City Journal: Nobody Gets Married Any More, Mister

[PeterMP]

Teachers should have more time for keeping the kids on task since they're no longer doing the bulk of the content delivery, progress tracking and testing. I would also change the physical layout of the classes to allow for grouping of kids working on the same subject, and would require either personal netbook or slate type school machines, or logins to desktop machines (age might be a factor here for durability of the machinery). The students would have their content (in the form of lessons, in whatever forms seem appropriate for the age) delivered via their personal technology device, which would also deliver quizzes and tests, and keep track of their progress.

Okay, so now we are going to get into some serious details.

The reason that things like quizzes are written is because it generally helps develope fine motor skill and specifically penmenship.

Up to this point in time having a general population that can physically write effectively has been considered a positive.

Going forward the decision might be made that's no longer true and more automated responses can be used (which then at least greatly alleviates man power related to grading) (and would indicate that we should move to teaching typing at early grades).

Already many schools are dropping cursive writing (I was at a thing yesterday where somebody made the arguement that if we don't teach cursive there will be a large number of historical texts those people will never be able to read. To me, though, using that same arguement, we'd still be teaching Latin. The people that want to study those things directly will learn cursive. For everybody else, there will be "print" versions in books and on computers.).

And if you take a step back and see that you're no longer beholden to the concept of grade years and set schedules for lessons, you realize that you can now freely tinker with the concepts of how you distribute school days throughout the year, and how vacations can be taken whenver by both teachers and students, since they're not missing scheduled work by being gone at any point and can pick right back up where they left off when they come back. (don't get off on a tangent with too much dissection of this, it's just an interesting corrolary to the overall concept )

I believe there is more flexibility there then already is used. The reason that time isn't used, I believe is mainly just tradition (from the perspective of students, parents, other activities, and teacher and school administrators (want to really get teachers to complain, start talking about an all year school year.))

I've heard many people argue that the current approach is a waste as the buildings sit there empty essentially all summer and adovated using pretty much what they do now in terms of classes, but something like six weeks on and two weeks off, where the two weeks are used to catch students up that have fallen behind in the six weeks and/or to for "special topic" classes for advanced students (if you liked math, you could imagine having a special topics in the history of math or some special appliation of math that you didn't get in the normal school system, but that wouldn't have really advanced your math skills with respect to the general student population within the flow of the normal school system) so you constantly have something going.

Overall, you have a concern about the students staying on task. I think much of that can be addressed as part of building the student's educational plan. You would choose methods of content delivery that best suit each student's personality and interests.

Like, I said, I think you over estimate the ability of young students to stay on task.

You have to remember. You still have to teach the kids what they don't "like." You can't say, you just like math, and you are good at math so we aren't going to teaching you reading.

[SnyderShrugged]

We'll have to agree to disagree there. To me, wasting billions on ineffective methods and subsidizing poor choices is not a worthwhile effort. Focusing on the end symptom side of a problem is just not an effective way of going about something and to me saying "but we have to do something is not a justification especially when we're talking about justifying government power and intervention at the cost of many, many billions to the tax payers. Take that money and invest it in ways to bring real jobs and opporunity back to the average blue collar person so they can afford to raise a family in the first place.

---------- Post added February-1st-2011 at 03:25 PM ----------

Eh....that depends on a lot. My parents thought so too, turns out it was emotional crutch for my mom who felt abandoned by a piece of **** spouse who didn't do his share. I know a lot about history because of it, the degree of emotional trauma and loss of ability to develop peer social skills at a crucial time in my life far outweighed any of that, though. It took me years and years to revocer from that decision by my parents.

sorry to hear that! if we were to ever go that route, we already have socialization plans and other mechanisms that would fill in the gaps by not being at a school. Though all that said, we will most likely never be able to even try due to our need for both incomes.

[authentic]

Lots of points to touch, so I won't bother quoting everyone who perked a thought.

~Bang

Real Talk....I typically agree with most of your post. But if were in front of you, i would shake your hand. What you've said, I am currently experiencing and agree with 100%!

[Pwyl]

Pwyl,

What does your proposal (or idea) do for the teaching profession then? Don't you believe that it dramatically decreases their significance and impact in our kids' lives as they are becoming just supervisors and not really responsible for delivering content? If that's true, how do you change their education/salary/etc?

Well I have some definite ideas on that, but they're kind of a side issue. I don't think that I would agree that their significance would be decreased... I think for the most part the "teacher level" would remain at a fairly steady level with regards to where their significance is now. I think the focus would just change a bit, as lower-'grade level' teachers would be more single-subject focused than they are now, and I would institute some pay grades, and career paths that lead from "teacher's aid" up through the ranks to the "supervisor/counsellor" that pete and I have been talking about.

