Are kids getting dumber, teachers getting lazier or both?

None of the above.

After David Berner became a fan of my "distinct point of view" (http://thebernermonologues.blogspot.com/2008/03/attentione-amici.html) I have received some online attacks (along with online support) on my comments.
Always a good sign that I'm doing a good job on this blog.

But alas, raising a ruckus is not the sole job of my blog (although I am proud it has started debate because no issue should be left unquestioned).
And it is definitely poor practice to have tension between parents and teachers. Believe me, it was never my intention to do so and, in fact, I believe tension between parents and teachers, or even lack of communication, is one of the evils that is growing out of the education system (private and public) nowadays. Communication is important because when we act as a community to raise our children we do a better job of giving them a holistic education. Seriously, all sappiness aside, I mean that.

by the way, the title "teacher strike" was not to mean that I was calling for one- I was just saying that in case the BCTF was going to strike I would support it (which I'm legally obligated to do anyway because I'm a union worker, but I mean I personally support it beyond my union face).

So one of the points raised by a critic was that teachers spend little time with the kids in the class and, in fact, parents have to pick up the slack for the job that teachers are not doing by hiring tutors and sitting down with their children to teach concepts teachers should have done themselves.

"Quite frankly we parents spend a great deal of time making up at home for the work that wasn't covered at school (this is particularly true for math). And why are there currently so many students with tutors, if the teaching is so superior?" -anonymous

Valid are some of anonymous's points. I understand how a parent must feel when their child is shortchanged of time and energy of a teacher. I too am frustrated with this system. And the key is it is the system which is at fault and not your teacher (although I AM able to be the bigger person and admit not ALL teachers are time-giving saints- but with that said, the vast majority wittle away their salary such that they are making the equivalent of minimum wage on an hourly basis..much as I did when I had my full-time contract).

So, what's the deal with the system? Well, public schools are underfunded, have the most children with special needs but the least resources to assist students with special needs. That is the clear public/private split. Next, class sizes are such that teachers must attend to the kids that need the most attention rather than the kid who always behaves. It is a sad truth but kids that raise shit are kids that will get the most attention and often the ones that are little angels will get the least. So there's a time allocation problem, that is actually usually solved if we could lower the class size to maybe 20-24 (my personal opinion on optimal size). And really, that is/was the battle with many a job action- class size. It is just too big. Unfortunately, most money for education goes towards teacher's salaries (not saying that teacher's get paid a lot, but saying proportionally most of education spending goes to salaries) so the best way for the province to reduce cost is to increase class sizes so that we use less teachers.
(FYI, another way is to close schools- the next highest proportion of spending is on the cost to maintain an open school).

Okay, but beyond those struggles, is your kid getting dumber? Is your teacher getting damn lazy? If it it isn't one of the two then WHY oh WHY do kids come home NOT knowing what they are supposed to know and not doing well on tests?

This is a list, not exhausted, of the reasons why you m ay think kids are getting dumber or teachers aren't doing their job:

1) Children are less healthy. Yes, there is an increase in obesity. Does that mean fat kids are dumb? Certainly not. I was a fat kid and I seem to think I did pretty darn well in school. But when we are talking about a health epidemic where children are not as physically fit, they are feeding their bodies with crap (hopefully to end soon now that there is a ban on junk in vending machines) then their minds are not functioning properly. It is just very recently that there has been advocacy towards healthy bodies and healthy minds- recognizing there is a connection. So let this campaign get through, lets wait it out, see healthier kids and I guarantee we will see better minds.

2) Kids are busy with extra curricular activities AND they are expected to be good at everything. I think extracurricular activities are SO good for children, don't get me wrong, but TOO often I see parents that put the pressure on their kids to be good at ALL of the activities they put their kid into. This is not good. kids constantly come in at lunch and cut off their lunch time play (by the way, decreasing their amt of exercise at the same time) to finish homework they have in and outside of school. I don't know what we're doing to our children such that they have SO little time in their day that they need to take time out of lunch and play to scramble and finish work. Parents want the best out of their children, understandable, but when kids are put into so many extracurricular activities AND expected to excel in ALL of them it is really tough on the kid. Yes, put them into extracurriculars to expand their minds and expand their appreciation for different activities outside of school, BUT don't put TOO much pressure on them to be excellent at everything. Let them explore and just have fun with it.

3) Academic expectations are higher. This is really no joke. There has been a movement down in the curriculum, meaning that things you might have learned in grade 11 or 12, kids nowadays are learning in grade 9 and 10. For example, meiosis and mitosis (remember that?? sure you do, reproduction of cells..yeah, you don't remember that..). Anyway, when I was in high school (remember I'm young so it wasn't that long ago), we learned meiosis and mitosis in grade 12 Biology. This year I am tutoring a girl in grade 9 meiosis and mitosis. Seriously, that is an incredible shift down in curriculum. So we are PACKING these kids minds with high level stuff. In my opinion, these kids can learn it, but they aren't given the TIME to absorb the steps and foundation before we give them that content. And that is happening in every subject, ESPECIALLY math and sciences. So, you pack in more to teach you can't spend as much time teaching the foundational concepts. I'm a big believer in strong foundations and it takes TIME to develop a strong foundation so kids can take in more complicated concepts later. If you have a crap foundation, you can't build upon anything.

4) The curriculum has changed. So not only has the curriculum moved down, the curriculum has changed. And so it should, but I'll explain to you the problem. It takes years for a teacher to really master the curriculum and teach it in a meaningful way (meaning that you can teach it, but it takes years to really know how to teach it in the best way possible and understand how to teach it to the different learners in your classroom). So when you change the curriculum you have to learn a whole new process. But that's what teaching is and you gotta roll with the punches.
MORE problematic though is when you change the curriculum because the philosophy of the subject has changed. For example, you and I used to learn mathematics in grade school. Kids dont' learn math anymore, they learn NUMERACY. Which means less rote learning and drills and more understanding of patterns and the REAL understanding and philosphy of how numbers work. So the philosphy of the subject has changed yet we have teachers that have not instilled taht philosophy. Background knowledge on teaching pedagogy: when you teach something to somebody else you will try to teach it to them the way you yourself learned it. It's teaching 101, that's just how people try to teach somebody else a skill or concept. SO, when you have teachers that have NEVER learned NUMERACY in their life and you try to get them to teach it it is just bad news. And this is just a generational difference. We will get to the point where teachers will have the numeracy background to teach numeracy well, but right now we have an older generation of teachers who haven't a clue how to teach something that THEY themselves were never taught.

I will admit taht I have difficulty teaching numeracy to kids because I personally learned math using drills. And even though understand numeracy doesn't mean I can teach it. It's like knowing how to speak the language but not being able to teach it to somebody else (the best case in point is professors at universities. They know their subject inside and out but professors are terrible TEACHERS because they were never meant to be teachers, they were just meant to know the subject). Teaching is a skill SEPARATE from the actual SUBJECT. And your teaching skill is largely determined by the way you were taught as a student. So there are just some generational divides that we have to get over. It'll come.

So that's my list. kids aren't dumb, teachers are not lazy. we have some hurdles to get through with the education system and we have some generational divides we have to wait out. But it'll come.


OH, and by the way- to Anonymous (and everybody else) who said that I disapprove of FSAs because I just don't want teachers accountable- how do you explain TEACHERS that are ALSO PARENTS which take their children out of FSA testing? Believe it or not, there are some teachers that are also parents and still oppose the FSA for the aforementioned reasons. Many teachers know all they have to do is write a note or keep their kid at home on FSA day, and most do, because teachers know, personally, the farce that is the FSA exam and teachers choose not to waste their own children's time.