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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 giv

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 15y 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.

jacobolus 15y 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.