It doesn't help that the education faculty at my university fully believes that music teachers aren't actual teachers and happily punishes anyone with that focus out to make room for "real" teachers.

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Anti-piracy Officer






Somewhere in south-central England.

Frazzled wrote:What can they say-kids are to a wallet what a blackhole is to space and time. I know. Oh I knowwww....


Not to mention wives.


I'm writing a load of fiction. My latest story starts here... This is the index of all the stories...

We're not very big on official rules. Rules lead to people looking for loopholes. What's here is about it. 
   
Made in au
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





Frazzled wrote:I call BS. If you can't get a 100 on elementary school math, then you shouldn't be teaching, or operating heavy machinery, or light machinery for that matter. In fact, your only clear career path is politician...


If you absolutely, 100% don't know how to approach an elementary school problem, then yeah you shouldn't be teaching. But if you complete 100 questions and due to time pressure make mistakes on a few, I think you're still capable of teaching. At least, I don't think it's a big problem compared to a lot of other ways teachers find to be bad at their jobs.

“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”

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(THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK)

Frazzled wrote:
ShumaGorath wrote:Were they math teachers? If not I could understand how this could happen. The article did not specify.


Respectfully, how could you understand that. We're talking elementary school level math here. Oh, mayhaps a translation from US school systems. In the US elementary is grades K -5 (sometimes 4 or 6 depending on state). 432*537=x is pretty much the heaviest math we're talking about. I'm thinking you pretty much need this level of math to survive without losing fingers along the way.


A history teacher is probably going to have forgotten long division, statistics, and a good bit of algebra by the time they have enough experience to teach. Hell, I don't know how to do long division now and I've been on the deans list for my past 3 semesters. These are not forms of mathematics that come up in everyday life, and when they do calculators are there to ensure that I don't need to waste my time doing them on a piece of paper. It's not helpful knowledge in a modern society when compared to the numerous things I need to learn and know every second of every day. Did the math teachers fail the english segment? Was there even one? I doubt it. The focus on math and the sciences inaccurately applied to teaching staff that will never be teaching those subjects is ridiculous. Just as a math teacher shouldn't need to know about european history a social studies teacher shouldn't have to know pythagorean theorem


All they are doing is drastically reducing their talent pool for something that has effectively no bearing on a persons ability to teach.

----------------

Do you remember that time that thing happened?
This is a bad thread and you should all feel bad 
   
Made in us
5th God of Chaos! (Yea'rly!)




The Great State of Texas

Again I call BS. Excuses are like pieholes, everybody has one. This is basic basic math folks. These people aren't selling ice cream, they are taking tests to see if they are qualified to teach our kids.

-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
 
   
 
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