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[quasihumanist]

Many here have approached the issues obliquely, but one might as well make it explicit.  If you are teaching education majors you are already screwed before you get started.  They are notoriously the worst, least motivated students in college.

I'd like to suggest a slightly different perspective for this, mostly because it helps (maybe) to suggest solutions. Our undergraduate ed majors are the students who are/were the most domesticated. They thrive on routine, order, predictability, and rote instruction. The think that this is the only way, and that everyone else should be like them, because, after all, this is what education is all about.

I truly believe that those of us who think this is a travesty need to be working much harder to change the atmosphere in K-12 education. Right now, the system is driving the brilliant but quirky kids right out the doors, and ensuring that the ones like our current crop thrive and prosper. Rather, I think we need to be nurturing the independent thinkers and working harder to make the domesticated/habituated crowd more independent rather than less.

You don't get it.

The purpose of K-12 education in the US is to get kids ready for serving as privates in the armed forces.

NCLB is the result of Army recruiters complaining that the high school graduates they were getting were too stupid to turn on a radio.

I'm only being slightly sarcastic.

[spyzowin]

Many here have approached the issues obliquely, but one might as well make it explicit.  If you are teaching education majors you are already screwed before you get started.  They are notoriously the worst, least motivated students in college.

I'd like to suggest a slightly different perspective for this, mostly because it helps (maybe) to suggest solutions. Our undergraduate ed majors are the students who are/were the most domesticated. They thrive on routine, order, predictability, and rote instruction. The think that this is the only way, and that everyone else should be like them, because, after all, this is what education is all about.

I truly believe that those of us who think this is a travesty need to be working much harder to change the atmosphere in K-12 education. Right now, the system is driving the brilliant but quirky kids right out the doors, and ensuring that the ones like our current crop thrive and prosper. Rather, I think we need to be nurturing the independent thinkers and working harder to make the domesticated/habituated crowd more independent rather than less.

You don't get it.

The purpose of K-12 education in the US is to get kids ready for serving as privates in the armed forces.

NCLB is the result of Army recruiters complaining that the high school graduates they were getting were too stupid to turn on a radio.

I'm only being slightly sarcastic.

Okay. I am a fan of NCLB. Likewise, I am a fan of institutionalized policies and procedures relating to outcomes assessment, syllabi and so on.

I know a lot of people are dead set against that sort of thing. And I know that they have serious objections, cogent objections, and that they are all well-meaning professionals... but

Does anyone actually think that any of it is just going to go away?  It strikes me that it doesn't actually matter what side of the battle a person is on, as the fight is already over.

And I cannot foresee that the various regional accreditation bodies, now that they have adopted a lot of these ideas, are going to change back any time soon.  And in a battle waged between accreditation and faculty rights, faculty rights will lose.

[msparticularity]

Many here have approached the issues obliquely, but one might as well make it explicit.  If you are teaching education majors you are already screwed before you get started.  They are notoriously the worst, least motivated students in college.

I'd like to suggest a slightly different perspective for this, mostly because it helps (maybe) to suggest solutions. Our undergraduate ed majors are the students who are/were the most domesticated. They thrive on routine, order, predictability, and rote instruction. The think that this is the only way, and that everyone else should be like them, because, after all, this is what education is all about.

I truly believe that those of us who think this is a travesty need to be working much harder to change the atmosphere in K-12 education. Right now, the system is driving the brilliant but quirky kids right out the doors, and ensuring that the ones like our current crop thrive and prosper. Rather, I think we need to be nurturing the independent thinkers and working harder to make the domesticated/habituated crowd more independent rather than less.

You don't get it.

The purpose of K-12 education in the US is to get kids ready for serving as privates in the armed forces.

NCLB is the result of Army recruiters complaining that the high school graduates they were getting were too stupid to turn on a radio.

I'm only being slightly sarcastic.

Okay. I am a fan of NCLB. Likewise, I am a fan of institutionalized policies and procedures relating to outcomes assessment, syllabi and so on.

I know a lot of people are dead set against that sort of thing. And I know that they have serious objections, cogent objections, and that they are all well-meaning professionals... but

Does anyone actually think that any of it is just going to go away?  It strikes me that it doesn't actually matter what side of the battle a person is on, as the fight is already over.

