I want to start off by noting that I’m painting with a broad brush here. I had some good teachers growing up and some old friends are teachers themselves and, I think, pretty damn good ones. But not all teachers are created equal.
My own experiences in public schools as far back as the ‘50s led me to conclude that - even then (though remember it was the era Max Rafferty was writing Suffer Little Children) - at least 3 out of 4 teachers were incompetent. Half of the incompetent were actually harmful to learning and children, the other half were simply stupid. Of the 25% who weren’t actually incompetent, perhaps 20% were on balance harmless - they did less harm than good - and about 5% were actually good teachers. Nothing I’ve seen in the 58 years since I graduated high school - including seeing my own children through what was supposed to be one of the best public school systems in the country, has led me to change my view significantly - though in my kids system there were probably a few more really good teachers but there were also much worse bad teachers. My own experiences were so bad that when my home state passed an open records law which enabled me to get my file, it had nothing in it because it had all been destroyed per an affidavit from a principal who was a friend of the family.
The unions have only made it worse: more money for teachers, less learning for children.
Here's a snarky comment from an engineering friend of mine who went to a large state university in the 1960s. He said that there were large numbers of EE majors in all classes from freshmen through seniors. The difference was in the freshman year the bulk were Electrical Engineering majors, while starting in the sophomore year this changed to Elementary Education.
I was fortunate to be taught in elementary school by "old school" alumni from Normal schools who took their profession seriously. But this was 70 years ago. Thank you, Mrs. Carlson (3rd grade).
Wasn't "computer" a job title for (mostly) female mathematicians before the machines existed? How did "math is women's work" morph to "women suck at math" after computers became machines instead?
Interesting point. The way I always heard the point in the ‘50s, ‘60s, and early ‘70s was that girls (women) often excel at arithmetic, but do not often at abstract mathematics. In my actual experience (again generalizing), up thought 7th grade, the girls were usually at the top of the ‘math’ classes, but as the brighter students moved into algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and calculus, that shifted over time as the boys started outpacing the girls. I have know a very few really good female mathematicians, but they have been the exception. Almost every top level mathematician I have know has been male.
Anecdotally.... All my math classes up through college (in the early 90's), including calculus and differential equations) seemed to be about 50/50 male/female. My engineering classes on the other hand were more like 98/2 ;-)
I haven't any children to school, and my time in school was decades ago, so I can't comment on the specifics, but that defense of teachers protected by their unions is particularly amusing, if somewhat darkly. Those "Black codes" she mentions were written by Democrats, and the worst cities for public education were and are solidly under the control of the Democratic Party, going back decades if not a century or more.
(Anyone seriously stating "the parties switched" is cordially invited to entice farm animals to perform lewd acts on them. :P )
My own experiences in public schools as far back as the ‘50s led me to conclude that - even then (though remember it was the era Max Rafferty was writing Suffer Little Children) - at least 3 out of 4 teachers were incompetent. Half of the incompetent were actually harmful to learning and children, the other half were simply stupid. Of the 25% who weren’t actually incompetent, perhaps 20% were on balance harmless - they did less harm than good - and about 5% were actually good teachers. Nothing I’ve seen in the 58 years since I graduated high school - including seeing my own children through what was supposed to be one of the best public school systems in the country, has led me to change my view significantly - though in my kids system there were probably a few more really good teachers but there were also much worse bad teachers. My own experiences were so bad that when my home state passed an open records law which enabled me to get my file, it had nothing in it because it had all been destroyed per an affidavit from a principal who was a friend of the family.
The unions have only made it worse: more money for teachers, less learning for children.
Here's a snarky comment from an engineering friend of mine who went to a large state university in the 1960s. He said that there were large numbers of EE majors in all classes from freshmen through seniors. The difference was in the freshman year the bulk were Electrical Engineering majors, while starting in the sophomore year this changed to Elementary Education.
I was fortunate to be taught in elementary school by "old school" alumni from Normal schools who took their profession seriously. But this was 70 years ago. Thank you, Mrs. Carlson (3rd grade).
Wasn't "computer" a job title for (mostly) female mathematicians before the machines existed? How did "math is women's work" morph to "women suck at math" after computers became machines instead?
Interesting point. The way I always heard the point in the ‘50s, ‘60s, and early ‘70s was that girls (women) often excel at arithmetic, but do not often at abstract mathematics. In my actual experience (again generalizing), up thought 7th grade, the girls were usually at the top of the ‘math’ classes, but as the brighter students moved into algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and calculus, that shifted over time as the boys started outpacing the girls. I have know a very few really good female mathematicians, but they have been the exception. Almost every top level mathematician I have know has been male.
Anecdotally.... All my math classes up through college (in the early 90's), including calculus and differential equations) seemed to be about 50/50 male/female. My engineering classes on the other hand were more like 98/2 ;-)
I haven't any children to school, and my time in school was decades ago, so I can't comment on the specifics, but that defense of teachers protected by their unions is particularly amusing, if somewhat darkly. Those "Black codes" she mentions were written by Democrats, and the worst cities for public education were and are solidly under the control of the Democratic Party, going back decades if not a century or more.
(Anyone seriously stating "the parties switched" is cordially invited to entice farm animals to perform lewd acts on them. :P )