4 ms·

I agree with you in my own experience, but let's face it, we were (I'm just gonna guess here) among the smart kids, and what works well for smart kids isn't nec

by afafsd 12y ago

I agree with you in my own experience, but let's face it, we were (I'm just gonna guess here) among the smart kids, and what works well for smart kids isn't necessarily what works well for the average or dumb kids. Maybe dumb kids learn more effectively through different methods.

ams6110 12y ago
In the article this jumped out at me: “From the moment our children step into a classroom,” Barack Obama said in 2007, “the single most important factor determining their achievement is not the color of their skin or where they come from; it’s not who their parents are or how much money they have. It’s who their teacher is.” That's just absolute nonsense or he was pandering to a constituency. Their parents and their family income and where they live are absolutely the most important factors. You take a school where the average kid lives in a single-parent home, with an uneducated, unemployed parent on welfare, who moves three or four times a year, or whose parents are in and out of jail, meth users, or otherwise completely irresponsible and negligent, and you can put the best teachers in the the world in that school and it will still be a failing school on every standardized measure.
- HarryHirsch 12y ago
  Barack Obama said ... "the single most important factor determining their achievement [is] who their teacher is." An alternative hypothesis is that Obama's intention was to shift the Overton Window. The budget for public education is huge, and it's not unreasonable to assume that some of his campaign donors are associated with charter schools or testing services.
- cafard 12y ago
  There are or have been partial exceptions, but in general you are correct. I don't think that even the most expensive schools have consistent quality in the teaching staff.
kaitai 12y ago
This has been studied as well, and dumb kids learn very well through inverted methods (as the post above calls them). "Dumb" kids show the greatest gains with active and experiential learning -- after all, we think they are dumb because they don't learn well by listening to a lecture, reading a text alone, and then regurgitating content on a test! http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/turning-education-upside-down/ http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/turning-educ...

by afafsd 12y ago

ams6110 12y ago

In the article this jumped out at me: “From the moment our children step into a classroom,” Barack Obama said in 2007, “the single most important factor determining their achievement is not the color of their skin or where they come from; it’s not who their parents are or how much money they have. It’s who their teacher is.” That's just absolute nonsense or he was pandering to a constituency. Their parents and their family income and where they live are absolutely the most important factors. You take a school where the average kid lives in a single-parent home, with an uneducated, unemployed parent on welfare, who moves three or four times a year, or whose parents are in and out of jail, meth users, or otherwise completely irresponsible and negligent, and you can put the best teachers in the the world in that school and it will still be a failing school on every standardized measure.

HarryHirsch 12y ago
Barack Obama said ... "the single most important factor determining their achievement [is] who their teacher is." An alternative hypothesis is that Obama's intention was to shift the Overton Window. The budget for public education is huge, and it's not unreasonable to assume that some of his campaign donors are associated with charter schools or testing services.
cafard 12y ago
There are or have been partial exceptions, but in general you are correct. I don't think that even the most expensive schools have consistent quality in the teaching staff.

kaitai 12y ago

This has been studied as well, and dumb kids learn very well through inverted methods (as the post above calls them). "Dumb" kids show the greatest gains with active and experiential learning -- after all, we think they are dumb because they don't learn well by listening to a lecture, reading a text alone, and then regurgitating content on a test! http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/turning-education-upside-down/ http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/turning-educ...