4 ms·

I think we learned this past year that at least a few teachers are quite exceptionally spoiled (disappointing, and for me a bit surprising). Maybe I'm biased b

I think we learned this past year that at least a few teachers are quite exceptionally spoiled (disappointing, and for me a bit surprising). Maybe I'm biased by the witnessing the antics of the California teachers union, but their ranks have been an embarrassment to the profession. Their continued push-back against returning to regular classes has grown tiresome (California has decided, with union pressure, to defy CDC guidelines and require masking and distancing despite vaccines and low risk -- "follow the science" is no longer spoken by them). https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-school-board-members-caught-disparaging-parents-accidental-zoom-broadcast-n1258351 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-school-board... https://meaww.com/alissa-piro-california-teacher-zoom-rant-how-to-do-job-parents-schools-closed-whites-get-everything https://meaww.com/alissa-piro-california-teacher-zoom-rant-h...

renewiltord 5y ago
Yeah, teachers benefit from a social cachet that is outsize related to their true efficacy. They are not nearly as effective or as important as people make them out to be.
- kube-system 5y ago
  They are very important, but not always for the reasons that people make them out to be important.
  - renewiltord 5y ago
    Mind explaining? As institutional day care? I believe it.
    - kube-system 5y ago
      I wouldn’t go that far. I do think that, particularly for primary education, some people tend to overinflate the importance of teachers as academic experts and discount their social importance. The value that school provides kids, parents, and the community is multifaceted. If anything, primary educations are very important, but not because kids learn basic arithmetic, but because they learn the foundational social concepts that will permanently shape their ideas about justice, respect, cooperation, etc.
      - quacked 5y ago
        I would go as far as to say school is industrial daycare. Asserting that schools provide value to society because people learn things within their boundaries is, in my opinion, like saying that caffeine pills provide value to tired people by helping them stay awake. It's not wrong per se, but it's a hackneyed solution that doesn't address the root cause of the problem. "Our citizens are illiterate and don't understand mathematics? I know; let's kidnap their children and store those children in warehouses for 18 years while they learn morals and social values from each other instead of from productive adults." The "foundational social concepts" children learn in school are taught to them by full-time teachers, who are only capable of repeating various myths about society that they themselves believe. The effective method to learn foundational social concepts is to live in and contribute to society, not to sit in a sterile, age-segregated social environment and listen to quarter-truths spoken by apathetic non-experts, and then be tested on arbitrary collections of unrelated fact. I am not arguing against the concept of education in general, but the notion that it can be taught in school is, I think, one of the most damaging problems in society. You simply cannot learn quickly and efficiently as a numbered head in a sea of competitors; good, proper learning takes time, personal attention, discipline, and does not pace itself to a standardized schedule. I offer this essay, not as the foundation of my anti-school beliefs (which are supported by dozens of studies, hundreds of essays, and thousands of personal experiences), but as the same literary aperitif that allowed me to ask myself "what if school isn't good for society?" https://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html https://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html
        kube-system 5y ago
        > The "foundational social concepts" children learn in school are taught to them by full-time teachers I disagree. Many (most) of the social concepts that children learn in school are not taught by teachers, they're taught through interactions with other students, with the teachers providing guard rails. They're completely orthogonal to the curriculum. There are certainly plenty of myths repeated in classrooms by teachers, but I don't think the ratio is worse than the number of myths you hear in any other place. In fact, I would bet professional educators probably do a better job of not repeating myths than the general population, since they study formal pedagogical methods. Go read a public comment section on any news story -- you'll find plenty of examples of egregious myths repeated by average "productive adults".

renewiltord 5y ago

Yeah, teachers benefit from a social cachet that is outsize related to their true efficacy. They are not nearly as effective or as important as people make them out to be.

kube-system 5y ago
They are very important, but not always for the reasons that people make them out to be important.
- renewiltord 5y ago
  Mind explaining? As institutional day care? I believe it.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    I wouldn’t go that far. I do think that, particularly for primary education, some people tend to overinflate the importance of teachers as academic experts and discount their social importance. The value that school provides kids, parents, and the community is multifaceted. If anything, primary educations are very important, but not because kids learn basic arithmetic, but because they learn the foundational social concepts that will permanently shape their ideas about justice, respect, cooperation, etc.
    - quacked 5y ago
      I would go as far as to say school is industrial daycare. Asserting that schools provide value to society because people learn things within their boundaries is, in my opinion, like saying that caffeine pills provide value to tired people by helping them stay awake. It's not wrong per se, but it's a hackneyed solution that doesn't address the root cause of the problem. "Our citizens are illiterate and don't understand mathematics? I know; let's kidnap their children and store those children in warehouses for 18 years while they learn morals and social values from each other instead of from productive adults." The "foundational social concepts" children learn in school are taught to them by full-time teachers, who are only capable of repeating various myths about society that they themselves believe. The effective method to learn foundational social concepts is to live in and contribute to society, not to sit in a sterile, age-segregated social environment and listen to quarter-truths spoken by apathetic non-experts, and then be tested on arbitrary collections of unrelated fact. I am not arguing against the concept of education in general, but the notion that it can be taught in school is, I think, one of the most damaging problems in society. You simply cannot learn quickly and efficiently as a numbered head in a sea of competitors; good, proper learning takes time, personal attention, discipline, and does not pace itself to a standardized schedule. I offer this essay, not as the foundation of my anti-school beliefs (which are supported by dozens of studies, hundreds of essays, and thousands of personal experiences), but as the same literary aperitif that allowed me to ask myself "what if school isn't good for society?" https://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html https://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html
      - kube-system 5y ago
        > The "foundational social concepts" children learn in school are taught to them by full-time teachers I disagree. Many (most) of the social concepts that children learn in school are not taught by teachers, they're taught through interactions with other students, with the teachers providing guard rails. They're completely orthogonal to the curriculum. There are certainly plenty of myths repeated in classrooms by teachers, but I don't think the ratio is worse than the number of myths you hear in any other place. In fact, I would bet professional educators probably do a better job of not repeating myths than the general population, since they study formal pedagogical methods. Go read a public comment section on any news story -- you'll find plenty of examples of egregious myths repeated by average "productive adults".