Cheaper by the dozen (Score:1, Troll)

Journal mcgrew's Journal: Cheaper by the dozen (Score:1, Troll) 3

Journal by mcgrew on Friday December 12, 2008 @04:53PM

by mcgrew (92797) * on Friday December 12, @12:47PM (#26093749) Journal
So boasting a stunning readership in the dozens
Not today!
"Why did you throw me to the wolves like that?"
Priceless! IMO she deserved it. She should have mentioned the kid's being disruptive in the first place, and not accused Helios of malfeasance.
I'd like to see a Windows-free educational system. I can't see my tax dollars wasted on something unnecessarily expensive when the money couold go somewhere more necessary, like fixing the buildings or paying the teachers better. If they were better paid, perhaps we wouldn't have such incompetent ones, and I say that as a dad who fought my own school district when my now grown kids were in school. Of every ten teachers I've met, one MIGHT have been a good one.

I wish we had the old slashdot back, where when you clicked on the score it told you how many people modded and how, instead of linking back to the comment.

My guess is that some person, most likely one of the nine in ten teachers who would serve society better by flipping burgers, modded it "troll", reducing its score to 0, then someone else mdded it "underrated".

My bias against public school teachers comes from one thing: my personal experience with the public school system.

Teachers hate nerds.

I was very fortunate to first, have parents who read to us kids and instilled a love of reading, and second to have been blessed with an excellent first grade teacher.

She was one of three (no she wasn't a Borg). Once I learned to read, they really didn't teach me very much after that, at least until I reached college. The instructors at my university were excellent.

My second grade teacher found me reading a book geared to a sixth grade educational level. "You can't read that!" she exclaimed.

"Why not?" I asked.

"You just can't!"

"But why not?"

"Well read it aloud then!"

So I did. She was flabbergasted and showed my reading prowess off to the principal and some other teachers.

My third grade teacher was perhaps the worst. She was AWFUL. She finally got fired for taping a kid's mouth shut, but not before she made me practically innumerate. I was thirty before I really learned how numbers worked; my Timex-Sinclair 1000 taught me math.

What's worse was they taught the "new math", so my parents couldn't help me with it at all. A generation later they went back to the old math (probably after discovering that the new math produced inumerates) so THAT generation was without parents' help.

My fifth grade teacher was excellent.

My high school art teaher was excellent, as well. He got fired for teaching instead of "teaching".

I recounted my Junior High experiences here.

I figured it was just the school district I went to, until I had kids of my own, who were taught in a different school district. Their teachers were no better than mine had been.

My oldest daughter suffers from two problems: she's "educationally handicapped"; and lazy. She was diagnosed by the schools as being mentally retarded, but I think they're wrong. I think she has a touch of asperger's.

I saw that she had good problem solving abilities. The teachers wound up doing her work for her, despite my objections. By the end of the year each and every one told me "you were right, she isn't dumb" but it was too late, the next year brought a new teacher who wouldn't listen and who made the same mistakes as the previous one.

My youngest inhereted my love of reading and learning, and was pronounced "gifted".

But in kindergarten they had a new thing called "invented spelling", getting kids who didn't know how to read writing papers.

She still can't spell worth shit. I suspect many slashdotters suffered through this as well, the loosers ;)

Now watch, I made a stupid spelling mistake somewhere I'm sure.

But in Junoior High she had an assistant principal who was black, racist, and mysogonist (I bet I spelled that wrong). He was fired several years later, but not before making Patty (and most likely every other white girl there) hate school.

She, the "gifted student", wound up dropping out. She later got her GED and now manages a GameStop, and plans on going to college to study music.

My incompetent teachers failed it. Both my kids' incompetent teachers and administrators failed it.

I feel sorry for the competent teachers, their lives must be a living hell.

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