Re[2]: Teachers ...

["Arlen P. Walker" <Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- COM>]

Since a number of people have not taken my remarks in the context within which
they were delivered, I guess I should reiterate the context.

Those who have missed the context have jumped to the conclusion that I was
heaping *all* the blame on the teachers. Not true. Like the subject of the
message said, there's plenty enough blame to go around. I was refuting the claim
of one poster whose message said, in effect, that it can't be the teacher's
fault, because some children *are* learning.

It's everybody's fault, people, teachers as much as students as much as parents.
(I won't blame the school administrators, because they're only there because we
put them there, and they're bureaucrats and can't help it if they screw things
up. They are no more to blame than the mosquito is to blame for sucking blood;
it's their nature to do so.)

      actual TEACHING time has turned into somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes
      and that's NOT enough time to *teach* anything effectively.

Interesting you should complain about this. Here that's the norm because the
teacher's choose to devote about half the class time to a study hall, to be sure
that homework doesn't go home after all.

      A teacher with 15 students will be a heck of a lot
      more effective than one with 35.

While in general I agree with you, I have seen good teachers teach a room of 50,
and bad teachers fail to teach a room of 6.

      We can only do this for so long before it
      catches up to us and some of these functionally illiterate "kids" become
      the leaders of this nation.

Why did the image of Dan Quayle suddenly spring unbidden to my mind? ;{>}

This excursion has been fun, folks, but here's where I get off the bus.

Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 124

Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- Com
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