Great journalism by the students. What I fear just as much as unaccredited "diploma mill" universities are the accredited ones that hand out education degrees just as easily. It seems like anyone can pay for an education masters (or PhD) these days.
High school journalists investigated a new principal’s credentials
111–120 of 172 posts
Re: High school journalists investigated a new principal’s credentials
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because I don't care what qualifications you have. If you want me to respect you and call you by some honorific name, you have to make me respect you enough to do so, otherwise I don't care what some piece of paper says you should be called. I don't call English "knights" Sir either, because fuck that. Note that none of this means I'd be rude, I just wouldn't afford them any more respect than anybody else.
>Note that none of this means I'd be rude Not calling a knight Sir, is rude to THEM. They earned it,they were recognized for their achievement. To not call them Sir is rude.
> They earned it,they were recognized for their achievement.
So what of it? Knighthoods are handed out to political cronies like they're Jaffa Cakes. Besides, I'm not a subject of Her Majesty the Queen, Elizabeth Windsor. Demanding deference to the monarchy is an insult to civil society.
Re: High school journalists investigated a new principal’s credentials
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
We don't pay them well so we get what we pay for. The exceptions are those that love to teach and love students. You can't run an organization via exceptions however. It's really a shame we don't value education more.
> It's really a shame we don't value education more. This might sound nit-picky but I think we all (Americans) value education as a whole. We just don't care (as a whole) about education for others outside of our sphere . When you have the ability to move to better school system or to pay for private school attendance, you have no need to improve public schools. Not all public school systems are bad. I image that eve…
>This might sound nit-picky but I think we all (Americans) value education as a whole.
That's a bunch of crap. If we (Americans) valued education as a whole, we wouldn't vote for leaders who continually cut education budgets. It's very simple: we as a society do not care about education. It's not a top political issue ever, unlike abortion, defense spending, guns, and who uses what bathroom. We keep school funding and administration at the local level because we don't want "our money" going to "those kids" (i.e. poor kids) in some other district, so we all end up with terrible schools and horribly inconsistent results school-to-school. Public education in this country is completely broken, and there's absolutely no political will to change it, and voters don't make it an issue because they're more worried about Planned Parenthood and terrorists.
Re: High school journalists investigated a new principal’s credentials
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Note that none of this means I'd be rude Not calling a knight Sir, is rude to THEM. They earned it,they were recognized for their achievement. To not call them Sir is rude.
> They earned it,they were recognized for their achievement. So what of it? Knighthoods are handed out to political cronies like they're Jaffa Cakes. Besides, I'm not a subject of Her Majesty the Queen, Elizabeth Windsor. Demanding deference to the monarchy is an insult to civil society.
As I said, it's rude to THEM. My point is that you are deciding that you are not rude, when you shouldn't be the judge in this case.
Re: High school journalists investigated a new principal’s credentials
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
We don't pay them well so we get what we pay for. The exceptions are those that love to teach and love students. You can't run an organization via exceptions however. It's really a shame we don't value education more.
The pay is not the problem in most districts. Teacher pay is enough that getting a job at all but a few problem districts is pretty competitive. It also rewards extra degrees that have little if any value in more effective teaching. The system is setup very defensively to protect the problem teachers from responsibility.
> The pay is not the problem in most districts.
It seems like it is less of a problem than it used to be. The biggest issue is that the districts with failing schools (who need the best, most experienced teachers) tend to be the districts least able to recruit those kinds of teachers.
> The system is setup very defensively to protect the problem teachers from responsibility.
The same system also protects the good teachers from problem parents and administrators.
Re: High school journalists investigated a new principal’s credentials
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
We had a high school teacher who demanded that we address them as Dr. Whozits on the first day, and would correct us. They learned that you can demand respect all you want, but if you actually want to get respect, you have to earn it from the people you're expecting it from.
He earned that title, and he was your teacher (a superior), so I don't understand why you were annoyed. Most importantly, it was the first day! Think of an interview for example: would it be polite to address your interviewer using his/her first name? No, unless the interviewer gives you permission to do so. Edit: It seems like a lot of HN users have a severe aversion to authority, so I guess I've learned something n…
I have heard that titles are a big deal in Germany but it seems uncommon in the US to use "Doctor" as a title for anyone other than a medical doctor. Many of the people I know at work have PhD's but I've never heard it used.
Re: High school journalists investigated a new principal’s credentials
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
He earned that title, and he was your teacher (a superior), so I don't understand why you were annoyed. Most importantly, it was the first day! Think of an interview for example: would it be polite to address your interviewer using his/her first name? No, unless the interviewer gives you permission to do so. Edit: It seems like a lot of HN users have a severe aversion to authority, so I guess I've learned something n…
I have heard that titles are a big deal in Germany but it seems uncommon in the US to use "Doctor" as a title for anyone other than a medical doctor. Many of the people I know at work have PhD's but I've never heard it used.
I'd imagine it isn't used in companies where rank isn't based on education level, but it's very common in academia. For example, it's rude for me as a grad student to just use a professor's first name without using a title.
Re: High school journalists investigated a new principal’s credentials
#118I don't know how common falsified credentials are in school administration, but I'll mention a parallel experience that was a formative part of my upbringing. While I was in high school, my father taught at a small private college in Wisconsin, where he was on the hiring committee for the new college president. After being hired, the chosen candidate's behavior was surprisingly erratic, prompting my my father to cont…
It may be that other members of the college were in on the graft as well if it was known that the school was in a bad financial situation. Falsified credentials are surprisingly common. I encounter them frequently when trying to staff various positions and have even come across them a half dozen times among co-workers during my career. The reasons for the falsification are quite varied as well, but I've typically enc…
for $ome rea$on
you're all idiots.
Re: High school journalists investigated a new principal’s credentials
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
We had a high school teacher who demanded that we address them as Dr. Whozits on the first day, and would correct us. They learned that you can demand respect all you want, but if you actually want to get respect, you have to earn it from the people you're expecting it from.
He earned that title, and he was your teacher (a superior), so I don't understand why you were annoyed. Most importantly, it was the first day! Think of an interview for example: would it be polite to address your interviewer using his/her first name? No, unless the interviewer gives you permission to do so. Edit: It seems like a lot of HN users have a severe aversion to authority, so I guess I've learned something n…
The respect goes both ways.
I call people with doctoral degrees "Dr." unless I'm invited otherwise or we're in a non-professional setting. Doctoral degrees usually aren't mere pieces of paper; going out of one's way to diminish the work and sacrifice involved is kind of rude.
But I also think it's kind of snooty and ill-mannered to explicitly demand to be called Dr.
Like with table manners. It's rude to not be decent to other people at the table. But equally rude to snap at another guest for eating with his mouth open.
This example is kind of an in-between on the teacher's part, because socialization is part of education. Only parent knows whether the teacher was motivated by socializing skills or ego.
> Edit: It seems like a lot of HN users have a severe aversion to authority, so I guess I've learned something new today
As always, the aversion is slightly more nuanced than just authority. You'll find lots of respect for certain other positions of authority (eg CEO). Also, aversion to the hierarchy of schools is nothing unique to HN.
Re: High school journalists investigated a new principal’s credentials
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the US I feel like the primary education system is simply childcare for the working class. My experience with teacher quality was just like yours.
We don't pay them well so we get what we pay for. The exceptions are those that love to teach and love students. You can't run an organization via exceptions however. It's really a shame we don't value education more.
Teachers in the US make more than the median salary, and get a ton of perks.
The US spends more per student than any other developed world.
I'd say we're paying plenty.