Where do you stand, On different social things Options

[The Fanatic]

So how do you plan on teaching critical thinking and reasoning skills to 40 kids all at once? There are not enough teachers for the one on one treatment students need to learn everything they need to learn. So they are doing the best we can with what we have.

And I do not want to go back to "what the founding fathers envisioned". For the longest time, America was a third world country.

Do you even know where the term "third world" originated? I don't think you can reasonably classify 18th or 19th century America as "third world".

[James]

So how do you plan on teaching critical thinking and reasoning skills to 40 kids all at once? There are not enough teachers for the one on one treatment students need to learn everything they need to learn. So they are doing the best we can with what we have.

And I do not want to go back to "what the founding fathers envisioned". For the longest time, America was a third world country.

Missed this one. Show me a school that has 40 kids in a general education classroom. Think the most you can have to a classroom is 25:1 or 30:1. Depends on the state laws. I'm pretty sure 40:1 is not allowed. Also, there are some that fall under the school of thought that teachers don't teach critical thinking but they facilitate it and don't suppress it. Unfortunately, by the time they get to me, it's too far suppressed and they want to be spoonfed answers still. It's a very difficult process to reverse. Very difficult. I'm sure I've lost more than one year on my life for each year I've been teaching.

[Hartmann]

Missed this one. Show me a school that has 40 kids in a general education classroom. Think the most you can have to a classroom is 25:1 or 30:1. Depends on the state laws. I'm pretty sure 40:1 is not allowed. Also, there are some that fall under the school of thought that teachers don't teach critical thinking but they facilitate it and don't suppress it. Unfortunately, by the time they get to me, it's too far suppressed and they want to be spoonfed answers still. It's a very difficult process to reverse. Very difficult. I'm sure I've lost more than one year on my life for each year I've been teaching.

My wife has the same problem. A good portion of her Algebra Academic (lowest level) kids can barely do basic math and they expect her to spoon feed them everything, rather than learning it and applying it.

[Inferia]

they redistribute kids in Texas too, but they do it to keep a more equal race count. I had a half black half korean friend that lived across the street. The high school she should have gone to was a 15 minute walk from our house. Instead, she was sent to a school on the complete other side of town, about a 45 minute drive away. Of course, they sent a school bus to pick her up. I think it's dumb to do that. She was one of only a few black people at the school. Sometimes I think schools should be slightly segregated. My brother-in-law who is 15 goes to a school that 95% black in Richmond. The kid is cool. He really is, but has no friends at the school. They either need to redistribute that school (nearly impossible in a city that is mostly black) or they should send him to a school where he can make some friends. Back in El Paso, he had a ton of friends, and now he doesn't have any.

Well, redistributing kids based on scores to poorer schools is pretty much the same thing as redistributing kids based on race... In Florida I think they have a choice, you could go to the school 5 minutes away from your house or you could go to the one 45 min away. It's just that the 45 minutes away one has a better education program. So, people tend to opt for the further away one...

I don't believe schools should be segregated, it's one chance for people to interact (like really forced to interact) with people of different backgrounds. The more you push it off, the more difficult it would become. My elementary school was probably one of the most diverse schools I've ever been too, you have people from Africa, from Russia, from places all over the world. At that point kids don't really get what "different" means yet, once you get to hs it's a little different, people clique off. I mean if I had the choice to go to an all Chinese school, I might've gone. It would've been much easier for me, dealing with people of similar background and view of things. But how good is this? And really, living in a predominately white suburbia, do I really have a choice? I see all these Chinese people cliquing off in college because it is easier for them to be with people from similar background. I understand why, but I feel like it's somewhat limited. You only hear one view of things, you have a back up choir of yes people who agree with you. I guess in the end it doesn't really matter, people do whatever they want to do to make themselves happy.

[Billy]

Missed this one. Show me a school that has 40 kids in a general education classroom. Think the most you can have to a classroom is 25:1 or 30:1. Depends on the state laws. I'm pretty sure 40:1 is not allowed. .

Though it's been awhile and obviously, laws have changed, but when I went to school in California, we had a teacher to student ratio of 1 to 42. Even 30 to 1 is bad. Explain to me how my point is changed by this?

[Spectatrix]

He's proven that he doesn't have a clue... despite being a frikkin teacher?!?

[chook]

I taught middle school as a sub Hutch in Lubbock and classes were never bigger than 22. My public school had small classes, mabye 20 max in Math.

just my 2 cents.

[James]

You're right. I'll go now.

[Mommy]

Though it's been awhile and obviously, laws have changed, but when I went to school in California, we had a teacher to student ratio of 1 to 42. Even 30 to 1 is bad. Explain to me how my point is changed by this?

In all actuality, the ratio is smaller than that. In most classrooms, especially in elementary schools, the students are separated out based on their abilities in that class. For instance, a 3rd grade reading class. Another teacher may have a class that is at lunch or on break so she will take a group of students and work with them in smaller groups, usually around 5-6 kids per teacher. They also have teacher aids that take groups. Yeah, they aren't certified teachers, but they are given specific instructions by the teacher on what to do during group time. They do this less in high schools, however, but I feel that is because at that age students are expected to pay attention better. They do it a lot with elementary math too. Sometimes even there are a couple of kids who are doing considerably poorer than the rest of the class, and they will have an extra math time, in a small group of 3-4 kids a couple times a week with another teacher. Usually it is during art or P.E. class. It's like a tutoring class, except that they also offer after school tutoring in addition to that. Trust me, the teacher student ratio is the least of public school's problems.

[Billy]

In all actuality, the ratio is smaller than that. In most classrooms, especially in elementary schools, the students are separated out based on their abilities in that class. For instance, a 3rd grade reading class. Another teacher may have a class that is at lunch or on break so she will take a group of students and work with them in smaller groups, usually around 5-6 kids per teacher. They also have teacher aids that take groups. Yeah, they aren't certified teachers, but they are given specific instructions by the teacher on what to do during group time. They do this less in high schools, however, but I feel that is because at that age students are expected to pay attention better. They do it a lot with elementary math too. Sometimes even there are a couple of kids who are doing considerably poorer than the rest of the class, and they will have an extra math time, in a small group of 3-4 kids a couple times a week with another teacher. Usually it is during art or P.E. class. It's like a tutoring class, except that they also offer after school tutoring in addition to that. Trust me, the teacher student ratio is the least of public school's problems.

So are you calling James wrong?

[Mommy]

James teaches in a high school or junior high. I have no problem with large classrooms at that age. Elementary schools have smaller class sizes. At least in the Lubbock, El Paso, and Savannah schools I have been in. The math class I was observing last week had 15 seats. Only 11 kids were in that class, and the other four were moved out for more focused group math class. They came back for AR reading since that is an individual task.

[pysex]

all of this is really really boring