And I cannot foresee that the various regional accreditation bodies, now that they have adopted a lot of these ideas, are going to change back any time soon.  And in a battle waged between accreditation and faculty rights, faculty rights will lose.

Amnirov, I, too, agree with the intention behind NCLB, but it's a classic case of deeply flawed implementation. Even a casual acquaintance with statistics would tell us conclusively that there is no way to ensure that all children will be able to reach above average performance by 2014--and yet this is exactly the goal of NCLB as it currently exists. Further, there is no reason in the world to suppose that there is any one-size-fits-all pedagogy--and yet NCLB itself and current Department of Education grant funding standards presume that a single best model exists for all content areas at every grade level, and that the goal of educational research is to determine that single best model.

As Stephen Toulmin argued, there is no reason in the world to presume that a physics-based model of causation is appropriate for living systems. And even physics has become less deterministic over the years--just look at the work on complexity and emergent systems!

[quasihumanist]

Many here have approached the issues obliquely, but one might as well make it explicit.  If you are teaching education majors you are already screwed before you get started.  They are notoriously the worst, least motivated students in college.

I'd like to suggest a slightly different perspective for this, mostly because it helps (maybe) to suggest solutions. Our undergraduate ed majors are the students who are/were the most domesticated. They thrive on routine, order, predictability, and rote instruction. The think that this is the only way, and that everyone else should be like them, because, after all, this is what education is all about.

I truly believe that those of us who think this is a travesty need to be working much harder to change the atmosphere in K-12 education. Right now, the system is driving the brilliant but quirky kids right out the doors, and ensuring that the ones like our current crop thrive and prosper. Rather, I think we need to be nurturing the independent thinkers and working harder to make the domesticated/habituated crowd more independent rather than less.

You don't get it.

The purpose of K-12 education in the US is to get kids ready for serving as privates in the armed forces.

NCLB is the result of Army recruiters complaining that the high school graduates they were getting were too stupid to turn on a radio.

I'm only being slightly sarcastic.

Okay. I am a fan of NCLB. Likewise, I am a fan of institutionalized policies and procedures relating to outcomes assessment, syllabi and so on.

I know a lot of people are dead set against that sort of thing. And I know that they have serious objections, cogent objections, and that they are all well-meaning professionals... but

Does anyone actually think that any of it is just going to go away?  It strikes me that it doesn't actually matter what side of the battle a person is on, as the fight is already over.

And I cannot foresee that the various regional accreditation bodies, now that they have adopted a lot of these ideas, are going to change back any time soon.  And in a battle waged between accreditation and faculty rights, faculty rights will lose.

I'm not particularly against NCLB actually.  I'm more against the mindset that reduces education to a form of job training, and I agree that NCLB does not have to be taken that way.  I have nothing against standardisation, assessment, and all that; my complaint is about the kinds of outcomes that people have decided to assess in many places.

I think that K-12 education is in many ways just a symptom of a move towards a society where The Grand Inquisitor is correct - one where the population wants nothing other than more bread and more circuses.  I don't have much of an idea what to do about this.

Look I have choices.  I can try to learn to be a subsistence farmer and hope not to starve to death when the crops fail.  I have enough money to buy enough land to make that work if necessary.  (It doesn't take much really.)  I don't have a family so that isn't a concern.  And yes I would rather do that than work in a job I truly do not believe in.  Certainly I would rather do that than work in a (hypothetical) job I believe is doing harm to society.

[blue_eye]

Polly_mer, I have to thank you for your comments a few pages back.  I do not teach education majors, but I have almost exactly the same issues with my students.  This is very eye-opening for me.  I've been stuck in the mode of being annoyed and frustrated that my students don't have the basic prerequisite skills, and their expectations about what we should be doing (and what I should be doing for them) in my classes seem so outlandish to me.  I think I can see how to get past this now.

[cgfunmathguy]

Well, I would hope you've seen a performance evaluation. That's all the students really want. Something that says, I will grade your performance on this assignment as follows.

