(np) merit pay

[Michael Bailey]

- Page, copying your response to the list because intratextual
evidence suggests you wanted it that way...

but not before adding my tuppence: teachers are cool.
I remember school as not being too bad.  Hey, we had a lot of the same
elements back in the 60s.
We had kids we were scared of, knifings and beatings in our high
school,,, school violence is nothing new

We had state requirements that were onerous (New Math?) and seemed
absurd to many

(although set theory does tie math together conceptually much more than
learning different methods of computation ever will...)(I remember
coming home from school and saying, everything is a set;
so what --
I didn't get it, obviously!)

we had duck-and-cover drills

I got my tongue stuck to a metal door in the wintertime...can't
remember why I thought that was a good idea
- but figured out if you breathe warm air onto the metal for awhile it
releases you
(though I didn't figure that out before somebody called the
principal's attention to my plight...)

On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 10:20 PM, Page <page at quesnelbc.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> Play is the work of children. (M. Montessori) The most significant problem
> in education is trying to force things down kids' throats whether they are
> excited by them or not. Every kid knows how to learn, in his or her own way,
> and if we'd leave them the hell alone, the world would change for the
> better. Two generations and it would be unrecognizable. Kids love to learn,
> and hate to be coerced. Just like those of us who are taller.
>
> (Of course, it is much more complicated than this, but when I finish my book
> on the philosophy of education, I will post it.)
>
> Clarification: mine is not an absurd teachers-are-bad position. It goes much
> deeper, and I have great respect for teachers. One of the most misunderstood
> professions: Why should we pay teachers more? They get the whole summer off!
> When I taught, I never once had the whole summer off. Bekah, other teachers
> out there, how many summers have you spent on the Rivera?
> ______________________________________________________
>
> if you think about it, school IS work for kids, and in our hightech
> blah blah society
> it's for everyone's benefit that they are there and their success does
> affect other sectors
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 2:05 PM, Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>
>> Another issue - when teachers are paid on the basis of how well their kids
>> do on tests, the teaching is pretty much "to the test" ONLY! No art, PE,
>> music, etc. and those are the things which keep some kids in school.
>> Also, when teachers are paid by test score the pressure in the classroom
>> goes way up - the kids are more scared than eager learners. Pressure
>> during test weeks (and the week before) is bad now - if my pay were based
>> on
>> it I'm not sure I could keep my issues out of the classroom. There are
>> teachers now who do way too much yelling and pushing and pushing and
>> yelling. (It doesn't work - it only scares the kids.)
>>
>> I see more stress symptoms in the kids, like nail biting, aggressive
>> behavior, etc, than in years past. I'm a good teacher with lots and
>> lots of experience (I could retire any time). I agree with the increased
>> standards but that alone does not ensure that kids achieve. In California
>> it's now about higher standards with less money - no aids, larger class
>> sizes, furloughs, longer but fewer days. (And what do you do with longer
>> days? The kids are tired already - it's about the energy savings - $$$ -
>> of fewer days.)
>>
>> Bekah
>> whose class planted sunflowers yesterday - although it's not in the
>> "standards" (lol)
>>
>>
>>
>> On Apr 15, 2010, at 6:46 AM, Keith wrote:
>>
>>> The folks in California setting up the statistics to analyze the
>>> significance of test scores and teacher merit should also be paid based
>>> on
>>> their merit. They wouldn't get a dime. As Bekah points out they don't
>>> understand the basics when it comes to controlling all the relevant
>>> variables.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
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