As for the other ideas, I think I would change the way that teachers are viewed. I would make them more like professionals in other fields (like say... IT) that work year-round and get PTO and sick days based on paygrade etc. Since I would be mostly doing away with the concept of grades, classes, and set schedules, teachers could take their pto whenever they wanted (working out coverage with their immediate peers just like I have to in my job), and students would ALSO get "pto" that replaces their spring/fall/summer/fall breaks, that they can take any time. (there would be A LOT of issues to work through to make this happen... so look at this as just a really high-level view of my thoughts)

[DCsportsfan53]

sorry to hear that! if we were to ever go that route, we already have socialization plans and other mechanisms that would fill in the gaps by not being at a school. Though all that said, we will most likely never be able to even try due to our need for both incomes.

Honestly, so did my mom but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you're a little more motivated and have a stronger tendency towards following through with things. I just wanted to through my experience with it out there and to anyone who's considering doing it, don't minimize the potential impact of removing your child from that social setting, it's consequences can be much farther reaching than you expect. I think the one problem I have with home school is that all parents are obviously going to believe they're capable of it but not all will be. At least with public school there some level of uniformity and a floor on the overall experience.

[Ellis]

"Go Darwin on this population"?

Let's look at some things going on right now. Right now there is a $1B effort to bring football back to Los Angeles. Concurrently, right now there are events going on building hype to the Super Bowl. As a society, we care more about football than education. If we gave the attention we give to education that we give to sports, pretty sure things would be different; but we simply, don't care. Or else we wouldn't spend so much money and time supporting football teams.

Although I understand the argument you are making, I can't agree with you. Americans do care about what is going on.

I am more preoccupied with my own family than others. I don't have kids yet but I participate in my nieces and nephews lives as well as the lives of my cousins. That's how my family has always been and I don't know any other way of conducting myself. I care about what I have to care about as a member of my family. As does all the members of my family. I am getting married in june and next year we plan to have kids. I am 33 and my fiance is 31. We were raised to be responsible about our body and responsible about having kids as well. It's not easy to be young and full of hormones, I'm sure we can all agree on that. Long story short, all of my energy and focus will be on my family as well as my closest relatives.

It pains me to read stories like this and to hear about young kids from single parent families caught in a cycle. They are doing what they see. If everyone around is being responsible, you will likely be responsible as well. If everyone around you is having children as young teens and not getting married then I would say it's fair to assume that it is likely that you will too. All of this behavior is learned, primarily through observation.

I live in a rough area of Annapolis and I see the behavior described in this article right outside my house everyday. It used to bother me. I've lived here for so many years that I've become accustomed to it. It's not weird to me anymore. I still don't agree with it! But it exists and it's not going away. Some teens are able to break out of the cycle though. I've spoken with the youth that live near me about their lives and goals and dreams. They are no different than anyone elses. These young women are doing what their parents tell them and if their mothers are on a gov't program that helped them, they are going to encourage their daughters to do the same. I've seen it. In their world, this is completely normal.

I've spoken with the young males who make babies and leave the girls. On a personal level, I deeply dislike males that do this. But I've also seen how these boys faces light up when they talk about their child. They are genuinely proud of their kids and love their kids. But they've grown up without fathers and in their minds, perhaps this is completely normal. I dunno, I've never had extensive conversations about the psychology with them. I've also met men who flat out don't want to be bothered with the kids they create.

I've seen some crazy behavior among the poorer youths in my area which would completely deviate from a genuine discussion about the article so I'll simply steer from it for now.

Back to the topic though... the only thing clear to me is that perspective is reality. I wasn't raised to live like the girls in the article are living. From my perspective, it looks wrong. Why? Because I was taught not to do it. That's all. But is it wrong? Or is it all that these girls know? If we put a lot of trust in our parents judgement and advice, and those same parents encourage us to do certain things, then how are our choices wrong or detrimental to our future? From what I can see, these young women are doing what they see their elders do. It is learned behavior.

[Pwyl]

Okay, so now we are going to get into some serious details.

The reason that things like quizzes are written is because it generally helps develope fine motor skill and specifically penmenship.

Up to this point in time having a general population that can physically write effectively has been considered a positive.

Going forward the decision might be made that's no longer true and more automated responses can be used (which then at least greatly alleviates man power related to grading) (and would indicate that we should move to teaching typing at early grades).

THAT is an excellent point. I don't think it's insurmountable within the context of my idea though... "fine motor skill" and "penmanship" would become subjects... (with a noted increase in the need for either a very easily applicable technological answer to easily and quickly test this, OR an increase in the need for teacher assessment)

Already many schools are dropping cursive writing (I was at a thing yesterday where somebody made the arguement that if we don't teach cursive there will be a large number of historical texts those people will never be able to read. To me, though, using that same arguement, we'd still be teaching Latin. The people that want to study those things directly will learn cursive. For everybody else, there will be "print" versions in books and on computers.).

If I wanted to write in cursive, I would have to google a third of the letters to remember their shapes... but I don't have any trouble reading it. I think I agree all the way around here though.

