NP - "What's the question about your question that you dread being asked?

[Prashant Kumar]

"The US is an anti-intellectual culture, so the respect given to educators
in  other nations is not a benefit here."

Come to Australia and see true anti-intellectualism. LA was like Athens the
first time I went there.


On 8 April 2013 21:28, Prashant Kumar <siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com> wrote:

> "The US is an anti-intellectual culture, so the respect given
> to educators in  other nations is not a benefit here."
>
> Come to Australia and see true anti-intellectualism. LA was like Athens
> the first time I went there.
>
> P.
>
>
> On 8 April 2013 20:49, alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Well, if we want to attract the best prospective educators and hold on to
>> them, we need to raise salaries. How can an educator in NYC afford to live
>> in the city where she teaches?  So salaries were raised.
>>
>>
>> Under the current system of mayoral control in NYC salries have been
>> raised, but not enough to attract and ratin the best people.
>> Moreover, the loss of job security, collective bargaining power, benefits,
>> and the assault on teachers has offset the gains in salaries.
>>
>> The US is an anti-intellectual culture, so the respect given to educators
>> in  other nations is not a benefit here.
>>
>> I could never, not could most of the excellent educators I know, work an
>> education for 25 years. My hat is off to those who have and those who can.
>>
>> As a professor I was paid less than entry level wall streeters. No, the
>> salries are disgraceful. In this nation, where we pay athletes and movie
>> stars, banksters and political crooks, millions and billions, where we
>> waste billions on wars, we can pay our teachers better and we need to.
>>
>> Off the soapbox now,
>>
>> A
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 4:30 AM, Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es>wrote:
>>
>>> "The salaries suck. Raise them and we will see the best and brightest
>>> in education." Salaries suck? compared to what? I know people that work in
>>> public education and they are not in the poor house, of course neither are
>>> they very wealthy. However, it is true that teaching is a profession whose
>>> pay has not matched the growth of other professional occupations in the
>>> 20th c.
>>>  Alice, paying someone that is incompetent or unmotivated more will not
>>> change their behaviour. Have you looked at pay scales in the Scandanavian
>>> countries? They don't make more than bankers. THe big difference is that
>>> the society respects teaching and teaching is seen as something of great
>>> value so being a teacher is valued in terms of symbolic capital. There the
>>> joke about those "who don't know how teach", doesn't work. Norway and the
>>> rest get the best of the graduating class as teachers not because they
>>> offer lots of money but because teaching is viewed very differently there.
>>> When people in the U.S (and elsewhere) start to value education in itself
>>> and not as some means to a lucrative job then you will ahve the socail
>>> change that will help educators
>>>
>>>  As for phonics, it has its place. I use it in my ESL work. That said,
>>> to rely on phonics alone is an error. Vygotsky is an interesting addition
>>> to the study of language acquisition, check him out. Had he lived longer he
>>> would have likely had more influence than Piaget, but that is a speculative
>>> comment.
>>>
>>> ciao
>>>  mc otis
>>>
>>>   ------------------------------
>>> *From:* alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
>>> *To:* pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>> *Sent:* Sunday, April 7, 2013 4:03 PM
>>>
>>> *Subject:* Re: NP - "What's the question about your question that you
>>> dread being asked?
>>>
>>> As Dewey sez, "there is no educational value in the abstract," and, by
>>> this he means that what works with 5 year old native speakers of English
>>> in England may not work with 5 year old native speakers in the United
>>> States. We can even say that what works with rich children in the Bronx,
>>> NY, USA won't work with poor children in the Bronx, NY, USA. So, if in
>>> Finland or Denmark or Norway, often the oranges compared with our apple,
>>> children start school at age 7, and this is quite successful, applying this
>>> idea to poor children in the Bronx, or even to wealthy children in the
>>> Bronx who live in a house and in a neighborhood where English is not the
>>> first langauge, would be malpractice. Phonics, as the debates and studies,
>>> often with whole language advocates, may be quite appropriate given a
>>> particular learning population. Pragmatism, as Dewey stressed in his
>>> writings on Education, is that something that doesn't suck in US education.
>>> But the workers, that is, the pedagogues, are being stripped of their
>>> freedom to use what they know works with the pupils they know learn best
>>> when the methods they have created for these particular students are used.
>>> That said, there are too many weak and poorly prepared teachers in the USA.
>>> The salaries suck. Raise them and we will see the best and brightest
>>> in education.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 8:55 AM, Prashant Kumar <
>>> siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Interested in your answer. Is it just that the metrics used to measure
>>> "accountability", "progress", etc. are coarse averages? I mean, for all
>>> your failing schools you're still the intellectual and scientific centre of
>>> the world, so you know, *something* doesn't suck.
>>>
>>> Also, what do you think of teaching via the "Phonics" method? Had a
>>> debate re this today.
>>>
>>> P.
>>>
>>>
>>> On 7 April 2013 21:38, Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> Why are US schools behind much of the world?
>>>
>>> This is way more complicated than tax-slashers or "accountability
>>> experts"  or "higher standards"  folks want to think about.
>>>
>>> Bekah
>>>
>>> On Apr 7, 2013, at 1:17 AM, Prashant Kumar <
>>> siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> > What question about your field do you dread being asked? Maybe it's a
>>> sore point: your field should have an answer (people think you do) but
>>> there isn't one yet. Perhaps it's simple to pose but hard to answer. Or
>>> it's a question that belies a deep misunderstanding: the best answer is to
>>> question the question.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> http://www.edge.org/conversation/whats-the-question-about-your-field-that-you-dread-being-asked
>>> >
>>> > Various responses there; any p-listers willing to chime in?
>>> >
>>> > Prashant
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
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