America Number One?

RobbCD

Not to flame you, but I am curious. Have you ever taught in a classroom? Have you ever taught in a public school room? Do you KNOW the pressure they are under? The standardized tests, the parents( that dont care or they are always on the student's side). I have been there. I will NEVER go back. I am happy teaching college. My parents and my grandmother was a teacher. I have 5 aunts and 6 uncles that are and were teachers. Go into a classroom. Visit for ONE day. Think about it. Then you will know. I am not trying to flame you, but I dont think you are on target here.

 

I know what you mean! My wife is a Middle School Teacher, and I can't believe what she goes through from both the students, and the administration! I visited her classroom one day before Christmas, and she asked me to watch the classroom for a moment she spoke with a student out in the hall who had hit another student. After about 2 or 3 minutes, I was ready to jump out the window. I had to grab my wife to save me. I don't know how she controls those kids at all!

I definitely think teachers are underfunded, underpaid, understaffed, and that the No Child Left Behind concept of competency tests are not well devised. The unions are a lifesaver.

 

Binky,

I know. My goodness. My grandma taught me the way she taught her kids. I am working on my PhD at the University of Houston, so she wasnt that bad. It was amazing on the kids that she taught WROTE back to her to thank her. I am serious. My grandma was in her 80's and her kids wrote to her. Now, the teachers are lynched and strung up. I taught in a charter school. I was so tired and get this, the kids actually liked me. There was( and still is) no discipline and the parents sent them to us for babysitting. It is and was unreal. I wouldnt teach in a public school for all the money in the world. ( I taught 7 th grade). One last note to you and Randell, my wife starts her PhD at Northcentral April 1. She loves the program and will finish before I do( She should finish in 2008 and me in 2009). Congrats to you and Randell and good luck. What is your dissertation topic, if you dont mind hyping it up?

 

This thread got me to thinking just what it is about the U.S. that makes it such a great place to live. And it is a great place to live; I've been around the world and never seen anywhere I'd like better, or even as well) Here's what I think, FWIIW:

The U.S. is to the rest of the world like (forgive me, red staters) California is to the U.S. The ultra liberals and the wacked out right drive me nuts and each seems to be in power in alternating years and levels of government. BUT.

In the U.S., there is a sense of POSSIBILITY. Nothing really restricts anyone from pursuing his or her professional, financial, spiritual, or material dreams. There is no real class system as there is throughout Europe and Asia and even in Canada; we have made progress on our racial problems, we are addressing handicap populations as well...

We have no religious tests (yet), we make higher education available to literally anyone who wants to try it (in this we're almost unique), we have a great sense of the desirability of leaving the people alone.

An American whose life doesn't work can recreate himself in any way he chooses.

We have a profound and well grounded distrust of allowing those in authority to make decisions FOR us; we prefer to think for ourselves even if the results are horrible.

An American is tremendously FREE and that means free of paternalism as well as freedom from oppression.

If you want to try and make a living as a poodle clipping mime, it's no one's business but your own.

We are enormously creative, not just in the arts but in science and technology and engineering.

We expect our government officials to be honest as a matter of routine. Bribery of officials is very unusual compared with, say, any African or Muslim state or Mexico. A bribe demanded or paid infuriates the average American like nothing else.

Here, you stand or fall on your OWN merits. Maybe we work without a net compared with Europe but nets can restrict as well as save. Life here has flavor!

 

Sure thing, My topic is on military retention and the GWOT. I'm specifically looking at how private sector salaries are affecting them.

By the way, you want to talk about no discipline, and babysiting? My wife was SEXUALLY HARRASSED by a 14 year old 7th grader, who kept whistling at her. So she called the number the parents gave on his contact information card, and it was a fake number. She talked to the administration about it, and they said that they had known, for the last 3 years he had been in mIddle School, his parents give a fake number every time, and they don't ever call, and they never come to PTC meetings. They ended uop just having him go to the office every day during her period every day for the rest of the year. It's terrible.

When parents don't get involved, what can the teachers do?

 

This is an important thread. Pointing out problems in our society is not being un-American. This whole "you don't like it, leave" bs is so tiring. If your best friend was having problems in his marriage, would your knee-jerk reaction be "get a divorce." No, you'd help him sort it out. That's what needs to be done in this country. Liberals love this country just as much as conservatives - perhaps more so.

