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So suppose you have a test which covers reading, writing and arithmetic only (3R). Assuming the teacher has already effectively taught 3R, and has time to spare

So suppose you have a test which covers reading, writing and arithmetic only (3R). Assuming the teacher has already effectively taught 3R, and has time to spare, there is nothing to prevent them from teaching black history. If the teacher hasn't effectively taught 3R with time to spare, I'd suggest that black history is a topic of far less import than 3R and the teacher should skip it. This stresses teachers out at test time, which causes them to stress students out. Students come to dislike school and learn less. tl;dr; Teachers are unprofessional and just generally horrible people who inflict their problems onto innocent third parties.

analog31 11y ago
So suppose you have a test which covers reading, writing and arithmetic only (3R). Assuming the teacher has already effectively taught 3R, and has time to spare, there is nothing to prevent them from teaching black history. The problem is that the test doesn't just offer a pass-fail threshold, but is graded on a sliding scale, which means that so long as there is a chance of increasing the class average, kids will continue to be drilled on the test topics, over and over again. My kids were sent home with worksheet after worksheet of basic arithmetic problems, long after they had completely mastered those skills.
acdha 11y ago
> tl;dr; Teachers are unprofessional and just generally horrible people who inflict their problems onto innocent third parties. … and you have the peer-reviewed studies to prove that an entire field is full of unqualified bad-actors? Or is this just the casual, unthinking racism implied by your decision to use “black history” as your example rather than, say, music or science and the corresponding assumption that it's some how distinct from and less important than “history” rather than being an essential component?
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  Scroll up - it was smelendez who made the claim that teachers take their stress out on students, not me. I just phrased it in a manner that gives teachers agency. Black history was also an example taken from smelendez. History of any sort is far less important than literacy and numeracy, as is comparative religion, evolution, art and music (his other examples). But I guess calling me racist is easier than actually addressing my arguments.
  - acdha 11y ago
    > Scroll up - it was smelendez who made the claim that teachers take their stress out on students, not me. I just phrased it in a manner that gives teachers agency. No, you were making a blanket statement about an entire profession. Saying that people react poorly under prolonged stress is a simple statement of fact, with decades of concurring evidence from fields ranging from business and education to neuroscience, and it doesn't imply that those people chose to do anything wrong other than being an average human in a bad situation. In contrast, your statement shifted all of the blame to one of the parties with the least agency and used loaded terms like “unprofessional” or “horrible” without any supporting justification. > Black history was also an example taken from smelendez. History of any sort is far less important than literacy and numeracy, as is comparative religion, evolution, art and music (his other examples). There were quite a few other things which he included which are not 3Rs and I find it interesting that you picked the only one which is the hobby-horse of right-wing discussion about schools. > But I guess calling me racist is easier than actually addressing my arguments. That's why I said “casual, unthinking racism” because there are so many tropes common to popular U.S. discussion which are rooted in racism but often propagated by people who haven't thought deeply about the origin or implications.
    - yummyfajitas 11y ago
      No, you were making a blanket statement about an entire profession. I didn't claim that teachers take their stress out on students. I simply claimed that if they did, they are horrible and unprofessional. My claim is conditional on smelendez being right. Again, scroll up. If you want to dispute that characterization, and argue that it's professional behavior to let your emotions get in the way of work have at it. I don't know how you think teachers have the least agency. Their choice sets include a) doing their job, b) not doing their job and c) quitting and finding a job they don't suck at. (I did the last one, although emotional leakage was not what made me a bad teacher.) In contrast, the students usually don't have the choice of finding a teacher who does their job.
      - acdha 11y ago
        > I didn't claim that teachers take their stress out on students. I simply claimed that if they did, they are horrible and unprofessional. That's the linkage I'm talking about: that ignores the possibility that the job has unreasonable expectations. One person, sure, maybe they have problems but when a high percentage of the field reports low job satisfaction and cites things like long hours and poor support as reasons for leaving, it's irresponsible not to ask whether the system is setup correctly. Here in DC, hitting the right numbers gets a bonus which is close to 50% of your salary – or nothing if you're slightly low, and the school administrators both track things closely and are prone to saying the only reason for not hitting your numbers is that you don't care enough, weren't willing to put in the effort, don't believe disadvantaged kids deserve quality education, etc. That produces a cycle where you get very enthusiastic, motivated teachers fresh out of college who are basically in crunch mode for the entire school year before eventually realizing that random chance makes it very hard to hit the targets consistently and their efforts won't be appreciated otherwise. > I don't know how you think teachers have the least agency. Their choice sets include a) doing their job, b) not doing their job and c) quitting and finding a job they don't suck at. (I did the last one, although emotional leakage was not what made me a bad teacher.) In contrast, the students usually don't have the choice of finding a teacher who does their job. I said one of the parties with the least agency because they don't have control over the students coming in, the curriculum or the expectations (e.g. one school near here puts second-year ESL students in AP English based on age, even if the teacher knows they would learn more with more basic coverage first), and don't have the ability to get the school or parents to provide support. The students were the reason I said “one of” since they do have even less control. I'm glad that you were able to take the option of going somewhere else but that's hard for many people to do unless they happen to have skills which are in demand in industry. Unlike many other jobs, there are only a few employers in most areas and they hire at set times of year. If you're the CS teacher and have picked up some PHP, that's probably manageable but if you're an English teacher you're probably looking at a career reset or either taking a much longer commute or moving.

