************
I've spent the past 46 years of my life in education, and I still have an office on the Manoa Campus of the University of Hawaii. If you subtract my first five years when I was a child, and eight years in government and industry, 65 years of my life were spent as a student or working in higher education. Thus, I should know something about this field.
A very recent issue of TIME magazine was entitled, The Life of the American Teacher. Katie Reilly (left) reported on 13 stories of life on a teacher's salary. Here is just one, of Hope Brown, 52, U.S. history teacher at a high school in Kentucky:
Right now, I have a broken tooth that I can’t afford to have fixed. I’ve had to take a sick day before because I didn’t have enough gas to make it to school. I donated plasma twice before my first pay day this year just for gas money. I was really embarrassed when I first had to start doing that because I think of myself as a professional. I have a master’s degree.
There are twelve more. How bad is it as a teacher in Hawaii? Well:
WalletHub released its ranking of best and worst states for teachers in the nation. Hawaii was ranked dead last as the worst teacher-friendly state and state with the lowest annual teacher salary based on cost of living as compared to the 50 states and the District of Columbia
It's tough being a teacher in America, and they are not paid all that much either for all the education they have. It was a decade ago that I was writing my education chapter of SIMPLE SOLUTIONS FOR HUMANITY, and I began composing with much of the above in mind. I wanted to build a case for improving the lot of teachers in Hawaii and the Nation.
So what happened? I will quote from my Huffington Post article of almost eight years ago entitled: America's Education System is Doing Alright!
What???
Yes, American students do very poorly in standardized tests compared with most developed nations. In math, we rank as poorly as 28th place in the eighth grade, with Singapore generally at the top. In science, we are third, compared to South Korea as the top rated in the fourth grade, but drop to 16th place by the time we graduate from high school. In a more recent world survey, the USA dawdled between 17th and and 32nd from reading to math, and Shanghai, China was in first place for all three. While the motivation of being the child of an immigrant could be largely responsible, have you noticed that math and science contests in the U.S. tend to be won by students with Chinese-sounding names?
The latest PISA rankings show that our position in the world has actually dropped. We are now #40 in math to Singapore at #1, with the top seven being in the Orient. We are #25 in science and #24 in reading. Singapore remains #1 in all three. PISA is the acronym for Programme for International Student Assessment.
However, the bottom line is that the above so-called awful condition might not be all that terrible to the future of our nation. If our education has been at risk for more than a generation, why are we unchallenged as the supreme nation? It occurred to me that we are doing something right!
As an engineering professor, I once thought science, technology and math were key to the success of our future. Yes, they're important, but are not enough. If anything, there is too much reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic, and not enough relevance, rigor, respect and relationship-building. For ultimate progress, we need to teach all 7 R's of education.
In my view, not only are we poorly teaching the classical 3R's, but we are hardly doing much about the more important four other R's. I understand this is because our educators also need to optimize, and thy feel these latter R's should be a family responsibility.
Plus:
The average person with a college degree earns almost twice as much as one with a high school degree, but maybe it’s just as well that half of our youth don’t even attempt, for someone has to do the more menial tasks. We can’t afford to be like Qatar, where all the dirty work is done by expatriates.
And:
In this society, everyone cannot be a chief. Most of us will need to be followers. Does it help to be able to read and understand to take orders? Yes, of course, so our system is sub-optimal.
So is the U.S. in trouble? Is the strongest economy ever a generation or two away from mediocrity? Nope. There is one area where we still lead in education: higher education. The total expenditure per student in the U.S. is $18,570, compared to Denmark in second place with $11,600 and Britain in third with $8970.
We have 17 of the 20 best universities in the world. As a nation, we have, apparently, decided to focus on the few who will lead and produce. Even at this stage, there will be more followers than chiefs. But this system is working, and could well be the answer to our success.
So to conclude:
Certainly, educate to minimize the development of the criminal element. Of course, provide every opportunity to all children. The 4 R’s beyond the classical 3R’s are advocated to insure for this more responsible future. If there is a major miracle and some sanity can be found with respect to reducing spending for war, those hundreds of billions of dollars can at least partially be applied to education. We can be better, and I just hope that the cadre of coming graduates will have a higher appreciation beyond profits and power, with an attitude for development in harmony with the natural environment.
So are our teachers mostly babysitters to allow parents to work? That would be too simplistic, but even with Donald Trump as leader of the free world, the USA remains economically, militarily and life-style dominant in a screwed up world. In a back-handed way, educators can take credit for some of this success. 
Incidentally, Republicans have long wanted to abolish the Department of Education, and Trump has inserted a secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, who might be even worse than those Enivonmental Protection Agency hacks.
We can be so much better. A shame, but that's life.
-
Hurricane Sergio, now at 138 MPH, is projected to make a right turn away from Hawaii by early next week. Super Typhoon Kong-Rey is now a tropical storm and will not much affect Japan, nor South Korea.
-
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น