Friday, February 27, 2009
Shining the light on more ignorant mistatements of fact.
No - student teachers are NOT on the payroll. Student teaching is the capstone course in the college program to become a state certified teacher. One actually pays the equivalent tuition of 5, 3 hour courses and an additional $250.00 fee to help offset the expense of the Armstrong professor who makes repeated trips down to the school to observe your teaching. My last professorial visit was earlier this week. He cancelled any further trips because he was that impressed with my teaching ability. So, no, I am not now nor have I ever been, on the payroll of the Camden County School Board. As to Sandy's wife: she is now a RETIRED para-professional from the BOE. Incidentally, I designed and taught an excellent course all this week on "Personal Finance." The state standards required this this year for the very first time for sixth graders. There was no text book available for it. Fortunately, by virtue of my twenty years in the insurance and financial services industry, I was able to write the course myself and publish all of the needed handouts, worksheets, lecture notes, the final exam, and the lesson plan to cover an extensive Personal Finance Vocabulary, Smart Shopping Guide, How to Buy a Car, Credit, Insurance (to include auto, homeowners, life, health, diasability, dental, SSDI, and Workers' Comp.) It went quite well. By e-mail, I made the course materials available to all other sixth grade social studies teachers in the county. The point is, I am VERY good at this. Yet, there are people who, because they disagree with me politically, would deprive their kids of a way above average teacher. How stupid.
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I remember this class in high school 15 years ago. 9th grade math was called Consumer Math. I found it very valuable, and it was presented at the right age and experience. Many 6th graders in my child's class had a very difficult time understanding the concepts of the course with one instructor at SMMS this year - mine as well. I even met with the instructor at the beginning of the course, and she couldn't even begin to describe what it was she was going to be teaching. The material was not available to the parents for review prior to two days before classes were to begin, then books are not allowed home, nor any of the hand-outs, ect. leaving us parents - who were trying to help our children succeed - at a loss for adequate information. I even sent numerous requests to view my childs graded classwork/homework/quizzes/tests, only to have them go unanswered. Honestly, I wish I would have had the chance to view the material, as it was my favorite course in high school. The instructor had no information at our initial meeting, and while she was supposed to follow up with me, she didn't. I am the one to fault as I should have made it a point to follow up myself. Maybe I could have helped my child better had I known it was basically similar to the Consumer Math. Maybe I am a little confused, but why not use math/business/economic instructors presenting the course to the students as opposed to a social studies instructor?However, knowing it was presented by a Social Studies instructor does help explain things. I wish our Literature Instructors, Math Instructors and Language Instructors could get us a championship football team - THEN THEY WOULD BE RUNNING THE BOE INSTEAD OF HEALTH COACHES! But that's another subject all together....
I am happy to see them teach this kind of stuff to kids these days. This is good, real life information that kids need to know and understand before venturing into the real world. I wonder if this should be High School curriculum though. That way it will be a little more fresh in the mind when they leave for the real world. What do you think?
As for the ESPLOST, I am still on the fence. The way I see it, we will be taxed one way or another for the expansion of the school system. If not ESPLOST, then ad-valorum or some other way. At least with an ESPLOST, we the citizens of the county will not be the only ones paying. If the ESPLOST fails on the polls, then we will be the only ones paying. You cant put a price tag on education. But, maybe it takes having worked you ass of for one to realize that. Teachers cant make kids learn just like you cant make a horse drink. It has to be instilled by the parents, wanted by the kids, and presented attractively by the teacher. So we cant blame the schools for all of the failures in the tests and exams. That would be like blaming the pencil for misspelling words. Jay, I know you know the challenges you face in teaching. It says something about you to want to tackle these challenges head on and make a difference in a kids life. I commend you for that choice and hope it was for all the right reasons. I, with real sincerity, do wish you the best of luck in your new career.
My excellent host teacher and I are equally mystified - as I'm sure are 6th grade Social Studies teachers all over the state - as to why the state standards gurus decided to plug this in in the sixth grade. The kids do find it interesting, as evidenced by the million questions they come up with. However, I tend to agree that it might be a tad early at age twelve. For a tweleve year old, the 6 years between then and atrtianing legal majority are an eternity. I have encouraged all of the kids in the class I am hosted in to save all of the handouts in a three ring binder for when they are ready to buy that first car, and home and so forth.
This requirement was new this year. My guess is that when they went about looking for a text on the subject published for a sixth grade audience, none existed to buy. I can see where some instructors may have been temporarily adrift in the abscence of a text, but most are quite adept at researching avaialable materials on the internet. I had the fgood fortune of having it all stored in that spongy gray drive between my ears.
Does anyone know if they teach this stuff again somewhere in high school? Do they still have what used to be called "home economics?"
Oh, and thanks for the good wishes.