I believe there is more flexibility there then already is used. The reason that time isn't used, I believe is mainly just tradition (from the perspective of students, parents, other activities, and teacher and school administrators (want to really get teachers to complain, start talking about an all year school year.))

see my response to TD for more detail on what I'm thinking there. (and nice nested parenthetical aside by the way )

I've heard many people argue that the current approach is a waste as the buildings sit there empty essentially all summer and adovated using pretty much what they do now in terms of classes, but something like six weeks on and two weeks off, where the two weeks are used to catch students up that have fallen behind in the six weeks and/or to for "special topic" classes for advanced students (if you liked math, you could imagine having a special topics in the history of math or some special appliation of math that you didn't get in the normal school system, but that wouldn't have really advanced your math skills with respect to the general student population within the flow of the normal school system) so you constantly have something going.

I find it interesting that people are moving in the general direction of my core idea while still trying to stick within the confines of current paradigms.

Like, I said, I think you over estimate the ability of young students to stay on task.

You have to remember. You still have to teach the kids what they don't "like." You can't say, you just like math, and you are good at math so we aren't going to teaching you reading.

That could be. I've never taught, so I'm not an expert. No matter how you structure the learning atmosphere and path, you're going to have to deal with kids not liking certain things. In the current system, that could result in either failing grades, or the student giving just enough effort to get the C or D needed to pass. In my system, that student's recalcitrance would be noted in failure to master their module in an appropriate amount of time, and more attention would be given to get them over the hump.

In case you didn't see it in the edit on the last page:

I like your idea of imagining a scenario. Your multiplication scenario seems very close to what I have in mind. I think you're overstating how much teacher interaction is needed on the grading side though. Especially with a subject like simple math. Students would take their "test" on a computer (either in a testing center, or on their personal device depending on the hardware strategy of the school) and the system would return a grade immediately, as well as record it in the student's records. I will definitely concede that some subjects like English (on the paper writing side) and higher grades would get more intensive as far as teacher requirements go. You can't really technologize the the teaching of writing.

Also, I don't deny that student/teacher ratios will always be important.

Your scenario and subsequent thoughts demonstrate to me that you're understanding my idea pretty well, you just seem to have concerns with its application, and the viability of making it workable in the real world. Thanks for taking the time to pick at my ideas

[Fergasun]

Back to the topic though... the only thing clear to me is that perspective is reality. I wasn't raised to live like the girls in the article are living. From my perspective, it looks wrong. Why? Because I was taught not to do it. That's all. But is it wrong? Or is it all that these girls know? If we put a lot of trust in our parents judgement and advice, and those same parents encourage us to do certain things, then how are our choices wrong or detrimental to our future? From what I can see, these young women are doing what they see their elders do. It is learned behavior.

Another part of my response that was omitted is that we are looking at folks like a "bell curve". From "society perspective" they are "3 sigma outliers". However when you break society down into smaller groups, they are the mean.

[PeterMP]

Your scenario and subsequent thoughts demonstrate to me that you're understanding my idea pretty well, you just seem to have concerns with its application, and the viability of making it workable in the real world. Thanks for taking the time to pick at my ideas

Yeah, I want to make the point in some environments, I think your ideas are fine.

In some cases, colleges are doing similar things. I teach a class where my approach is here's the book, here's the information I want you to learn from the book, I show up twice a week to answer questions, if there are limited questions, I will ask some questions just to see if they go the important points, but if people are actually prepared, a class that is suppossed be 80 minutes long can be 20 minutes long. I can't really vary the way they can get the information, but they don't need to hear be drone on for 80 minutes, if they can take in and understand the information from the book.

I think for some even younger populations this would work well. I could certainly see at some high schools this approach working.

I think there are two issues:

1. You underestimate the costs system wide, especially when you start talking about ever student having a notebook or work station. Most public colleges don't have that level of technology mostly due to costs.

2. It would fail amongst the least motivated students pretty spectacularly without substantial "teacher" supervision (and I see some of that at the college level), and at younger grades that generally means students that are from poor socioeconomic backgrounds, and the students are already having the largest issue.

In that sense, your approach would probably fix some "problems", but I don't think would fix our biggest problems and the one associated with the OP.

[Pwyl]

I think in the context of applying my ideas to students existing at the time of application in the state the the girl in the OP exists in, you're probably right, there would be no help. She had already had years of bad examples to follow that molded her into the individual that she was at that point in time. However I think that a better model (like mine) that also maybe includes some life counseling could possibly divert students with bad examples in their personal life into being more academically engaged, if applied as they come into school in 1st grade.

As far as the costs of technology goes, tech is cheap. Cheaper than it's ever been and getting cheaper by the month. You can go buy yourself a netbook that would suit the needs of a middle school student for a couple of hundred dollars, retail. One of the main points in the article was how flush with cash those schools are now. Public colleges aren't really comparable because they aren't getting as subsidized by the fed as the primary schools are under the new programs. I would actually posit that all of the content creation would be a bigger and more prohibitive cost problem than buying a hundred netbooks per year. (or whatever the actual number is).

And you're right that hooking students' motivations is very important. For my plan to be successful, it would depend on the individual attention that the students get in the beginning to increase their motivational levels to a level appropriate to do the work. Especially since I would raise the standard required to achieve mastery of a subject. (at least the drillable kind, like simple math and memorization based subjects like grammar and some facets of history(excluding the paper-writing facets))