🚀 go-pugleaf

>> In dfw.general apt <aptex@nospamhotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Honest question Steve. Do really think kids have the same respect today
>for
>> > teachers and parents than kids when you grew up ?
><srt@nospam.unt.edu> wrote in message
>news:a3c8vr$okf$1@hermes.acs.unt.edu...
>> For the most part, yes, I do think so.  Let me add other data point:
>> I'm a professor at UNT, so I see a hundred or so kids every year that
>> have gone through the public schools here.  There have been changes
>> over the past 11 years that I've been teaching at universities, but I
>> have never had any problems with lack of respect or failure to accept
>> authority, either now or in the past.
>>
>> Now if you want to talk about the astounding decrease in mathematical
>> preparation of students over the past 15 years, I'll rant and rave about
>> that for a while!  :-(
>>
>> > I'm assuming of course that your 30+.
>>
>> Pretty safe bet....  :-)
>>
>> > I can say personally, we didn't dare back talk a teacher or our parents
>> > growing up, out of respect.
>>
>> Teachers, yes.  And I haven't seen anything to make me think this has
>> changed.
>>
>> But parents?  Oh please....  unless someone entirely skips the ages of
>> 3 to 18, I doubt there's a single kid anywhere in the world that
>> hasn't back talked their parents.  It's part of being a kid and
>> testing limits.  The only question is whether the parents let them get
>> away with it (which I hope they don't!).
>>
>> --
>> Steve Tate --- srt[At]cs.unt.edu | Gratuitously stolen quote:
>> Dept. of Computer Sciences       | "The box said 'Requires Windows 95, NT,
>> University of North Texas        |  or better,' so I installed Linux."
>> Denton, TX  76201                |
>
On Thu, 31 Jan 2002 14:34:16 -0600, "apt" <aptex@nospamhotmail.com>
wrote:

>Fair enough. Maybe it's the particular school I teach in (HS), but at our
>level, I don't remember the chaos that I see everyday back in my High School
>days. I remember a true fear, of smarting off to a teacher or my parents.
>And no, my parents never beat me. In fact, I can only remember 1 or 2
>spankings growing up.
> Oh, and believe me, with 3 teenagers I've experienced the talking back.
>
>Just a point, could it be that the students you see, are not the ones that I
>am talking about ? Motivated, good students whom are looking for a education
>? Versus those that cause the most trouble in High School who are the least
>likely to attend a University ?


A subject dear to my heart. ;)  Steve points out my experience quite
nicely.  The academic quality of education today is a disgrace when
compared to that of 40-50 years ago.  Point in fact, the engineers of
the time put men on the moon with mathematics-science skills taught in
the 1930-1950s.  Todays freshmen are completely lost if they have a
dead battery.  Now to your(apt) point about seeing differences in in
the respect and discipline.

I think what you see is the same exact thing you would have seen in
1955.  The schools in the large cities were contending with gangs, zip
guns and yes even drugs.  They had severe disciplinary problems.  The
smaller mor rual schools had no such problems, or nearly none.
Remember that hoary old movie 'Blackboard Jungle' or 'Westside Story'.
They really weren't all that far off, except maybe on the soft side of
fact.

Todays schools in rural areas are not the small close knit districts
that were very reflective of their particular community such as was
the case until the latter 1950s.  It was in those years that the
professional education administrators really got the consolidation
monster rolling.  It was an easy sell for two reasons, the first was
the argument that kids would get better educated in super schools
equipped with all the latest gee-gaws.  Secondly, and I suspect the
most powerful was the argument they made that all this marvelous
education would be cheaper because of centralized administration etc.
Both claims proved false, but by the time the facts sunk in, it was
far to ingrained in politics to back track.

The reason small private, or parochial schools do better in large part
is not just that the parents care more(which they do), or that the
teachers are better(sometimes only), but mostly that they are in
direct contact with the parents and community. The
principal/Superintendent is easily accessible. Note that this works
both ways, the principalor teacher can also contact the parent more
easily.   Try to even get an appointment with todays superintendents
of huge school districts.  You're more apt to get an audience with
King George in Wash D.C..

The problems and causes in public education are myriad, but one hell
of a lot of them would be solved in rural and middle america simply by
busting up those huge consolidated school districts, at least in the
elementary and middle school levels.  Urban schools require different
solutions, and I claim know knowledge of what the solutions might be.
I do know that unless the two types are separated and looked at
individually one or the other will always fail from any given
universally applied 'solution of the week'.

M