analog31 11y ago

So suppose you have a test which covers reading, writing and arithmetic only (3R). Assuming the teacher has already effectively taught 3R, and has time to spare, there is nothing to prevent them from teaching black history. The problem is that the test doesn't just offer a pass-fail threshold, but is graded on a sliding scale, which means that so long as there is a chance of increasing the class average, kids will continue to be drilled on the test topics, over and over again. My kids were sent home with worksheet after worksheet of basic arithmetic problems, long after they had completely mastered those skills.

acdha 11y ago

> tl;dr; Teachers are unprofessional and just generally horrible people who inflict their problems onto innocent third parties. … and you have the peer-reviewed studies to prove that an entire field is full of unqualified bad-actors? Or is this just the casual, unthinking racism implied by your decision to use “black history” as your example rather than, say, music or science and the corresponding assumption that it's some how distinct from and less important than “history” rather than being an essential component?

yummyfajitas 11y ago
Scroll up - it was smelendez who made the claim that teachers take their stress out on students, not me. I just phrased it in a manner that gives teachers agency. Black history was also an example taken from smelendez. History of any sort is far less important than literacy and numeracy, as is comparative religion, evolution, art and music (his other examples). But I guess calling me racist is easier than actually addressing my arguments.
- acdha 11y ago
  > Scroll up - it was smelendez who made the claim that teachers take their stress out on students, not me. I just phrased it in a manner that gives teachers agency. No, you were making a blanket statement about an entire profession. Saying that people react poorly under prolonged stress is a simple statement of fact, with decades of concurring evidence from fields ranging from business and education to neuroscience, and it doesn't imply that those people chose to do anything wrong other than being an average human in a bad situation. In contrast, your statement shifted all of the blame to one of the parties with the least agency and used loaded terms like “unprofessional” or “horrible” without any supporting justification. > Black history was also an example taken from smelendez. History of any sort is far less important than literacy and numeracy, as is comparative religion, evolution, art and music (his other examples). There were quite a few other things which he included which are not 3Rs and I find it interesting that you picked the only one which is the hobby-horse of right-wing discussion about schools. > But I guess calling me racist is easier than actually addressing my arguments. That's why I said “casual, unthinking racism” because there are so many tropes common to popular U.S. discussion which are rooted in racism but often propagated by people who haven't thought deeply about the origin or implications.
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    No, you were making a blanket statement about an entire profession. I didn't claim that teachers take their stress out on students. I simply claimed that if they did, they are horrible and unprofessional. My claim is conditional on smelendez being right. Again, scroll up. If you want to dispute that characterization, and argue that it's professional behavior to let your emotions get in the way of work have at it. I don't know how you think teachers have the least agency. Their choice sets include a) doing their job, b) not doing their job and c) quitting and finding a job they don't suck at. (I did the last one, although emotional leakage was not what made me a bad teacher.) In contrast, the students usually don't have the choice of finding a teacher who does their job.
    - acdha 11y ago
      > I didn't claim that teachers take their stress out on students. I simply claimed that if they did, they are horrible and unprofessional. That's the linkage I'm talking about: that ignores the possibility that the job has unreasonable expectations. One person, sure, maybe they have problems but when a high percentage of the field reports low job satisfaction and cites things like long hours and poor support as reasons for leaving, it's irresponsible not to ask whether the system is setup correctly. Here in DC, hitting the right numbers gets a bonus which is close to 50% of your salary – or nothing if you're slightly low, and the school administrators both track things closely and are prone to saying the only reason for not hitting your numbers is that you don't care enough, weren't willing to put in the effort, don't believe disadvantaged kids deserve quality education, etc. That produces a cycle where you get very enthusiastic, motivated teachers fresh out of college who are basically in crunch mode for the entire school year before eventually realizing that random chance makes it very hard to hit the targets consistently and their efforts won't be appreciated otherwise. > I don't know how you think teachers have the least agency. Their choice sets include a) doing their job, b) not doing their job and c) quitting and finding a job they don't suck at. (I did the last one, although emotional leakage was not what made me a bad teacher.) In contrast, the students usually don't have the choice of finding a teacher who does their job. I said one of the parties with the least agency because they don't have control over the students coming in, the curriculum or the expectations (e.g. one school near here puts second-year ESL students in AP English based on age, even if the teacher knows they would learn more with more basic coverage first), and don't have the ability to get the school or parents to provide support. The students were the reason I said “one of” since they do have even less control. I'm glad that you were able to take the option of going somewhere else but that's hard for many people to do unless they happen to have skills which are in demand in industry. Unlike many other jobs, there are only a few employers in most areas and they hire at set times of year. If you're the CS teacher and have picked up some PHP, that's probably manageable but if you're an English teacher you're probably looking at a career reset or either taking a much longer commute or moving.