[Hayvok]

> We asked adults who say the public education system is going in the wrong direction why that might be. About half or more say the following are major reasons:

> Schools not spending enough time on core academic subjects, like reading, math, science and social studies (69%) > Teachers bringing their personal political and social views into the classroom (54%) > Schools not having the funding and resources they need (52%)

As someone who has lots of friends in conservative circles, these sentiments ring true. (I am surprised "health decisions / vaccine mandates" aren't in the list.)

A lot of my wife's friends are choosing to homeschool, and #2 on that list is their primary reason. They acknowledge its likely a minority of teachers engaging in that behavior, but their feeling is "it only takes one" to ruin the entire school experience for their kid, and create a ton of problems for them to deal with at home.

(Disclaimer: we homeschool for reason #1 and because my wife was homeschooled and it's a comfortable way for her to run our schedule and home.)

[AlotOfReading]

For many people, #1 and #2 are the same thing. They don't perceive certain topics (e.g. slavery, evolution, gender) as parts of the core academic subjects, but instead as teachers or schools bringing politics into the classroom.

[ThunderBee]

I grew up in the religious south and the amount of stuff considered political is extremely disconcerting. The list includes:

- Climate science

- Evolution

- Geology

- History

- Sex ed.

Essentially they believe in banning anything contradictory to their narrow religious beliefs.

[hobs]

And the question I have for conservatives is, then why doesn't that apply to cops?

Public sector job, unaccountable to the individual, has authority over people we care about, etc.

I have heard more conservatives complain about librarians (again, same deal, except they dont shoot anyone) than cops.

[skhunted]

It’s disconcerting that people who have no training on how to teach think they can do it well enough. Those same people generally seek out those with training to do things in other areas of their life. But when it comes to teaching they think they know better. Asimov’s famous quote on ignorance comes to mind.

EDIT: Do people generally use those without training to provide medical care, fix cars, cut hair, do electrical work, etc.? The answer is no. But when it comes to teaching science to k-12 students it’s ok to use someone with no training? It’s crazy.

[overrun11]

Did you go to college? If so you probably also learned from people with almost no training in teaching. Somehow every college professor in America teaches just fine without this supposedly crucial "training on how to teach."

I also hope you aren't learning online from people like Grant Sanderson (3Blue1Brown), Salman Khan (Khan Academy) who also have no formal training. Side note: I can't name a single popular online teacher that keeps from a typical teaching background.

[skhunted]

College teaching is different than teaching kids. Intellectual maturity comes into play at a certain point. Khan’s explanations and videos have a lot of flaws and are poorly done. At least the math ones that I’ve seen.

[lupire]

Universities are famous for terrible teaching, so not a great examt.

[slothtrop]

If you consider what constitutes this training, you'll realize it doesn't matter, what matters is understanding the core topics and communicating well. Parents aren't teaching a class of 30 students, they can engage on a 1-1 level with their kids.

> But when it comes to teaching science to k-12 students it’s ok to use someone with no training?

That "someone" is you. Do you have any memory of gradeschool at all? Teaching is not complicated, it's just work.

[skhunted]

How do you know this? What is the basis of your conclusion? I’ve taught mathematics for 30 years at the college level. I don’t know how a child should be taught an introduction to fractions. I could look it up and get the gist of it. But then I’d also have to look up how children learn and what cues to look for. How would I know if a kid needs special education? I could look that up too. At what rate should a person learn how to do arithmetic with fractions? I don’t know. I could look it up.

But I’d have to do this with every subject. It’s not feasible. My sister has 8 kids and homeschooled all of them through grade 12. The first 3 went to college but the remaining ones did not. They didn’t learn as much as they should have an all of them have nutty beliefs. They all believe the Union started the Civil War and that slaves were generally treated well.

There are enough knaves and fools. We don’t need to willfully create more of them. There’s a reason teaching requires training. It sounds to me like you’ve never really taught and don’t know what you are talking about.

[AlanYx]

>I’ve taught mathematics for 30 years at the college level. I don’t know how a child should be taught an introduction to fractions.

