I haven’t checked this thread in a few days and Mike’s moved on so I don’t know who will read this but, for C Hand and any others who agree with him let me make this case for you.

Gary Varner was one of my mentors at ACU and a brilliant man. He is inspiring, a master craftsman, brilliant artist and one of the best teachers I ever had. He would also be the first to out himself as incredibly dislexic. He even wrote a play about it. The play was primarily developed through improvisation. Gary also (or used to) tell stories for Young Audiences of Abilene. He also holds at least two Masters degrees. The way that Gary has found a way to overcome his learning “problem” and encourage a slew of students to overcome whatever was holding them back (In my case, laziness) is nothing short of extraordinary. Oh, and I also learned a heck of a lot from him about technical theatre. I hardly touched a power tool before college and now I teach tech theatre.

I believe Gary is a prime example of an extrememly effective teacher who does not rely on tests or fact regurgitation in order to teach his students. Could Gary do well in a Jeopardy game? I’m not sure. He’d sweep up if the subject were Theatre. Of course, what Trebec wouldn’t be able to see is that inside Gary’s head he is going over why that answer wasn’t always correct and how there isn’t always a right answer, and Trebec would possibly become flustered if Gary were to answer in his own way by taking you on a journey with the question and soon enough you’ll realize that this man knows way more than facts, he lives his subject. That is what he does in the classroom. He pushes his students to live it as well. This is how to teach, and in the end it matters very little how many subjective questions a person can answer on a multiple choice test.

I hope this clears up, C Hand, why I and so many others here take major issue with your corrolation between the ability to do well at Jeopardy and being a teacher. It’s because it DOES NOT MATTER ONE SINGLE BIT.

I haven’t spell-checked any of this so I appologize(appoligize) for any misspellings. I’m poor at spelling, word puzzels…opera trivia on jeopardy…and lots of other things. Should that prevent me from saying educators need to be curious about the world around them.

c-hand, I wish you could have had my mother or Mrs. Adams or Mrs. Goss. They would have loved you until you could not feel your toes, and then they would have taught you to read, to spell, and do multipication. They are truly amazing and smart women. And I bet if they played you in Jeopardy!, they might kick your butt.

Nichole

The government needs to take a step back and let teachers teach. And get back to teaching more of the basics — get the political correctness garbage out of the classroom (it’s nice to live in a small town where a lot of that PC stuff is not tolerated by us parents).

Teachers needs to expect a lot out of students, administrators need to expect a lot out of teachers, and parents need to expect a lot out of all three. And yes, parents have got to be more involved.

Also, the teacher’s union (N.E.A.) needs to be overhauled — and most of the national leadership should be canned. If more teachers would do what several here in Ohio have done (either rejected the union all together, or had their dues reallocated), the union would be forced to make changes.

And finally, I agree with the one who said there needs to be more choice in education. The monopoly of public education is not a good thing. Competition will give us a better product at a lower price.

There, that’s not too much to ask, is it?

Believe me, it seemed like a mere 2 minutes, imo. Wonderful sermon delivered by a master teacher!!

btw, TL, my pastor/teacher in San Diego NEVER preached less than 45 minutes and he’s been known to go as long as 75 minutes. The beauty of these wonderful preachers is that the so-called “long” sermons all seemed to finish much too soon.

Our daughter is in Kindergarten this year at our local public school. We’ve been happy with our decision to send her there. It isn’t perfect, but it’s been a good experience and I dare say, no situation would be exactly perfect.

I used to teach elementary school in Texas. When I was there, it was the TAAS. I taught 2nd grade, which did not even take the TAAS, but even at that level we felt pressure. Those students would be taking the test the next year in 3rd grade.

My first year in the public schools (second year to teach) I remember being “afraid” that my principal would come in while my students were coloring and I’d get “in trouble” because the activity didn’t specifically relate to TAAS objectives. It got better later with a different principal, but I do remember thinking it was sad that I was being pressured into pressuring the children so much.

I am all for accountability, but I do believe teachers need a certain amount of flexibility in how they teach the material. I think we have to have certain objectives that need to be taught but teachers should be given the creative license to teach that how they see fit.