Oh, and, by the way, "consumer math" was included in my course by way of real life problems. We did unit pricing (i.e, cost per ounce, lb, dozen, etc.), what is the percentage of discount on a buy 3 get one free deal, how much do you have to buy at Sams to recover the cost of your $50.00 membership fee, etc. etc. We also calculated the initial offer to make on a new car. We looked at slightly redacted photocopies of the actual declarations pages from both my homeownners and automobile policies. We went over the perils of credit cards. It was very thorough.
By the way, I encouraged teh students to show all of the handouts to their parents and ask them if they thought it was "important stuff to know."
If you think about it, at the middle school level, the Sociasl Studies teachers are actually the most logical choice to teach this, if it has to be taught at that level. There are no economics or business teachers in the middle schools.
if all this was covered by you, what was the math teacher doing?
what happened to history?
im not degrading anyones job but looks to me you were teaching simple math and took all the work load off 2 teachers because my neice said she had your course and liked you but had no history and math work load went way down.
so i thank you, but ask what were the other teachers doing?
seapro
History falls within the purview of Social Science. As to what the three 6th grade math teachers were doing, I was of course not in their classes, but it is a very simple matter to find out what they were doing - as it is to find out what teachers of any subject in any grade in any school int he entire state of Georgia are doing. Simply go to
https://www.georgiastandards.org/Standards/Pages/BrowseStandards/BrowseGPS.aspx
and look at the mandated "standard" for that class at that grade level.
By the way, you will see that I not only covered the minimal standard, but went beyond it with even more - way more - than the required minimum - as most good teachers will do.
it was never questioned of the standards. as you stated most teachers will go way beyond standards. my aunt,grandmother are retired teachers with over 60 years in it (combined)grand dad 36
as teacher,priciple retired as superintendent. and they were no way paid this kind of money even for the days back then. i just think too many are thinking about their wallet before thinking of students not all but the top 25%.
seapro
Kudos for teaching this subject matter!
My elementary school (1960 to 1966)in Southern California had a program with the local bank. The banker came every week and we could open our own savings account and make weekly deposits. The subjects you have taught were also discussed. My father elaborated on the program and also took me to the bank every week to deposit money I earned selling lemonade, babysitting, house sitting for neighbors on vacation and washing windows for our elderly Italian neighbor. He expanded on what was taught in the classroom by showing me examples on money management: One day when I told him that a friends parents must be rich because they drove a Cadillac...my Dad loaded me in the car and drove me to the low income housing area of our town. He explained that this was a neighborhood of families on public assistance and then asked me to count how many Cadillacs were in the driveways. We counted several. Then he pointed out that these families had broken windows on their houses, their yards were full of weeds and their homes were in disrepair...then he said "this goes to prove that you can afford anything you really want in America"...it is just a "matter of priority" and that owning a Cadillac was a priority for these welfare families. My father was an aerospace executive who always lived below his means but provided a well rounded home for his family. That graphic example given on a Saturday drive across town has always stuck with me througout my life. I am 54 years old and have never bought a brand new car...I buy newer used cars with 20-25,000 miles on them and take excellent care of them and drive them until they get 200,000 miles on them and then purchase another always private party saving $3,000 to $4,000 over dealer prices. I have never had a big screen TV and bought my first color TV in 1982. I was the last of my peers to get a microwave and a VCR. Yet...I have had a great life and have never felt like I missed out on a thing. My first furniture when my husband and I got married in 1973 was about 15 wooden pear crates for a orchard in Medford, Oregon. We used the crates to build our first entertainment center, end tables and china cupboard. Our first bedstead came from a back alley trash bin...a great iron frame that we sanded and spray painted and had for about 15 years before selling it at a yard sale. Our nation needs to take a step back and learn to do with less...it is very possible and in fact those early days of pear crates and throw away refurbished furniture were some of the happiest days of our marriage. I love to challenge myself and see how little I can get by on in a week...packing my lunch and eating beans and weenies for dinner or scrambled eggs...you can really do with alot less than you think.
The majority of kids now days don't have fathers like mine...in fact, with so many broken homes, they are lucky if they have a father around at all. Perhaps this subject matter is needed today more than ever.
Keep up the good work Jay!
Jay, I am glad to read that you are teaching middle school math. Math teachers are greatly needed at this level. In most areas where the SAT scores are commonly high in the area of math, the Pre-Algebra math class was mandatory in the 6th grade.
Good luck in your new profession.
thank you. I can see how you might have gotten the impression that I will be a math teacher, insofar as I taught the practical application of math in the Persoanl Finance course. Actually, my state certifications will be in Middle Grades Social Studies (History, Geography, Economics, with a touch of Anthropology and Sociology thrown in), Middle Grades Language Arts (English) and Political Science at any level, but it is actually taught at he high school level.
oops! Almost forgot: Social Studies also covers government - both U.S. and international, comparative government, as well as international trade and environmental issues.
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