Some of the best K-12 math teaching initiatives right now are run by college-level math profs who've observed deficiencies in incoming students in freshman level courses and have started volunteering their time at the K-12 level to help. See e.g., Anna Stokke's Archimedes Math program or the Navajo Math Circles program. It's not necessary to have an actual academic background in math education; some of the worst program designs come from that cohort, e.g., Lilijedahl's Building Thinking Classrooms and Boaler's YouCubed.

[skhunted]

Some of the best k-12 math initiatives are being run by people with experience teaching math and with training in mathematics. From this you extrapolate that anyone can teach all subjects and levels in K-12? You conclude that no training is necessary to teach kids. Note that Archimedes program uses people with training in math. They don’t hire just anyone.

Also worth noting: Acceptance into our program is at the discretion of the program supervisors.

One program is successful (largely by selecting participants) and from this you conclude that home schooling is OK?

Obviously you can find examples of people being a great teacher without training in teaching. This is not the basis of good public policy. We don’t conclude that medical degrees are unnecessary because there a few examples of someone “doctoring” well without one.

If you think the average parent qualifies to teach all k-12 topics then you don’t understand how stupid the average person is.

[AlanYx]

I was just responding to that particular point in your post. I don't have any strong views either way on homeschooling.

However, that being said, for math in particular, some of the curricula available to homeschooling parents are truly excellent, especially Beast Academy, JUMP Math, and Singapore Math.

[slothtrop]

> If you think the average parent qualifies to teach all k-12 topics then you don’t understand how stupid the average person is.

No different than the average teacher. edit: I cant reply to your post directly, so I will here: there is no evidence that teachers as a group are more intelligent than the average person.

[VS1999]

Can you be more specific than teaching math "at the college level"? In America, after 13 years of public education by professional teachers, they're lucky if they've even taken an introduction to calculus or trigonometry. Somehow I think I can do better than that.

[skhunted]

Somehow I think I can do better than that.

Dunning-Kruger.

[VS1999]

Ad hominem. The system you're defending has set the bar so incredibly low that I just need to do "okay" and my children are infinitely more well off. Homeschooled kids consistently do far better than kids who attend public school, even by the standards and metrics public schools design. Your "average" is my failure state.

[slothtrop]

Observe the following curriculum and identify just how much of this would factor to homeschooling, and what it would entail: https://www.tc.columbia.edu/curriculum-and-teaching/curricul... .

Not only could core courses be summarized in brief, the bulk of it is relevant because, as I said, teachers have to reach many students at a time. That makes it redundant. Notwithstanding, tutoring gives kids a learning advantage that has been replicated time and time again. The distinguishing factor is focused attention and enhanced communication (two-way). If a parent understands the material and can function in everyday society, they can teach their kids, if they want to.

Most parents do not have 8 kids, they have 1 or 2. If a child is neurodivergent in any respect, then a parent could and should seek out help anyway, which would inform their teaching.

To reiterate, teachers college training does not ensure that your child has an education that focuses on fundamentals and yields effective learning outcomes, nor does it ensure that all teachers do well. Nor do I suggest that any and all parents try their hand at teaching. Those who can grasp basic core concepts in math, and demonstrate adult reading comprehension, ought to fare fine if they want. As for those who don't understand the basics, I don't think your argument would persuade them anyway.

[skhunted]

To reiterate, teachers college training does not ensure that your child has an education that focuses on fundamentals and yields effective learning outcomes, nor does it ensure that all teachers do well.

This is obvious and no one is suggesting this. What I'm suggesting is that the average person can't adequately teach their kids k-12. On average they will do worse than an adequately funded school system and it's better for society not to let amateurs teach great numbers of kids.

[slothtrop]

I know that's what you're suggesting. I'm saying that's wrong and there's no reason to believe it.

[ndriscoll]

All of those things you listed are totally normal for people to DIY. It's kind of bizarre to me that you think otherwise. It's like when Randy on South Park teaches his kids to call the handyman to fix the oven door. Or there's a handyman on youtube who's talked about being called and charging people like $500 to push the button on a GFCI outlet. It's hard to believe he's serious. He's also talked about being called by millennials to change smoke alarm batteries.

[VS1999]

I don't need a degree in babysitting to watch my own kids. That's all teaching is.

[skhunted]

You clearly have never taught. Your statement is profoundly ignorant.