The hypocrisy and unfairness in schooling

[jorogi]

Yup when the kids were taking that stuff in school I knew the terms but had long forgotten what they were or or what they meant. Dangling participle anyone?

Sex ed wasn't it ?

 

[jorogi]

About flying instructors, you often get young and bright pilots who instruct for time (experience) building until they can get a “real” flying job on their way to the airlines. That’s OK because you get recently trained instructors but I don’t think they get taught to teach which is a rare skill. I’ve flown with some of those, they know what they want you to do but don’t have the communication skills to get the message across.

I prefer an instructor that is mature and doing it because that’s what they want to do even if it’s a side gig and can work with you to get the job done. They are gold.

D

Unfortunately the instructor syllabus is very out dated and totally unrealistic. When I was doing instructor ratings I had to be very specific about how to teach and how to pass the flight test.
A lot of students were there just to get hours, get a class III rating and move on. A few were in for the long haul but quite a few of those would not progress. Myself, I certainly didn't get to where I thought an instructor should be till well after getting my class II. Teaching the instructors was some of the most interesting, challenging and rewarding work I ever had the privilege to do.
The other sad part with the industry is the approach of most of the schools. That is to milk every last penny out of a student. The first chief flight instructor I worked for demanded an explanation for why your 10 hour student wasn't approaching their first solo.
All that said the curriculum for the PPL is absolutely wonderful, logical, progressive.

 

[Doggggboy]

A lot of the problem with teachers is that they are supposed to “man” (woman) the assembly lines to run batches of students through and there isn’t enough time to give more personalized instruction or education advice. My mom was a teacher and she really cared.

A lot of the ladies in my wife's book club are teachers. All 45 to 65 years old. Here in Saskatchewan, teachers have an average of somewhere around 35 students per class and usually at least 10 of them will be ESL students with very little English and 3 to 6 will be special needs kids with either learning or mental or physical disabilities, or all three. Quite often one or two will have FAS which quite often brings violent tendencies with it. Teachers here are utterly and completely burnt out.
They are expected monitor the kids during lunch breaks and to help organize after school activities like sports and band and weekend track meets and field trips and tournaments all on their own time with no compensation. In the event of a contract dispute, they will withdraw from the after school activities and essentially work to rule and as a result are absolutely vilified by a lot of the parents and the government.
If teachers were actually paid for the work they are expected to do, they'd all be making 6 figures from the get go.
As a society, if we don't value teachers, then we don't value education, and if we don't value education, we are screwed.
With starting salaries as low as 16000/year, you're setting everyone up for failure.

 

[jcdammeyer]

If nobody minds I'd like to add a few more comments or opinions. As I said earlier I didn't do well in English classes. Never could figure out why. All sorts of red marks on papers I turned in for high school. But never the kind of feedback that would make me a better writer.

One thing that did help in University was that I was in Computer Science. When I approached doing a paper in English like writing a software program, and I got to use a word processor, my writing improved but that was way past first year English 210.

So what changed? It wasn't until after University when I started reading 'other' kinds of books that things started clicking.

One of the best was a book titled "Mind's Eye" by Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel C. Bennett. I had already seen the concept in my expository writing class in one of the papers presented by a student. Recall we had 6 weeks for a full year course. Each Friday we handed in papers and on Monday each of us got a copy of everyone's submission and we spent the week analyzing each paper. Like this forum, politeness and courtesy ruled. If we didn't have a constructive way to improve a someones paper we had to keep our mouths shut.

The long and short of one paper was there was something wrong but we couldn't figure it out. The Prof sent us out for a coffee break to think it over. We came back with no real solution. He then had one suggestion and he said it wasn't the only one that would work. He changed part of one sentence in the
first paragraph and one sentence in the last of this 1500 word essay.

Wow! The paper went from a 'C' or 'C-' to an 'A+'. He reminded us that when we write something to look at the whole thing. Not just pieces. That really stayed with me.

And that's why I brought up "Mind's Eye" which lays out the idea that if a premise presented in the first one or two paragraphs of an essay, story, article, news piece is accepted as true then the rest of the story which builds on that makes perfect sense. But change that premise at the start and the entire thing falls apart. The students essay was like that. A small change at the start and at the end and the entire thing became an amazing piece of writing.

We're not taught that in school. We're taught grammar or expected to know grammar. But tying the front to the back and to work together just isn't taught because I think the teachers who teach English aren't taught this. I was so lucky.

I think there's a lot more that could be discussed on this. I find it fascinating.

 

[Canadium]

A lot of the problem with teachers is that they are supposed to “man” (woman) the assembly lines to run batches of students through and there isn’t enough time to give more personalized instruction or education advice. My mom was a teacher and she really cared.

I know there are very good teachers (and not so good…) out there but the system could be designed better to help students find their niche if they had the mandate and more resources but that’s hard to come by.

About flying instructors, you often get young and bright pilots who instruct for time (experience) building until they can get a “real” flying job on their way to the airlines. That’s OK because you get recently trained instructors but I don’t think they get taught to teach which is a rare skill. I’ve flown with some of those, they know what they want you to do but don’t have the communication skills to get the message across.

I prefer an instructor that is mature and doing it because that’s what they want to do even if it’s a side gig and can work with you to get the job done. They are gold.

D

I'm always fascinated by stories of child prodigies. Kids that achieved way beyond what would be expected or what is average. In every case that I have ever seen they were not public school students. They got a lot of personalized attention from their parents who either had a high level of education or were wealthy enough to be able to spend a lot of time with their kids.

There are two great books if you are interested in this sort of thing. One is called The Radioactive Boy Scout and the other is called The Boy Who Played with Fusion. They are each true stories about real kids who had a lot in common. They were both exceptionally bright and interested in nuclear physics. One became a huge success and the other a dismal failure. The reasons for the different outcomes are pretty clear when you compare their stories.

 

[slow-poke]

I'm always fascinated by stories of child prodigies. Kids that achieved way beyond what would be expected or what is average. In every case that I have ever seen they were not public school students. They got a lot of personalized attention from their parents who either had a high level of education or were wealthy enough to be able to spend a lot of time with their kids.

I know a woman that was home schooled. She far exceeded the high school requirements when she was 15, completed Engineering (straight A's ) when she was 19 and then became a patent lawyer shortly after. I don't think she was a genius, just very well taught.