First, I know I’m going to upset some people with this (if anyone actually reads this, that is), but I’m going to write it anyway. After all, isn’t that part of the reason for a blog – to get your opinions out even if some people don’t want to hear them? And anyway, this is based on my personal experience and reading/study, not anyone else’s – or is that true? Because what I’m about to do is take my own crack at the plethora of “experts” who are creating our educational “systems” – you know, the ones that are supposed to make all students achieve at grade level and beyond? Okay, so off we go.
We’ll start with my background. I was a teacher for 14+ years full time in both public and private schools, plus some time at the community college level. I spent a lot of time going to all the required workshops and in-services, trying my best to implement all the gobbledy-gook and mumbo-jumbo, and never seeing any real improvement. It never seemed to fail that the students who needed the help least were the ones who took full advantage of everything, and vice-versa. It slowly began to dawn on me that we have been taking the wrong approach to helping struggling students to succeed.
This is where the “bill of goods” comes in. There are people out there who are making a ton of money pushing the latest “wonder program” to make all kids successful. So of course, the last thing they want is someone saying their stuff is crap. Well, I’m going to say it – it’s crap! So much of it is just recycled from the past anyway. Ask any teacher with some years of experience, and they will tell you that this stuff just keeps coming back under different names. And so many of these “experts” are long on theory but extremely short on practical experience. I don’t know how many of them I’ve heard talk, but very few of them had ever really spent much time in a real classroom. And when they did their “sample lessons” in a classroom, it was always with a small group of students while another teacher kept control of the rest of the class.
I can see I’m going to be going on with this for a while, so I’m going to stop here and pick up again next time. And I promise, the next time will not be so long a wait. This is only the beginning.
We’ll start with my background. I was a teacher for 14+ years full time in both public and private schools, plus some time at the community college level. I spent a lot of time going to all the required workshops and in-services, trying my best to implement all the gobbledy-gook and mumbo-jumbo, and never seeing any real improvement. It never seemed to fail that the students who needed the help least were the ones who took full advantage of everything, and vice-versa. It slowly began to dawn on me that we have been taking the wrong approach to helping struggling students to succeed.
This is where the “bill of goods” comes in. There are people out there who are making a ton of money pushing the latest “wonder program” to make all kids successful. So of course, the last thing they want is someone saying their stuff is crap. Well, I’m going to say it – it’s crap! So much of it is just recycled from the past anyway. Ask any teacher with some years of experience, and they will tell you that this stuff just keeps coming back under different names. And so many of these “experts” are long on theory but extremely short on practical experience. I don’t know how many of them I’ve heard talk, but very few of them had ever really spent much time in a real classroom. And when they did their “sample lessons” in a classroom, it was always with a small group of students while another teacher kept control of the rest of the class.
I can see I’m going to be going on with this for a while, so I’m going to stop here and pick up again next time. And I promise, the next time will not be so long a wait. This is only the beginning.
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Posted by: Business plan consulting services | February 05, 2010 at 01:27 AM