4 ms·

>bright student realizes that school has nothing to do with learning Depends on the high school and teacher. My high school (and primary schools) had really gr

by mehrzad 12y ago

>bright student realizes that school has nothing to do with learning Depends on the high school and teacher. My high school (and primary schools) had really great teachers and they motivated me to learn things I otherwise would not have. Young people often need a push to learn things that they don't immediately see as useful. Schooling does interfere with learning, but when the stakes are high (getting into a top college) we might as well make the most of it if the privileges are afforded to us.

NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
> Depends on the high school and teacher. In the US, each student will have between 20 and 40 teachers by the time they graduate highschool. Thus, you can't just hope to play the public education lottery and get all good teachers for your kid. Even if things work out better than could possibly be imagined, that's what, 10 or 15 good teachers, quite a few more mediocre and 2 or 3 bad ones? Sorry. The damage that a bad teacher can do outweighs much or all of the good that the good teachers can do. If your kid would have 40 doctors throughout his life, only 2 or 3 of which were quacks, would that make you happy? Would you say "but the quacks will probably be the dermatologist anyway and not the surgeon, so it's ok"? I wouldn't say that. The only way for any of this to work out is for the impossible to happen, for nearly all of teachers everywhere across the nation to be good teachers. The distribution is pretty natural, the various colleges of education don't act as a filter, and schools are co-opted to do too many non-education tasks for that to ever be possible.
- xaa 12y ago
  > Sorry. The damage that a bad teacher can do outweighs much or all of the good that the good teachers can do. > If your kid would have 40 doctors throughout his life, only 2 or 3 of which were quacks, would that make you happy? I don't think this analogy is quite right, nor is the conclusion you are using it to illustrate. A kid, especially a smart kid, knows when a bad teacher is bad and can just coast through the class (bad teachers nearly always err towards teaching too little and therefore being easy). The worst case scenario in most subjects is they have a hole there, which in the case of non-STEM subjects is not catastrophic because they (English, history) are more about general principles rather than specific facts that nearly all adults forget. In STEM subjects, it can be worse because they build on one another. I guess a truly bad teacher can deny evolution or something like that, but that typically only happens in controversial subjects where a student should have prior knowledge that there's a controversy. If they aren't, they will figure it out soon enough. But really, a bad doctor can kill you. A bad teacher leaves a hole that a self-motivated person with natural curiosity can completely fill. Take programming (I'll assume you're a developer). If one of your CS profs had just not bothered to teach a specific course, would you be able to live through it? Of course, as attested by the many successful developers who are self-taught. When you grow up, you have to take responsibility for learning for yourself. If some students have to do it sooner than usual, that has pros and cons.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
    > A kid, especially a smart kid, knows when a bad teacher is bad and can just coast through the class ( There are many sorts of "bad". Sometimes they're simply ineffective or uninterested teachers. Other times they're borderline mentally ill and abusive. How many times does the child need to be mocked or called names for lasting damage to happen? Can you judge this before the fact? "Oh my boy Timmy, he can be called names at least a dozen times with no ill effects, and you look like you'll only do that 8 times, Mrs. Kuntzenheimmer." > guess a truly bad teacher can deny evolution Or lock them in a closet. Or tell them "girls can't do math" so many times they believe it, and roll their eyes derisively if any of the 9 yr olds object. Or fail them out of spite... or have them expelled without true cause. Oh man, there must be a 100 different kinds of bad. And few children have the life skills to mitigate that (few adults, if we're honest).

by mehrzad 12y ago

NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago

> Depends on the high school and teacher. In the US, each student will have between 20 and 40 teachers by the time they graduate highschool. Thus, you can't just hope to play the public education lottery and get all good teachers for your kid. Even if things work out better than could possibly be imagined, that's what, 10 or 15 good teachers, quite a few more mediocre and 2 or 3 bad ones? Sorry. The damage that a bad teacher can do outweighs much or all of the good that the good teachers can do. If your kid would have 40 doctors throughout his life, only 2 or 3 of which were quacks, would that make you happy? Would you say "but the quacks will probably be the dermatologist anyway and not the surgeon, so it's ok"? I wouldn't say that. The only way for any of this to work out is for the impossible to happen, for nearly all of teachers everywhere across the nation to be good teachers. The distribution is pretty natural, the various colleges of education don't act as a filter, and schools are co-opted to do too many non-education tasks for that to ever be possible.

xaa 12y ago
> Sorry. The damage that a bad teacher can do outweighs much or all of the good that the good teachers can do. > If your kid would have 40 doctors throughout his life, only 2 or 3 of which were quacks, would that make you happy? I don't think this analogy is quite right, nor is the conclusion you are using it to illustrate. A kid, especially a smart kid, knows when a bad teacher is bad and can just coast through the class (bad teachers nearly always err towards teaching too little and therefore being easy). The worst case scenario in most subjects is they have a hole there, which in the case of non-STEM subjects is not catastrophic because they (English, history) are more about general principles rather than specific facts that nearly all adults forget. In STEM subjects, it can be worse because they build on one another. I guess a truly bad teacher can deny evolution or something like that, but that typically only happens in controversial subjects where a student should have prior knowledge that there's a controversy. If they aren't, they will figure it out soon enough. But really, a bad doctor can kill you. A bad teacher leaves a hole that a self-motivated person with natural curiosity can completely fill. Take programming (I'll assume you're a developer). If one of your CS profs had just not bothered to teach a specific course, would you be able to live through it? Of course, as attested by the many successful developers who are self-taught. When you grow up, you have to take responsibility for learning for yourself. If some students have to do it sooner than usual, that has pros and cons.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
  > A kid, especially a smart kid, knows when a bad teacher is bad and can just coast through the class ( There are many sorts of "bad". Sometimes they're simply ineffective or uninterested teachers. Other times they're borderline mentally ill and abusive. How many times does the child need to be mocked or called names for lasting damage to happen? Can you judge this before the fact? "Oh my boy Timmy, he can be called names at least a dozen times with no ill effects, and you look like you'll only do that 8 times, Mrs. Kuntzenheimmer." > guess a truly bad teacher can deny evolution Or lock them in a closet. Or tell them "girls can't do math" so many times they believe it, and roll their eyes derisively if any of the 9 yr olds object. Or fail them out of spite... or have them expelled without true cause. Oh man, there must be a 100 different kinds of bad. And few children have the life skills to mitigate that (few adults, if we're honest).