#american education

[sluttyquarantinetheory]

In the United States it's common for high schools to stage a simulated lethal crash to teach kids about the dangers of distracted or impaired driving. This often includes fake blood and first responders to stage rescuing people from the crash. Is this done anywhere outside the United States? I don't feel like it is. So I ask

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

I learned something pretty F**king depressing this weekend.

(Inspired to finally write about this by this post)

I watched this video from Zoe Bee: What are English Classes FOR? where I learned that some universities, and even high schools, are eliminating English classes altogether (literature, that is, not learning the language), on the grounds that once someone knows the mechanics of how to read, write, and spell, there’s no need to study the meaning of literature or practice the craft of writing, and time would be better spent teaching students specific skills useful in employment, and earning a wage.

As someone who went to grad school for a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing only thirty years ago, I feel like a creature who’s just starting to realize their species is going extinct. And it’s a lonely, scary, feeling.

I have two responses to this:

1) The skills of interpretation and expression that (have been, in the past) taught in English classes are, in fact, “marketable.” When I was a freshman in college going for my BA in English, in the late 1980s, the biggest employer for recent graduates from that program was the software division of IBM -- because they realized they needed people to write the instruction manuals for their computer programs in a way that their customers could understand.

2) Learning how to interpret stories includes learning how to recognize when someone is lying to you. Learning how to tell stories includes learning how to speak truth to power, and how to inspire people to join in solidarity. Removing opportunities to learn these things is awfully convenient to those who want to uphold the Status Quo -- or worse: revert to the Status Quo of even more repressive times.

[akonoadham]

[shadoedseptmbr]

My evening school district wide meeting about middle school to high school transitions can be summed up like this:

Has your 13 yr old picked up an ulcer and panic disorder yet? Well, they need to pick a college major by Thanksgiving so we're going to help them out. Also, who needs extracurricular activities when you can be certified in welding by age 17. It's almost free!

[ineffectualdemon]

I will never forget that in middle school because I have no musical talent I didn't join band or choir and I also had no athletic ability so I wasn't on a sports team so during the period everyone was else was doing one of those things the rest of us no talent kids had to take "Reading class" where we just read books

And that sounds nice except I was a fast reader and I was only allowed to read 2 pages of the book in question a day. I was not allowed to read ahead of the class and I was not allowed to read my book from home or even work on my homework.

But if I looked too bored the teacher would get mad at me for that and for not reading and "I read it already" was met with a look of disgust and being told to read it again.

So for like an hour I would either stare into space or read the same 2 pages over and over and over again

And I couldn't even hide my book from home behind my textbook because she watched me like a hawk

Why?

Because the teacher of that class fucking hated me for god knows what reason

Anyway I hated the Odyssey for years because I was forced to read it at an absolute snails pace in middle school and it took me a long time to separate out the story from that experience

[batwynn]

Listen. I had teachers who treated me very badly, I mean openly and proudly mistreated me just because they could. I had teachers who outright abused me/physically hurt me. I’ve had these types of teachers through all of my childhood, and well into college. The American education system, itself, is a fucking mess and it needs a major overhaul. If anyone has a right to be angry about teachers, it’s me. But look. Not all teachers are the same, and we need to emphasize that rather than blame teachers like some kind of monolith.

We need to be more careful with these sweeping proclamations of ‘all teachers bad’, because there’s a distinct alt-right pipeline happening right there in front of us that not only relies on people turning their backs on education/educators but is literally packed with people spreading violent hatred for teachers and school. People are quite literally calling for teachers to be killed. This is a real thing that’s really happening, and people need to be careful about falling into these movements.

Teachers are important. Teachers are struggling to educate our kids in the worst systems, worst timelines, worst period of mass pandemic, just worst timing ever. Teachers are severely underpaid, mistreated, abused by staff and students alike, and have a very high chance of being shot and murdered. Are there bad teachers out there? Yes. But please, please, please try to avoid making statements that feed into the alt-right’s fight against eduction and teachers. They want people uneducated and angry. They prey on angry kids and teens who were let down by their parents, the education system, etc. That’s been in their game plan since their first rise to power, and they’re not changing it up all that much. It’s right there in our history.

So let’s try to remember the good teachers, people out there trying to keep education truthful and helpful. Teachers crying as they pack up their libraries in Florida because of the massive book bans. Teachers who want us to learn about our histories, even the bad parts, because it teaches us how to grow and be better. Teachers who use the right pronouns for their kids, who support their queer and questioning kids, who protect them the best they can. Teachers who support their Black students, and stand up for them in a system built against them. Teachers who want these kids to thrive, even in the face of literal life-threatening dangers from every side. Please remember them, and please try to avoid sweeping statements that feed into alt-right programming.

