[gonehome]

Also because teachers have trouble with it. I’d guess out of all the teachers I had at a decent public school, probably only 1 in 5 could be reasonably considered critical thinkers.

I’d guess 2 in 5 were actively hostile to the concept and the rest were just ambivalent.

Illegitimate (or at least arbitrary) authority is something schools seem to thrive on. Our school had a staircase you could only go up and one you could only go down and you got yelled at if you went the wrong direction. Naturally the building wasn’t made by insane people so the stairs were on opposite ends, this meant if you had to go downstairs but were near the “up only stairs” you had to traverse the entire building and would be late with 3min class change times (and you couldn’t run either).

We also couldn’t talk during the second half of lunch because it was too loud for the lunch monitors.

Underpaid, low status jobs with unions that prevent people from getting fired is a great way to end up with dumb, awful people in those positions. I was lucky there were a few great teachers at all given those incentives.

[teucris]

> Underpaid, low status jobs

To me this is the critical problem. Education is an incredibly important part of a well-functioning society, but we treat teachers very poorly. We need to elevate teachers, both in the training & expertise needed as well as the pay and autonomy we provide them.

[nullserver]

Married to a teacher.

Logic has no part in most elementary classrooms.

I argue we need to go dumber.

Have a basic certification that you can teach vowel sounds. Bring in plenty of cheap people to lower grades and have them work 1 on 1 with each student.

Seen way to much of teachers teaching to what the kids are supposed to be capable of, vs what they actually are.

[legerdemain]

I've seen the inside of an elementary grade classroom before, and I agree with you 100%. So many American children and even adults mispronounce vowel sounds, it's scary. Something around 60% of American adults look at a simple word like "iron" and say something that resembles "I yearn." Did no one tell them how it sounds?

[nullserver]

Was in a senior in high school French. Teacher was explaining how to translate present participle. Complete blank stares. Only thing anyone knew was noun and verb. Teacher had a complete meltdown.

So for next week em the entire school, every English class was School house Rock videos.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DCdt8-H1BFY&feature=youtu.be

[CyberDildonics]

What does that have to do with what you replied to?

[NoSorryCannot]

I trust you pronounce "knight" and "whale" the way that gave them that spelling instead of relying on your inventory of sounds and phonotactics that you picked up from your community of native speakers.

[brighton36]

I like you. Including your username. I'm surprised your comments aren't down voted more. They're honest. People don't seem to like that these days.

[legerdemain]

Reach out and touch me.

[908B64B197]

That's why you vote for lower taxes so you can reinvest the savings in the local private school!