Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021 • Hacker News Board

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#61

Post by Yoric » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 3:57 PM UTC

vladvasiliu wrote: post #46

fallingknife wrote: post #25

> Another initiative headed for mandate status is a school policy that no assignment can receive a grade of less than 50% > And my direct supervisor repeatedly demanded that I pace my classes for the benefit of the single student in each section who was struggling the most I don't understand school. Why do they do things like this? Who actually thinks this is a good idea? I've never met anyone who does. How have we g…

This looks like a classic "what gets measured gets managed". If they have objectives like "X% of kids have to graduate", then either you improve the kids' skills, or you lower the requirements for graduation. For example, in France, the recent governments are extremely happy of the improvement in baccalaureate's success rate (the exam at the end of high-school). They never talk about the level, but older folks, who s…

For context: "recent governments" == "every government since 1981", iirc.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#62

Post by orn688 » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 3:58 PM UTC

WanderPanda wrote: post #58

brianwawok wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No child left behind. It’s been ruled that it’s better that all students get to 20-80% knowledge then some get 100% and some get 0%. Which is why many people choose to go to private schools if you want to not be limited by this.

I don‘t see the causal relationship between the 100%ers getting 80% and the 0%ers suddenly getting 20%

If you slow down the pace to help the "zero percenters" and only cover 80% of the material in the allotted time, the students who could have handled 100% of the material will be limited to 80%. And that slowdown still won't be enough to help the slowest learners much, so they'll still only learn, say, 20% of the material.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#63

Post by fzimmermann89 » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 3:59 PM UTC

nerdponx wrote: post #28

This sounds like something out of a surrealist novel. > consistently use umlauts in place of quotation marks and acute accent marks in place of apostrophes US-International keyboard layout, maybe. Maybe the student doesn't know what umlauts and acute accents are, so maybe they think they're valid equivalents to " and '.

or the text went through latex at some point, which can easily lead to a"->ä.

letter+quotation mark is a common way to write umlauts...

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#64

Post by mindvirus » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 4:00 PM UTC

One of the most radical beliefs I have is we should get rid of private schools, because it lets the people most capable of forcing change to opt out of an increasingly broken system, and so it doesn't get fixed.

Of course I say this as I seriously consider sending my kids to a private school because of articles like this.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#65

Post by unishark » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 4:00 PM UTC

orn688 wrote: post #62

WanderPanda wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don‘t see the causal relationship between the 100%ers getting 80% and the 0%ers suddenly getting 20%

If you slow down the pace to help the "zero percenters" and only cover 80% of the material in the allotted time, the students who could have handled 100% of the material will be limited to 80%. And that slowdown still won't be enough to help the slowest learners much, so they'll still only learn, say, 20% of the material.

also spend lots of class time repeating background material students should already know.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#66

Post by Yoric » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 4:01 PM UTC

underseacables wrote: post #4

This is sad. It reads more as though teachers and school employees are doing whatever they can to keep/justify their jobs, but not to improve learning. It is almost as if a teachers first job is self-preservation. If students can’t pass the test, then the test must be made easier, that way more students can pass and the teacher doesn’t look bad.

Let's rephrase this.

If you had a choice between:

a. doing your job as well as you can, then losing it (and being unemployable forever, quite likely);

b. doing it somewhat worse, but keeping it (and hopefully having a chance to help more students).

What would you do?

Please blame whoever forced this conundrum on teachers. Nonsensical bureaucratic decisions like this are the reason for which I left the profession.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#67

Post by mustafa_pasi » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 4:02 PM UTC

nerdponx wrote: post #32

fallingknife wrote: post #25

> Another initiative headed for mandate status is a school policy that no assignment can receive a grade of less than 50% > And my direct supervisor repeatedly demanded that I pace my classes for the benefit of the single student in each section who was struggling the most I don't understand school. Why do they do things like this? Who actually thinks this is a good idea? I've never met anyone who does. How have we g…

I don't get it either. People have learning and thinking differences, we know that and have known it for years. Accommodating those differences is important. Living out a real-life version of Harrison Bergeron is not the only way to do it.

Well, people are funding schools through taxes. Then they send their kid to school. Then the school decides their kid is too stupid* to do much, so they get relegated to dumb class and their future career prospects get nullified. This is how it works in many countries where schools are segregated by learning ability.

I make no judgement on how good or bad it is, but I get why people would be upset by this system.

*or has some mental issues like ADHD or whatever, which a lot of countries do not even recognize as a thing

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#68

Post by lordnacho » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 4:03 PM UTC

This school sounds like some sort of weird Kafkaesque punishment for kids. Everyone is trying to game it: kids who don't want to write essays, administrators who don't want kids to fail. Teachers who want kids to both learn stuff and pass.

Motivate the kids. Show them stuff about the world, and show them how to find out things for themselves. If you're going to test them, do it in a way that doesn't destroy all enjoyment of the subject. Try to get the kids to want to keep learning after they leave you.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#69

Post by analog31 » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 4:05 PM UTC

fallingknife wrote: post #25

> Another initiative headed for mandate status is a school policy that no assignment can receive a grade of less than 50% > And my direct supervisor repeatedly demanded that I pace my classes for the benefit of the single student in each section who was struggling the most I don't understand school. Why do they do things like this? Who actually thinks this is a good idea? I've never met anyone who does. How have we g…

Playing devils advocate for a moment, as grading works right now, a kid can quickly dig themselves into a hole that they have no realistic way to get out of, e.g., by utterly bombing on an exam or missing a few assignments early in the semester. The motivation for that kid to progress any further is zero, yet they are imprisoned in the classroom for the duration of the semester.

This hits very close to home for me, and I've read countless comments on HN from people who are successful in life yet angry and bitter about their K-12 experience.

I don't know the answer to this, but meanwhile, messing with the way school works is not exactly messing with success.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#70

Post by pydry » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 4:06 PM UTC

jdhn wrote: post #30

Stuff like this is why I roll my eyes every time I hear that schools are underfunded and how we need to give them just a little more funding, and surely things will get better. If they're just going to pass students anyways, what's the point of increasing the funding?

maybe because this isn't the only problem schools have and some of them absolutely will be fixed by money.