[factoidfactory]

Random Fact #6,401

Most Gen Z Americans don't know how to read or write cursive, meaning they can't read anything written for a good chunk of history.

Note: This is not true for many parts of the world, where cursive is still taught.

[mydogistryingtobreakintomycloset]

I wonder if collegeboard will ever include questions about themselves in the curriculum. given they don't collapse, they're officially part of US history and known for providing an alternative to the outrageous cost of a college credit via AP, but I wonder if they'd ever include in their AP US history curriculum that they had a part in exploiting America's fucked up education system as a 'better' alternative. they won't, but it would be funny if they did.

[eveningdawn222]

idk why no one talks about it but there is something so psychologically damaging about having teachers for parents. esp in the us where teachers r expected to be answering emails until 10 at night, where there's no real work-life balence because at some point. at some point you realize you're not really their kid. you're just student who lives in their house. and it's not their fault! you get it, when they can't treat you differently at school, because that would be unfair to the other kids, but at what point do those kids know your parents better than you do? at what point do you look at your mom across the gym during assembly and realize that your mom know her students better than she does you?

and it's always "oh that's so-and-so's kid, i took a pd course with them." and your teachers all know your name before they even call attendance. and your mom says on the car home "your teacher was talking to me about how you've fallen to a b in english." when the other kids barely scraping c's don't even get an email home all year. its learning cursive on the floor of your mother's classroom while she grades until it's dark outside. it's the empty halls of your elementary school being so familiar you can almost feel the carpet beneath your feet but you can't quite remember the color of your childhood home's front door. did we have a fence out front? i can't remember but the layout of my 4th grade classroom is seared into my brain.

and you're only ever around adults because your peers all seem a little too young a little too immature because you're only ever around adults because your peers all seem too young -

but it's always the mantra of "you can't talk about this with your friends" at the dinner table and the disillusionment that comes with realizing you have to keep secrets from your friends because otherwise your mom could lose her job. it's half the school knowing stories about yourself that you don't remember. it's learning algebra before you learn to ride a bike because theres not time for that between early mornings and late nights.

its your dad missing your little sisters birthday three years in a row for a conference on the opposite coast. it's your mom sobbing at the dining room table because the kids are so stressful this year, so you don't ask for help because she's the one who needs it. it's your dad going straight to problem solving when you break down in tears and you can't even be mad because he's the one with the psych degree. obviously he's the one who knows the best about this.

it's "they're trying their best" and "it's the administrations fault" and "the real problem is the system" because you need a parent but you get a teacher. and it's almost enough. she comes to your little league games but when you look up from the field she's turned away, talking to a woman with bleach blonde hair who mispronounces your sisters name.

they sit in the front row for every graduation but yours.

[thebestpartofwakingup]

NEW HIGHLY SPECIFIC POLL!!! DO NOT FUCKING RUIN MY NUMBERS DO NOT TOUCH IF IT DOESNT APPLY TO YOU THE TUMBLR POLLS ARE THE UNCANNY VALLEY OF DATA THE SOCIOLOGY BA YEARNS FOR MULTIVARIATE ASSESSMENTS

Please reblog for spread!

[archivlibrarianist]

From the article:

"Assistant Superintendent Bridgette Exman had a difficult task — How could she vet 42 books, several of which she hadn't read, to determine if they needed to be removed from Mason City's school libraries, as a new state law required?"

Did "read, or at least skim the books" come to mind? Did "check reviews of the book" come to mind? Did "ask colleagues who have read the book" come to mind?

No. Of course not.

Back to the article:

"Her conversations with colleagues across the state gave her an idea: Maybe AI could help."

"So the Mason City Community School District administrator took a list of 42 titles for review that the district had compiled from banned book lists around the U.S. and called up ChatGPT on her computer.

"Then she typed: 'Does [book] describe a sex act?' plugging in a book title, and waited for the answer."

No considerations of whether the "depictions of a sex act" were within a context that was appropriate, for example, in a sex education book, or in the case of Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, a non-graphic discussion of masturbation.

It's going to get worse from here.

[b0bthebuilder35]

[sucka99]

[metalheadsforblacklivesmatter]

-fae

[despabibo]

The admin at my school was so upsetting today.

I caught 15 of my students building swastikas in a computer game so I kicked them off and wrote them all up. I called admin to come help- no one came.

Admin spoke to me at lunch: “There’s nothing we can do about this issue. Do not email parents unless they email you first.”

I’m at a loss for words and have no idea what to do. I cannot let this slide and I refuse to let this be pushed under the rug. I have banned video games for the rest of the school year but it does not feel like enough.

What am I, as a teacher, meant to do without support from the higher ups when disciplinary issues happen? When hate crimes are committed in my classroom and I’m told nothing can be done? That nothing will be done?