At the heart of it all, it's not even a liberal vs. conservative issue. It's an issue about capitalism and money-making, and both parties are guilty. Instead of taking our problems with education, health care, the economy, the war, poverty, and the environment seriously, we sit around fascinated with celebrity. We're more concerned with Martha Stewart losing twenty pounds in prison, and doesn't she just look great? To think, you can get convicted of a felony and INCREASE your celebrity. What a country!

We are a society completely alienated from ourselves. We don't know our neighbors. We don't really give a damn about our communities. What's important is what makes money. Sometimes the two mesh together nicely, and things that really are important also make money and make life better. Often the two diverge terribly.

Did anyone watch 60 Minutes last night - the segment about the teenager who murdered two police officers and a dispatcher? The wonderful video game Grand Theft Auto gave him a very realistic simulated practice for his big day. In a certain sense it doesn't really matter whether it can be proved or not that the game had something to do with the murders. No one can argue with the fact that the game is absolute crap, and that anyone who spends anytime whatsoever playing it has completely wasted his or her time. Is it any wonder that we lag in math, science, reading, or any academic subject you want to name?

We have elevated money and celebrity above all else. We get our style from Martha. We learn business from Donald Trump. We take vicarious pleasure in watching people humiliated on reality tv - whether it's someone dumped into a vat of worms, or feasting on the "fat actress" Kirstie Alley. Video games entertain us with simulated murder.

But it must be the teachers' fault. Yeah, it must be the teachers' union.

Help out your kid's teacher. Turn off your tv. Play Scrabble instead. Take a walk; ride a bike; talk to your neighbor, or your daughter.

 

Tom- I agree wholeheartedly
Binky,

My wife is doing her dissertation over schizophrena and I am doing mine over the WPA's Federal Writers' Project.

 

Tom- I agree wholeheartedly
Binky,

My wife is doing her dissertation over schizophrena and I am doing mine over the WPA's Federal Writers' Project.

 

Re: Collective repsonse....

This is true. But stuff you posted was NOT intelligent criticism.

 

Re: Re: Collective repsonse....

And I say your handle name starts with a "B" not an "S"..... (has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?).....

Prove that it wasn't intelligent..... I can assure you it sure as hell wasn't ignorant or deluded, as many of your ilk on the conservative side so aptly demonstrates each and every time you open your mouths, or put fingers to keyboard....

 

What?

 

Re: Re: Re: Collective repsonse....

Hey, as an alien I have no control over american politics and therefore do not pay particular attention. Bush strikes me as peculiarly mediocre person for a President, but I live it to actual voters to judge him. And you, sir, draving conclusions about people you know nothing about, show little intelligence yourself.

Intelligent? What's intelligent about it? It is merely a bunch of unrelated trivia bundled with biased and immature comments, with no attempt at analysis whatsoever. And the last sentence is a direct lie. The only point of this piece is seems to be "America sucks". Very constructive. Very adult. Sheesh!

 

Teachers Unions

It strikes me that control of the congress has changes hands over the last thirty years, and control of the White House has also changed over the last thirty years. The same process has happened on the state and local levels, but the one thing that has not changed has been the Teaching Unions. If there has been a steady decline in education under both parties over the last several decades, I'm inclined to look at the one common element. I'm putting myself up for an angry response, I know, but I don't think I'm being unreasonable. When was the last time the NEA supported an administraitive initiative regarding public school education?

Anyway, I don't teach and I don't have family that teach. My family are mostly "evil" union electricians and carpenters.

Video-game violence and sexual harrassment from teenagers certainly is a problem, and I'm inclined to support handling situations like that with expulsion and adult prison sentences for the perpetrators involved, but that's just me.

I pay a good amount of taxes, and they will be used to continue the progressively worstening system of public education. I will bear the burden of sending my daughter to a montessori school or other private institution so that she will have the benefit of a quality education without all of the politics of the NEA.

Continue to blame the current president all you like, but it was bad under his predecessor and it was bad before Reagan too.

 

You are oversimplifying a bit. There are numerous factors why kids do not excel in school.

