Chicago Teachers Strike

[Jim Wilks]

Originally Posted by Nemo

I'll take a crack at this.

Wow! Now that's an answer.

[F22Rapture]

Originally Posted by Nemo

I'll take a crack at this. In no particular order:

1. Wide availability of birth control. This includes subsidizing it for the poor and teaching students about birth control in sex education.

And really, actual sex ed would go a very long way toward solving some problems. Availability does nothing if they don't know how to use them properly, and many states still preach abstinence-only which has been proven by study after study after study to be either fruitless at best or counterproductive at worst.

5. Create better curriculum, including rethinking the subjects we teach in school.

This is a huge problem. When I took precalculus as a sophomore, we were given a copy of the unit circle and told to memorize it. We never learned how exactly the values were calculated and why it works the way it does. Fast forward 6 months and I took it again at the Community College, because despite having gotten an A in the class I knew I didn't understand it well enough. I learned more in the first 2 weeks of 50 minutes 3 days a week than I did in the first month of highschool precal, because I was actually taught the specific triangles the make up the unit circle. "Teaching to the test" became increasingly widespread after No Child Left Behind, and it's not a good thing. There needs to be a much larger focus on teaching how math works instead of how answers magically appear if you do X Y and Z.

The same applies to other subjects like science. A lot of biology teachers only teach how evolution happens, not why it happens, and not why 90% of what their parents/pastors/politicians tell them about evolution is wrong. A lot of the very basic stuff like "what is a theory" is being skimped on.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Ether

Nobody is blaming anybody (yet) in this thread.

What is your solution?

Thus why I didn't say "people in this thread" in my initial post.

My solution? To what? Teachers being blamed for things that are the result of larger cultural problems? If that's the problem you're asking me to solve, it's a difficult one indeed. But the first step is ridiculously simple. Listen to the teachers.

Rather than beating them silly with poorly designed metrics and state-manipulated evaluations, actually talk and listen to them to understand in what respects they're struggling and why they are. A lot of the struggles of inner city schools have been touched upon in this thread already. The teachers are more than willing to share this information with you if you're willing to listen to it and not simply evaluate student performance in terms of test scores and dollars spent. It's not simply that students are failing/being failed by the educational system, but why that situation exists. Diagnose the actual root cause of the issues at hand (many of which have been discussed in this thread), rather than placing blame at the easiest.

Beyond that first step is to raise the cultural perception of the teaching profession. The Finnish education system has generated a lot of press for its outstanding scores and rankings. A good deal of their system wouldn't necissarily be the best route to pursue in the United States for a variety of reasons and an entire thread could be devoted to that topic alone, but one aspect that I feel should certainly be incoporated in the reverance of teaching as a profession in their society.

For Sahlberg what matters is that in Finland all teachers and administrators are given prestige, decent pay, and a lot of responsibility. A master's degree is required to enter the profession, and teacher training programs are among the most selective professional schools in the country. If a teacher is bad, it is the principal's responsibility to notice and deal with it.

Source

[Ether]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

My solution? To what?

Unless I misunderstood your earlier very brief post in this thread, you identified "larger cultural issues" as the root cause of the educational crisis in Chicago. What do you think those larger cultural issues are? The same ones Jason identified in his earlier post, or did you have something else in mind? What do you believe the government's role should be in addressing those issues?

I've read all the posts in this thread, and most in the thread from which it was spawned. I'm not sure if you are referring to any of those posters as blaming the teachers, but if you were, I for one want to hear what they have to say, as long as it's factual and stated calmly, and ask them questions to clarify their point of view.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

I recently heard a report from a TV person who met a teacher on the street. In talking the following story was related, told from the teacher's viewpoint.

As most teachers do, we tend to evaluate each other from the viewpoint of an administrator. i.e.When I get to be principal do I want that teacher working on my team. I choose to work in a difficult school because I want to be part of the solution. Well, one of the guys I teach with was never very impressive. It didn't seem he was interested in the students, didn't appear to be working for them. It looked like he was just coming in to fulfill his duties and leave. Certainly not a candidate for 'my team'. There was a student in his class that was struggling and was sure on the road to gang affiliation and worse. He was not a very good student and my fellow teacher didn't appear to be taking action. That student's brother was in one of my classes. I asked him one day how his brother was doing, did he like this fellow teacher. My student replied that if it wasn't for that teacher his brother wouldn't even be in school and may even not be alive. It seems that in the course of events, this teacher had found out that his student was experiencing severe beatings at home. He took it upon himself to go home with the student and confront the parents about the beatings. According to my student, the beatings stopped, home life improved and his brother became more interested in school. Now, it is not likely that this brother was going to become a outstanding student but he might actually finish high school. Each day he comes to school he is less of a target for the gangs. So in the scheme of things, I wouldn't have scored this teacher very high from daily activities. There certainly wouldn't be any metric that would have covered this kind of dedication. However, after hearing that story, I saw him in a much different light. I could see that the test I had been using didn't fit in the neighborhood we work in. That teacher was now on my 'dream team'.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Ether

Unless I misunderstood your earlier very brief post in this thread, you identified "larger cultural issues" as the root cause of the educational crisis in Chicago. What do you think those larger cultural issues are? The same ones Jason identified in his earlier post, or did you have something else in mind? What do you believe the government's role should be in addressing those issues?

I've read all the posts in this thread, and most in the thread from which it was spawned. I'm not sure if you are referring to any of those posters as blaming the teachers, but if you were, I for one want to hear what they have to say, as long as it's factual and stated calmly, and ask them questions to clarify their point of view.

Having never lived in Chicago or even visited any areas of Chiacgo other than O'Hare airport, much less attend a school in Chicago, I will not conjecture about the issues that Chicago schools face. My statement was broader and directed towards the general trend of the attitude towards teachers that I have seen many display around the country in various similar incidents over the past couple years. In my post, "people" did not solely represent posters on Chief Delphi.

[Akash Rastogi]

The strike has been suspended. Kids go to school tomorrow.

[Ether]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

The strike has been suspended. Kids go to school tomorrow.

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