151–160 of 420 posts
I left teaching over 8 years ago. Elevated myself from programming for fun and sometimes pay to being a full time software developer. Best career move ever.
There's much more to this story. My mother, a high school calculus teacher for the last 22 years is so ready to retire. I didn't think my mom would ever retire, she spends countless hours coming up with unique lesson plans for the kids - they usually involve games, real world use cases and many ah-ha moments. She lives for those moments when a kid lights up when they understand the value of what their learning. Now t…
Okay, I get that's more work, and sounds like a hassle. So this isn't a criticism of your mom. But on the A- and extra credit issue, I never understood the point of rigid grading schemes. I've taught at a college level, and I always give students the chance to improve their grades if they want to put in additional work. To do otherwise seems like saying "nope, even if you learn more and improve to the point of A-leve…
A better way to handle this case is to drop the student's lowest grade, or maybe even the lowest couple of grades.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What did anyone expect when everyone whole-heartedly supported more mandatory testing and measurement intiatives to help failing schools, almost about a decade back? If you start emphasizing test scores, that's all that will be optimized.
I think you have a point. But in my experience with two polar opposite schools in Massachusetts, the ones that have a lot of "helicopter parents" don't have any issue with passing rates on the mandatory state tests. They're at over 98% passing. The tests the parents in such wealthy schools get upset about are the teacher assigned ones. But again, I only have deep knowledge of two schools, so am happy to be corrected…
There's much more to this story. My mother, a high school calculus teacher for the last 22 years is so ready to retire. I didn't think my mom would ever retire, she spends countless hours coming up with unique lesson plans for the kids - they usually involve games, real world use cases and many ah-ha moments. She lives for those moments when a kid lights up when they understand the value of what their learning. Now t…
Haha, I just finished quitting my job teaching high school computer science today. I went from private tutoring CS to teaching in an afterschool program to this because I really enjoyed helping students break through conceptual blocks and mental ones. The work is emotionally exhausting but satisfying. Only recently have I wondered whether or not this was the right thing to do instead of going to industry(maybe it's b…
I think that is also happening today with medical doctors and it is an absolute travesty; the opposite of progress.
There's much more to this story. My mother, a high school calculus teacher for the last 22 years is so ready to retire. I didn't think my mom would ever retire, she spends countless hours coming up with unique lesson plans for the kids - they usually involve games, real world use cases and many ah-ha moments. She lives for those moments when a kid lights up when they understand the value of what their learning. Now t…
I have a view from both sides of this issue. I have school-age kids and my wife is a math professor (though college level, not pre-college). As a parent, I'm aware how important in life it is to have a good college on your resume. And how much more important it will be 20 years from now. I have the fortune to be able to show a STEM degree from a well respected (at leas in HN world) institution; this gave me a huge bo…
I'm not sure if it's just about the whiners but also when the whiners permeate the entire institution you're working in.
The "lazy" teacher trope is a thing because the floor for teaching is so low and the ceiling can be so high while pay stays the same.
I guess I'm privileged enough(or type A enough) to want more. Sometimes I wish I could just do my job. That way, I'd be happy with being a bus driver or a cop or something(they both have really good pensions).
There's much more to this story. My mother, a high school calculus teacher for the last 22 years is so ready to retire. I didn't think my mom would ever retire, she spends countless hours coming up with unique lesson plans for the kids - they usually involve games, real world use cases and many ah-ha moments. She lives for those moments when a kid lights up when they understand the value of what their learning. Now t…
> Especially now that she has to post everyone's grades online, instantly emails roll in when a student didn't perform as well as the parent expected. Not to take away from your point, which I think has merit, from the other side of the spectrum as a parent that has a child that struggled mightily to not fail for the first couple years of high school, the amount that teachers screw up the online grading is incredible…
Sounds like millennials have taken their need for instant gratification and the system is coddling them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Okay, I get that's more work, and sounds like a hassle. So this isn't a criticism of your mom. But on the A- and extra credit issue, I never understood the point of rigid grading schemes. I've taught at a college level, and I always give students the chance to improve their grades if they want to put in additional work. To do otherwise seems like saying "nope, even if you learn more and improve to the point of A-leve…
It’s more work, and that’s exactly the problem. A teacher deserves to go home and enjoy their family and life outside of work. The only way to make this possible is to have students and parents understand that after a certain point the grade is simply final, so if you want a good grade it’s your responsibility to learn the material prior to exams or large projects or assignments being due. Everyone knows this; there…
You also say that a student who does poorly didn't put in the time. In some cases yes, but broadly it's simply not true. I've analyzed LMS data at large scales: Students who get F's don't put in much time on average. But students who get D's, on average, are putting in just as much time as the students getting A's and B's. The F students I can't do much about, with some notable exceptions, they mostly don't want to help themselves. But the rest are teachable.
For me and my like minded colleagues, it's not that we expect ourselves or others to do more work. It's that our vision of what the job's baseline work requirements entail goes beyond a rigid grading process that implicitly assumes that learning takes place in discrete bits of time, uniformly for all students.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Okay, I get that's more work, and sounds like a hassle. So this isn't a criticism of your mom. But on the A- and extra credit issue, I never understood the point of rigid grading schemes. I've taught at a college level, and I always give students the chance to improve their grades if they want to put in additional work. To do otherwise seems like saying "nope, even if you learn more and improve to the point of A-leve…
No one should be allowed extra credit unless they are failing. You should learn more but doing it for extra grades misses the point. These kids learn you only learn for rewards.