1) Parents who don't care.
2) Too many alternate distractions
3) Priorities messed up (sports first, education second)
4) Kids bombarded on TV and Music with "shortcuts" to success
5) Teachers responsible for everything except basic education (they are counselors, referees, sex-educator, sociogists, police officers, ministers, etc. etc.)
6) Too much focus on what "feel goods" vs. making the kids do the work.
7) Voilence, being lazy, and just not caring
8) A switch from fundamentals to polictical correctness
9) a a never-ending bureaucracy

I have seven kids and my wife and I tried all the options. Public schools, private schools, and homeschool. I have a daughter-in-law who teaches in public schools -- middle school. She has shown me English assignments that are were completed by children in the eighth grade -- it was a disgrace; they could not spell, structure a simple sentence, and displayed a very, very simple vocabulary; one paper (2 pages long) had NO punctuation.

Here are couple of examples of what I am talking about.

Here in town they just finshed spending millions of dollars upgrading schools and they are watching utilization. The school where my daughter-in-law teaches had an empty classroom they used for "teacher time" (prepare lessons, etc.). The school broad said that the school was lose a portion of its funding if that classroom was not utilized. What did they do? They rotated classes every 20 minutes to make sure it was used. My daughter-in-law said she wasted about 40 mintues of classroom time EVERY DAY, shuffling kids back and forth.

My daughter's high school had a parent-swap day, where parents came to school with their children for the day and participated in every class (each class was half the time). In exchange for your parents participation you got a day off. Her high school had about 3,500. Both years I went, less than 250 parents participated. I could not begin to explain what the classroom was like. The disrespect, rudeness, and total lack of attention really surprised me.

My children went to a public school where 75% of the students were from an upper middle class socio-economic background.

I am not a fan on the teachers union, but I would not want to be a teacher without one. It is like being in a war zone with no weapons.

 

As someone who as lived not only in the US but two other leading nations (Canada and Australia) I concur with this statement.

Personally, I think that the statistics bear out the fact that in the US, the rich are richer and the poor can be worse off than they would be in other leading nations because the bell curve is wider. Regressive taxation and entrenched social programs will tax the well-off and pay it back to those who don't or can't earn.

Friends of mine that live in Canada and Australia can't imagine coming to the US, probably because they believe statistics such as those posted - the US is "violent", "nasty", etc. Granted, I'll say that from a quality-of-life perspective it was darn hard to beat Sydney's lifestyle, even if the taxes were high, manufactured goods were expensive and a flight anywhere took way too long...

Those people that I know who came from Canada and Australia to the US did so to pursue better work opportunities, and otherwise "be where it's at". Granted, I'm speaking from an IT perspective - I can't comment on other industries.

I agree that just saying "love it or leave it" is pointless, but at the same time if one always complains about their native country then one should consider returning to it. There are two sides to this story...

Cheers,
Mark

 

I have to say, for the first time ever, I find myself in complete agreement with everything Tom has posted.

 

Apparently!

 

Oh my gosh,

I agree with Jimmy. This is like weird. Just so you know, I am also Tireman44.......I am down to two more books for my class Jimmy. I think I can make it. Unbelievable.

 

you don't get it

I think you are correct. Saying that we should have a discussion that looks at a true analysis of some very negative trends in our society and culture without casting aspersion on the messenger would be very valuable to both sides of the political spectrum.

However, saying "The USA is "No. 1" in nothing but weaponry, consumer spending, debt, and delusion." is not part of an analysis of our problems. You post your side of the story, true or biased it doesn't matter, and then try to incite anger by slamming our country. If you posted all those points that you did and said, "what do you all think of this", the response would have been different.

You cannot expect people to engage in discussion when you post comments that are intended to insult or irate people.

That’s why I believe that your goal is not to engage in discussion but to sway people to be against our government and our country. I believe that you have no intellectual goals with your comments, just an intention to insult and irate people.

By the way, good job!

 

Re: you don't get it

Thanks for the compliments on "good job" by the way....

But, so sorry to disappoint..... you are actually the one who doesn't "get it".....

The last statement in the post about the USA being number one in weaponry, etc. (all of which is quite true, by the way), was actually from the article from the Austin newspaper that this came from.... wasn't my statement at all other than as the poster of this information.

I could come up with lots of other things the USA is number one at, some good, some bad.....

For example, we are number one at producing girl singers without a sense of melody or any intellect whatsoever.

We're number one at producing slut-tycoons like Paris Hilton, and are number one at giving them the publicity to strut their stuff to every home in America through our number one commercialized TV channels.

We're number one in information technology, but our leaders (both public and corporate) are working very hard to hand that strategic advantage away to any outsourcer who will do the job for slightly less, devastating a once proud profession but worse yet sacrificing our leadership in this area for short term (and ultimately ephemeral) profits.

Can you add to this list?