Indeed, I have. I have been evaluated (in some form) for the last 40 years of my life. I have also evaluated others (in some form) for the last 23 years of my life. With the exception of my Math for Elementary Teachers class, there was NEVER a scale that said (to use my absurd example from before):

Knowledge of Subject Matter
4: Can demonstrate the use of the Riemann sum in conceptualizing the definite integral.
3: Can prove that the limit (as x goes to 0) of (sin x)/x is 1.
2: Can prove the Pythagorean Theorem.
1: Can prove who he is.
0: Doesn't have a clue who he is, where he is, or why he is there.

However, this is exactly what is being demanded. When I explain what I want, I get complaints about them not knowing what I want. The same exists if I provide a checklist. With the detailed rubric, I get complaints about the fact that they don't understand it. I hate rubrics because, just like "learning styles" (interthreaduality alert), the students use it as an excuse for not working. <begin whining tone> B"But I'm working so hard on these. You (or the rubric) just aren't clear about what you want." <end whining>

[msparticularity]

I do provide rubrics with descriptors for various skills and a clear prioritization--how much relative value I place on ability to incorporate relevant citations from literature versus correct citation format, for example. And yet, I, too get complaints. Like cgfunmathguy, the major whine I hear is about how hard they are trying--so I shouldn't really be using the rubric to assess them.

[polly_mer]

Polly_mer, I have to thank you for your comments a few pages back.  I do not teach education majors, but I have almost exactly the same issues with my students.  This is very eye-opening for me.  I've been stuck in the mode of being annoyed and frustrated that my students don't have the basic prerequisite skills, and their expectations about what we should be doing (and what I should be doing for them) in my classes seem so outlandish to me.  I think I can see how to get past this now.

I'm happy to be of help.  However, I must credit Vox for starting me on the right path with her repeated comments of "Teach the students you have, not the students you want".  Eventually, it occurred to me what she mean as it applied to the reality of my situation instead of a platitude that just belongs on a wall poster.

[mdwlark]

Many here have approached the issues obliquely, but one might as well make it explicit.  If you are teaching education majors you are already screwed before you get started.  They are notoriously the worst, least motivated students in college.

I'd like to suggest a slightly different perspective for this, mostly because it helps (maybe) to suggest solutions. Our undergraduate ed majors are the students who are/were the most domesticated. They thrive on routine, order, predictability, and rote instruction. The think that this is the only way, and that everyone else should be like them, because, after all, this is what education is all about.

I truly believe that those of us who think this is a travesty need to be working much harder to change the atmosphere in K-12 education. Right now, the system is driving the brilliant but quirky kids right out the doors, and ensuring that the ones like our current crop thrive and prosper. Rather, I think we need to be nurturing the independent thinkers and working harder to make the domesticated/habituated crowd more independent rather than less.

You don't get it.

The purpose of K-12 education in the US is to get kids ready for serving as privates in the armed forces.

NCLB is the result of Army recruiters complaining that the high school graduates they were getting were too stupid to turn on a radio.

I'm only being slightly sarcastic.

quasihumanist, I like you already.  I like your moniker too-a lot of layers of irony in one word. 

[msparticularity]

Many here have approached the issues obliquely, but one might as well make it explicit.  If you are teaching education majors you are already screwed before you get started.  They are notoriously the worst, least motivated students in college.

I'd like to suggest a slightly different perspective for this, mostly because it helps (maybe) to suggest solutions. Our undergraduate ed majors are the students who are/were the most domesticated. They thrive on routine, order, predictability, and rote instruction. The think that this is the only way, and that everyone else should be like them, because, after all, this is what education is all about.

I truly believe that those of us who think this is a travesty need to be working much harder to change the atmosphere in K-12 education. Right now, the system is driving the brilliant but quirky kids right out the doors, and ensuring that the ones like our current crop thrive and prosper. Rather, I think we need to be nurturing the independent thinkers and working harder to make the domesticated/habituated crowd more independent rather than less.

You don't get it.

The purpose of K-12 education in the US is to get kids ready for serving as privates in the armed forces.

NCLB is the result of Army recruiters complaining that the high school graduates they were getting were too stupid to turn on a radio.

I'm only being slightly sarcastic.

quasihumanist, I like you already.  I like your moniker too-a lot of layers of irony in one word. 

