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As teacher resignation letters increasingly go public -- and viral -- new research indicates teachers are not leaving solely due to low pay and retirement, but also because of what they see as a broken education system.
In a trio of studies, Michigan State University education expert Alyssa Hadley Dunn and colleagues examined the relatively new phenomenon of teachers posting their resignation letters online. Their findings, which come as many teachers are signing next year's contacts, suggest educators at all grade and experience levels are frustrated and disheartened by a nationwide focus on standardized tests, scripted curriculum and punitive teacher-evaluation systems.
Teacher turnover costs more than $2.2 billion in the U.S. each year and has been shown to decrease student achievement in the form of reading and math test scores.
"The reasons teachers are leaving the profession has little to do with the reasons most frequently touted by education reformers, such as pay or student behavior," said Dunn, assistant professor of teacher education. "Rather, teachers are leaving largely because oppressive policies and practices are affecting their working conditions and beliefs about themselves and education."
The study quoted a teacher in Boston: "I did not feel I was leaving my job. I felt then and feel now that my job left me."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @03:05PM (7 children)
If there were a way for students to prove competency, then there wouldn't be a need for "schools", per se. A student could learn in any way that works best for him, and then he just need to show up at the place that will test his competency—perhaps there are centers for official monthly testing of "arithmetic", "reading comprehension", etc. One student might attend a traditional school, while another is homeschooled, and yet another watches Khan Academy videos online, and yet another meets with other kids to help each other study.
Whatever works to be able to prove competency.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @04:38PM (6 children)
That is pretty much my idea too: school should be something where you go voluntarily, because you expect it to help you learn what you need to gain certain competencies, which will be judged by someone else, as occasions arise, or none, if there is no requirement for that. But, in the world of nation states, schools are yet another tool for patriotic (most importantly, but also other values, taboos, biases, etc. , too) indoctrination and uniforming of citizens, and therefore you can't learn just what you want, without learning what they want you to, and specifically you can't get official certification of education without that.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Friday April 07 2017, @05:40PM (5 children)
That is pretty much my idea too: school should be something where you go voluntarily,
Education is society's way of making sure there is not large pool of useless people that need to be fed, housed, and clothed, but who are totally unable of doing any of those things for themselves. Education is not, and on a grand scale never was about an individual improving his/her own lot. It has always been about improving civilization.
This is why education has become compulsory in most parts of the world.
Civilization simply can't afford that many useless mouths to feed.
The world of leisure, with robots doing all the work, is a frightening prospect for the same reason. Idle hands and empty minds usually turn to violent pursuits.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @05:52PM
That statement that you are attacking is not absolute; it has a very particular meaning withing the context of the whole comment. "School" should be an organization that a person wants to attend in order to help him gain the benefits of proving that he's competent in some field of inquiry, whether that be reading comprehension or machine shop work, etc.
The voluntary nature of attending school is meant to be taken in the context of a system of societal organization that supports individual incentive for learning the requisite material; obviously, our current system doesn't do a very good job of revealing this individual incentive, so obviously the notion of voluntary schooling looks absurd when taken out of the context in which it was stated.
Please, please! Try to keep everything in your head at the same time; you have not actually contributed to the discussion; you've only made it necessary to have a discussion about the discussion. You would do well just to keep quiet, instead.
As for minimizing incompetent, useless fools, it's pretty clear that the current system has done a terrible job. We're discussing ways that can change this outcome: In this subthread in particular, it is being pointed out that there is no such thing as "teaching"; there is only "learning"—it is an individual act of the will on the part of the student, so that must be cultivated in as many ways as possible, the best way of which is producing some kind of individual incentive (especially one that makes a child feel like he's falling behind his peers).
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @06:08PM
Idle hands and empty minds usually turn to violent pursuits.
Let's leave Trump [soylentnews.org] out of this, okay?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 07 2017, @07:16PM (1 child)
Education is society's way of making sure there is not large pool of useless people that need to be fed, housed, and clothed, but who are totally unable of doing any of those things for themselves. Education is not, and on a grand scale never was about an individual improving his/her own lot. It has always been about improving civilization.
When one perceives students as problems to be fixed rather than partners to help, which is a common consequence of this outlook, then you end with babysitters and prisons instead of schools. If schools aren't about individuals improving their lot (understanding that you can improve yourself and learning how are the key lessons), then what use are they? They're a waste for their students and I don't buy that they'll be improving civilization as a result.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @10:49PM
When one perceives students as problems to be fixed rather than partners to help
No. The "useless people" that the GP was talking about are formed before that. When you're talking about students, you are talking about free agents that are sufficiently skilled to control their own development. To put it sufficiently simple, the goal of compulsory education is to produce students, and avoid vegetables.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday April 07 2017, @11:32PM
Education is society's way of making sure there is not large pool of useless people that need to be fed, housed, and clothed, but who are totally unable of doing any of those things for themselves. [...] This is why education has become compulsory in most parts of the world.
That may be a reason for education, but it's not necessarily the rationale for state-mandated compulsory education. In the U.S. at least, the history of compulsory education is very complex, and it was first implemented in places which arguably least needed it. (America by the mid-1800s was positively shockingly literate compared to most of the rest of the world at the time, even before the introduction of compulsory public education.)
Some of it was about state control wresting children from parents and indoctrination in state values. It then became a bit about preparing good obedient factory workers who could do basic skills and be moved from place to place at the sound of a bell, and with rising immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries it became about educating the "dirty" masses of immigrants. Later, once child labor was eradicated, we were left with the problem of lots of idle young ruffians causing mischief on the streets, hence the "public high school movement" to get those potential rebels, protesters, etc. off the street and locked into obedience-teaching classrooms for another 4-8 years or so.
I'd like to think that the intentions of compulsory public education were always noble and about "improving civilization," but there have been lots of ulterior motives mixed in along the way too.