[xyzone]

Originally Posted by Tsuwabuki

I did my student teaching in urban, low-income areas.

Which means you left since there's nothing to do with those places as they are.

Well, now. You didn't back up your comments with personal experience. You did not offer statistics, the "widely known poor test scores," examples of "wide spread ignorance of college level students" and I'm not sure where you're getting this "just plain evident outlook" of America's youth. As far as I can tell, you mentioned one Japanese girl you knew. Otherwise, you didn't offer any evidence at all.

I can assure you not many people in a general American forum would backup your viewpoint that the public schools are working and headed in the right direction. Except, maybe, in a teacher's union forum.

Unsubstantiated allegations that lead me to question what kind of evidence you have. I'm not attacking you. I know nothing about you. I am questioning your motivations because of those allegations.

Well, you know my motivations now that I've stated them. I really don't have either the energy nor the desire to pursue a futile and tedious excursion to prove myself to you. Maybe had I been educated better I wouldn't be so cynical and lazy.

It does matter, because it's very important to see where you're coming from and what has influenced you to form the opinions that you have, and what you take to be true.

I already told you where I got my viewpoint. My experiences in school, statistical data of test score comparisons. I saw total idiots starting college, some who seemed to belong more in middle school. Spoon feeding union teachers in prior schooling who are just there because it's a gig, not paid well, not trained well. Students who failed work got passed under the lowest minimum requirements. I saw it, I lived it. Even by the state's own standards, massive failure in testing, yet no consequences to the school for it. Nothing like the charter type schools in Europe. Keep in mind, I am talking about Texas, among the worst school systems in the country. Yet it's not an isolated case by far.

You want to just dismiss all that by telling me you know better than what I saw with my own eyes or that mine is an isolated event, or that people I've talked to from California and other states who also went to public school said the same thing and agreed with me, for pete's sake? Ok. Whatever.

I just haven't yet seen you describe them in any detail.

There's no need to go into detail. My comments were anecdotal. Take them or leave them. I already said it all in a nutshell. Everyone I've had a discussion about it with sees the same thing. It's almost common knowledge how worthless public schools are, even if some want to pretend like nothing is wrong. Typically the school staff. It's basically like telling a DEA agent that marijuana has been scientifically proven to be harmless. They'll throw bureaucracy in your face.

I told you they are little more than social events, and perhaps even social engineering. I learned near to nothing in school. I actually lost my interest in pursuing a high career in biology there. I learned more in 1 month of browsing the internet after high school than my whole time attending. The kids are apathetic and cynical, the teachers, such as yourself, are deluded and detached. Nothing of much academic consequence ever occurs in the average public school. So, yes, "Go look at it". If you don't want to, I don't care. Believe whatever helps you feel comfortable.

If they come from studies, post the links or give me the bibliographical data so I can hit the periodical databases or have my parents (professional librarians) get me copies of your sources.

I don't keep up with the latest failure of the school systems nor would I remember the specific sources. Most if it was in periodicals from a while back. Go research the matter yourself and I'm sure you'll find plenty of material. Or just call me a liar and move on. I really don't care either way. I'm not going to get into a futile and tedious internet link wargame. I know for a fact that the public school systems in the US are generally a government monopoly, a bureaucracy that is set up to answer to no one for performance. Do you deny this is true, or are you under some impression that all piss poor schools suffer some sort of funding or administrative consequences related to academic performance in any way?

Depends on what you mean by stuff. Most of the education given in my schools, which are nationally set benchmarks, are heavily, heavily tilted towards passing tests.

I don't know your system and like I said it's really none of my business. What I do know is the system where I was in, and I do know that it's not tilted towards passing any tests. Even by the state's own tests they perform poorly, at least in states like Texas.

I'll tell you what it is primarily tilted towards. Kids showing up. That's it. I know people who went to court for being absent. This is because the schools lose funding per absence if they stack up. All while they teach nothing. It's mere and simple bureaucracy to warehouse kids.

I had outstanding teachers across the board. In poor districts and wealthy districts. In public schools and private schools. They lead me to see teaching as a worthy goal and to become a teacher myself.

Then like I told you, you either have been away for quite a while or are looking/remembering through rose tinted specs. Maybe things went to hell since you left? There are always good and determined teachers. I observed it myself. There was at least one math teacher who I had some year. He left after one year, probably much like you did.

They do their best, day in, and day out

They're working in a flawed and failed system, so it doesn't matter. You make it seem like magnificent teachers are lining up for every school in the country. That's a laughable image. I told you there are well meaning and individually skilled teachers, but nobody can do anything with a garbage system alone. The filler isn't good teachers. A good teacher to enter a crap school district is pissing in the wind. The weight of the mediocrity is unsurmountable. The only possible solution is to dismantle entire school districts-- everything except the buildings, and rebuild them with a system that works such as charter schools. It won't be done in time, if ever, and that is what sucks.

Some in facilities that are amazing, some in facilities that are falling apart.

Doesn't matter what the buildings look like if the system is flawed and does not work. Although the ones that are falling apart are simply a double whammy. Both a waste of time and depressing dumps, not to mention sometimes violent; at least mine weren't, and that's the only positive thing I can say about them.

You do American teachers a disservice. I rebuke you.

You do American youth and future a disservice.

What would make you think there aren't?

I never said there weren't cliques in all schools nor that socializing isn't important. I said it shouldn't be the main reason to be there nor the only one, as it often is.

This is just as true of Japanese students as it is for American students. I lost two of my students last year. They didn't graduate...

Well that's probably because you have standards there. Here they would have sent him/her to court and forced him/her to attend, just so him/her could show up and not affect the farce of a system that only rewards the schools with attendance records and not anything else.

No. American teachers are required to do many, many hours of student teaching and are required to take child psychology and a host of education courses.

Is that a fact? I guess someone forgot to tell that to the French teacher I had in 10th grade. He was a sub who stayed the whole year because the regular teacher had left on maternity leave. Yeah, he was a real magnificent teacher, not just some guy telling kids to open a book and read while they chatted the whole class. It also only happened that one time in my special case school, not anywhere else in the area. An aberration, really. Except for all those other crappy teachers who basically did the same thing most of the year.

They must take and pass tests, such as the Praxis, to even qualify to apply for their certification in their state of residence. I am very well acquainted with these procedures (I scored quite highly on my Praxis), and American teachers are required to retrain every couple of years.

Even substitute teachers? That one in French was the only one I knew of for sure, but others felt just as bad. Who's to say? I didn't have access to the teacher's qualifications.

I attended two school districts in very poor areas. I attended one in a middle class area. I attended two private schools in very poor areas (both had many low-income students on scholarship, both were Catholic). Only my public high school was in a high-income, tax rich area. I was only there for three years out of my twelve years of education. I had quite a wide ranging group of school experiences.

This paragraph alone is quite telling. 3 years in several schools, eh? Same as every other new teacher with high qualifications who starts up in a crappy school they don't like. They leave, as they should.

You also have to realise, that Japanese exchange students are not graded in their time out of the Japanese school system.

Well I would imagine so because it would be quite a worthless achievement if it was in an American public school. Much less in Texas. where George W. was governor for a long time, and then voted for president twice by most. And later same for Palin as VP.