I'm pretty cynical about the causes, too. George Counts wrote very compellingly in the 1930s about the fact that the current situation really is just another round of feudalism. Essentially, the serfs are always subject to the desires and goodwill of the landed aristocrats; it's just that we're calling them by different names these days.

[outlier]

Polly, your posts in this and the "teaching science" thread are so amazingly wonderful: thank you for the professional development. Anakin, your response to your class was inspired and inspiring, and I hope you will have the opportunity to further develop your teaching skills. Did I read something somewhere about the end of a contract? If so, I'm sorry, that sucks.

I always hesitate to post, and especially In the Classroom, as someone else usually says the same thing I would, but phrased better. But I have to ask the fans of NCLB: why? What good has NCLB actually done that makes you a fan?

Like MsP, I think the stated intention was good, but I don't believe it was the real intention. Like quasihumanist, I think the real purpose of education is something like her/his interpretation: to produce compliant soldiers, and the real purpose of NCLB was not to improve students' thinking skills. As far as effects, well, I'll wait and see if the fans know anything about what the effects of NCLB have been before getting into that. Is this--the direction of both K-12 and higher education, accountability trends, and the effects on selection/recruitment of future teachers, worth a separate thread?

[barred_owl]

Polly, your posts in this and the "teaching science" thread are so amazingly wonderful: thank you for the professional development. Anakin, your response to your class was inspired and inspiring, and I hope you will have the opportunity to further develop your teaching skills. Did I read something somewhere about the end of a contract? If so, I'm sorry, that sucks.

I always hesitate to post, and especially In the Classroom, as someone else usually says the same thing I would, but phrased better. But I have to ask the fans of NCLB: why? What good has NCLB actually done that makes you a fan?

Like MsP, I think the stated intention was good, but I don't believe it was the real intention. Like quasihumanist, I think the real purpose of education is something like her/his interpretation: to produce compliant soldiers, and the real purpose of NCLB was not to improve students' thinking skills. As far as effects, well, I'll wait and see if the fans know anything about what the effects of NCLB have been before getting into that. Is this--the direction of both K-12 and higher education, accountability trends, and the effects on selection/recruitment of future teachers, worth a separate thread?

I, for one, would be very interested in a thread discussing the relationship(s) between NCLB and selection/recruitment of future teachers, or even more simply, a discussion about why students elect to major in K-12 education, who those students are, and how higher ed might most effectively prepare those students, given the emergence of NCLB-exposed students in the undergraduate ranks.  I know these topics have been addressed all over the fora, but maybe starting a fresh thread would help focus the discussion a bit more.

[t_r_b]

Even a casual acquaintance with statistics would tell us conclusively that there is no way to ensure that all children will be able to reach above average performance by 2014--and yet this is exactly the goal of NCLB as it currently exists.

We can't ensure that that goal will be reached because the goal is mathematically impossible. Except, of course, in Lake Woebegone.

[barred_owl]

Even a casual acquaintance with statistics would tell us conclusively that there is no way to ensure that all children will be able to reach above average performance by 2014--and yet this is exactly the goal of NCLB as it currently exists.

We can't ensure that that goal will be reached because the goal is mathematically impossible. Except, of course, in Lake Woebegone.

Or at my TT university, at which the former chancellor proclaimed that his goal for a particular year was for every faculty member to achieve above-average teaching evaluations.

Notice that I said he was a "former" chancellor.

[polly_mer]

Even a casual acquaintance with statistics would tell us conclusively that there is no way to ensure that all children will be able to reach above average performance by 2014--and yet this is exactly the goal of NCLB as it currently exists.

We can't ensure that that goal will be reached because the goal is mathematically impossible. Except, of course, in Lake Woebegone.

Or at my TT university, at which the former chancellor proclaimed that his goal for a particular year was for every faculty member to achieve above-average teaching evaluations.

Hmm.  We don't have that particular problem because our teaching evaluations are all on an absolute scale so that C really does mean acceptable, although at least a B is preferable since we are a primarily teaching institution.  However, rumor has it that our admincritters appear to be ignorant about the fact that a 4.25 (solid B) is not statistically significantly different than a 4.23 so that there is no cause for alarm or justification necessary for the "observed drop in performance".