It’s a hard line to draw. You’ve got to hold the students & teachers accountable, but you don’t want to turn either of them into robots who just spit out facts.

Someone mentioned the students needing to be able to THINK, not just know the FACTS. I 100% agree with that.

We decided on our local public school over a local private school because of that. We already know that our daughter can learn by doing a worksheet. She is the type of 5 year old who loves to sit down and do workbook type work for long periods of time. She is your typical little “loves to play school” kind of girl.

The private school we toured was VERY structured and didn’t seem, to us, to leave much room for any creativity or critical thinking. It seemed to be alot of worksheets and direct teacher lecturing. (Disclaimer: we were only there a short period of time, but this is what we perceived it to be.)

When we visited the public school, the K classrooms were full of creative opportunities. There was a general feeling of hands-on learning which is exactly what we were wanting. Yes, she does use worksheets sometimes (which I like if used correctly) but she also does endless activities that do not require paper & pencil.

She comes home singing songs about the value of pennies, nickels, dimes & quarters. She sings songs that help her spell words. “Skipping” is just one of the developmental skills they are to master this year. In order to test the children on this, they all sing “Skip to my Lou” and each have a turn skipping around the circle. How fun is that?!?! They’re being tested but in a fun way! (They don’t even realize that they’re being tested on it.)

Our daughter is excited about what Miss S will write on the “Morning Message” and talks about what she will share during “Share Time” on the carpet. She thinks during the week about what she will take for Show and Tell and makes sure it begins with the letter of the week. She loves to tell us about what she wrote about in her journal and how Miss S will help her spell words…or she’ll just use her phonics skills to sound it out. Most of the words aren’t spelled exactly right, but she spells very phonetically.

My point is this: I think she is being taught to think and be creative as well as being taught the “skills & objectives” the state of SC has set forth for K students. If we had chosen the private school, she might be reading at a higher level and she might be counting further, but I seriously doubt that her creative skills & critical thinking skills would be being used as much.

She’ll get those other facts eventually when she’s a little older, but it’ll be harder to teach critical thinking when she’s older.

I’m sure her teacher has tons of paper work to fill out and standards to follow, but she does an excellent job of making it fun for the students.

I will admit that there are times when I feel like she could be challenged more. If we homeschooled her, maybe we could give her those challenges. However, I think she would miss the classroom atmosphere. It has so much to offer, both in the ways I mentioned as well as in the interaction she has with other students of different socioeconomic levels, different races, and from different kinds of families. Having her in this type of situtation has opened up conversations that we need to have with her and it will continue to do so. We’re trying to help her to “be a light.” (Another disclaimer: I know she could “be a light” in other situtations as well.)

As her parents, it is OUR JOB to supplement her education with more challenging activites if we feel she needs them. For us (not speaking against anyone else who homeschools)taking her out of her current situation to keep her at home would do more harm for her true love of learning than keeping her there. She IS learning and if we feel she needs more, we can give it to her. It is NOT the school’s job to raise our child. We, as parents, have to be responsible for what she learns and how she learns it.

PARENTS HAVE TO BE INVOLVED! If the bubble kids had parents who truly tried to help their kids, they probably wouldn’t (most of them) be bubble kids anymore. We cannot expect miracles from our teachers with no support from the parents.

Where I taught, unfortunately, we had many parents who couldn’t speak English. That makes it very hard for them to tutor their own children, don’t you think?!?!

The state of public education is not perfect…neither is the state of private or homeschool education. We, as parents, need to do all we can to support whichever situation we choose to place our child in. Public education probably will not change unless enough people speak up…respectfully. Also, rather than just speaking up about it, offer a solution!

I think parental involvement is the key! If you feel your child is lacking something from their school, offer it to them yourselves. Support your child’s teacher. Send them a note of thanks! Be involved in the classroom. Let the office staff get to know you because you’re there so often. Don’t leave the education of your children to someone else.

Also, remember to thank God for all of the wonderful teachers who are out there!

Just my $.02 on the whole matter.

Just kidding - I could listen to you talk for probably 90 minutes!