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I'm not sure what your experience is with public school teachers, but I suspect that very few of them do that. None of the teachers that I know, including the o

I'm not sure what your experience is with public school teachers, but I suspect that very few of them do that. None of the teachers that I know, including the one I'm married to, do what you're suggesting. Inasmuch as any teacher categorizes the students, it's to provide skills-appropriate challenges and assistance. In my experience, most peoples' experience with public school teachers is formed around their own educational experiences, which is essentially no experience at all. Being the parent of a student in public school isn't necessarily a useful experience, either, as the teacher may be trying to tell you that little Johnny isn't as bright as you think he is, but you're still insisting that he's the smartest kid in the class. My wife has had students that simply don't want to learn. They're smart kids, but they spend all their energy coming up with excuses for why they're not doing their schoolwork. My wife has had students that want to learn but are so angry at the world because of what's going on in their home life (abusive parents or siblings or just living in the projects). My wife has had a fourth grader who understood 'quarant' (French for 40) in terms of 'quarantine' and made connections that way. Public school teachers, by and large, love to teach and love to see kids learn. Yes, there's some really bad teachers out there, but there are also really bad designers and really bad software developers. For the most part, though, we (as designers and software developers) don't have to work in thoroughly dysfunctional workplaces.

forkandwait 16y ago
I think most public school teachers are soldiers in a system they don't even know is there, which includes "kids who don't want to learn", parents who don't give a shit, administrators who piss off parents, etc, etc. While I took a dig at them in my post, I dont actually think it is their fault, they just go with the flow, and the flow is toward barely conscious re-creation of social hierarchy. My experience of public school teachers has been from volunteering regularly as a tutor, being in the periphery of the educational system as an Upward Bound teacher and tutor. The public school teachers I have met generally taught to the "talented and driven" in their class, did a decent job, but were incredibly naive about the social system in which they did their supposedly idealistic work. And to a one, they all believed in the myth of talent and a wide bell curve (and had never heard of the pygmalion effect...)
- jacobolus 16y ago
  Public school teachers I know (both those teaching in middle class schools and those teaching in harsh conditions in poorer areas) absolutely know that the system is there, but it’s not something trivial to change as an individual, and many of them are doing all they can just to keep their heads above water. Teaching 20 or 30 students in a class – whether you have the same students all day as in elementary school, or whether they’re in 5 hour-long batches as in middle/high school – is a tremendously demanding job under the best conditions. If most of those students are dramatically behind where the standard curriculum says they’re supposed to be (discouraged because they’re failing all the official tests), with heart-breaking home lives or time-consuming jobs outside school. Add administrative overhead and so forth, and teachers in many cases just don’t have the time and energy to give every student what he needs. It’s a risky career move and a heck of a lot of work for a teacher to decide that the state mandated curriculum is a load of crap and independently push off in a new direction. Learning math requires intense focus, and a class of 30 people who don’t want to be there makes everything really really difficult, not at all comparable to a 1-on-1 or small group tutoring situation. The “talented and driven” get some attention because they are easier to teach. But I don’t think your generalization is fair to teachers. The ones I know dump their hearts and souls into reaching the worst-off students, and go home and cry about it when they don’t feel like they’re getting through.

forkandwait 16y ago

I think most public school teachers are soldiers in a system they don't even know is there, which includes "kids who don't want to learn", parents who don't give a shit, administrators who piss off parents, etc, etc. While I took a dig at them in my post, I dont actually think it is their fault, they just go with the flow, and the flow is toward barely conscious re-creation of social hierarchy. My experience of public school teachers has been from volunteering regularly as a tutor, being in the periphery of the educational system as an Upward Bound teacher and tutor. The public school teachers I have met generally taught to the "talented and driven" in their class, did a decent job, but were incredibly naive about the social system in which they did their supposedly idealistic work. And to a one, they all believed in the myth of talent and a wide bell curve (and had never heard of the pygmalion effect...)

jacobolus 16y ago
Public school teachers I know (both those teaching in middle class schools and those teaching in harsh conditions in poorer areas) absolutely know that the system is there, but it’s not something trivial to change as an individual, and many of them are doing all they can just to keep their heads above water. Teaching 20 or 30 students in a class – whether you have the same students all day as in elementary school, or whether they’re in 5 hour-long batches as in middle/high school – is a tremendously demanding job under the best conditions. If most of those students are dramatically behind where the standard curriculum says they’re supposed to be (discouraged because they’re failing all the official tests), with heart-breaking home lives or time-consuming jobs outside school. Add administrative overhead and so forth, and teachers in many cases just don’t have the time and energy to give every student what he needs. It’s a risky career move and a heck of a lot of work for a teacher to decide that the state mandated curriculum is a load of crap and independently push off in a new direction. Learning math requires intense focus, and a class of 30 people who don’t want to be there makes everything really really difficult, not at all comparable to a 1-on-1 or small group tutoring situation. The “talented and driven” get some attention because they are easier to teach. But I don’t think your generalization is fair to teachers. The ones I know dump their hearts and souls into reaching the worst-off students, and go home and cry about it when they don’t feel like they’re getting through.