(Part 3) Best books on education & teaching according to redditors
We found 1,744 Reddit comments discussing the best books on education & teaching. We ranked the 884 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 41-60. You can also go back to the previous section.
I disagree.
Most people's notion of "improving" involves their intellectual brain doubling-down on denial and oppression of their natural, animal brain. And this leads to dysfunction, not improvement.
For example...
> if people were to just "be themselves", they'd never improve.
curiosity is a human trait. Ever hear of it? It leads to things like space missions to the moon.
For a better discussion of what I'm talking about, see "Summerhill School" by Neill. Takeaway from Neill's experience: if you provide children with healthy access to psychologically healthy adults, and otherwise leave them the fuck alone, they turn out fantastic. Likewise, if you
abuse them horriblyimprove them since preschool, they turn out all fucked up. Hence the society we see around us.>> Have a source for how they 'perform worse'? By what metric are you measuring performance? The guy you were replying to wasn't saying that the education an average child receives was the best, but that the best education in the world that money can buy is in the US.
And that's absurd. You can't have an education system that only serves the privileged few, education is a god damn human right and does nothing but improve this country.
>> Citation needed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/15/education/15report.html
Private schools don't even outperform public schools in America when you account for factors.
https://www.amazon.com/Public-School-Advantage-Schools-Outperform/dp/022608891X
Your focus on detention is arbitrary. It's like saying it's unfair that hostages don't have access to pizza. Maybe, but the whole state of being-a-hostage is unfair. Instead of obsessing about their lack of pepperoni and mushrooms, why not, instead, focus on the actual problem?
All of this stuff has been studied for decades. We know that most schools are run horribly, according to unsound educational principals. But that never changes.
When psychologists or neuroscientists discover something about learning or education, it takes years or decades to affect classroom practices, if it ever does.
Schools aren't generally affected by Science. Instead, they are buffeted by politics and held fast by tradition.
See
I am skeptical that I will CYV, even though I believe that this is the best argument against it--not your view that detention is wrong, but that it's not even worth talking about. Sure, detention is a bad thing--but not the worst thing--about a horrible, corrupt, abusive system.
I'm skeptical, because the system is so deeply entrenched in our culture. And the most people can do is argue about small tweaks: whether we should use this textbook or that, the length of Summer break, the size of classrooms, etc.
The debate about Creationism vs Evolution in schools is a good example. If the Evolution folks (or the Creationist folks) win, they will pat themselves on the back and walk away happy, never glancing back and noticing that the same shoddy educational methods are being used now as before--with just one correction.
Yes, Dominoes is bad pizza. It won't suddenly become good pizza if you put it in a less-ugly box. I agree that the box is ugly, but why focus on it? It's not the core problem.
I'm a high school science teacher and I can't recommend the Hands-On series enough. I use the physics, but the chemistry one is great too.
Yes. I've been there, and I've gotten out of it, too. The anxiety comes from having more things on your to-do list than you have time to get done, and not knowing if it's even possible to do them. Check out the book The Together Teacher for the answer to your anxiety. You might not be able to get everything done, but you can sure become a lot more organized and effective, which means that you can honestly say, "There was just too much. I worked hard and it didn't all get done, but that's okay," and feel good about it. I started using it over winter break last year and it has literally changed my life from where you are at to where I am at now. At least that helps with the "feeling swamped" bit.
/u/kpop5000 is probably thinking of this book, which references RPI a couple times, https://www.amazon.com/Fall-Faculty-Benjamin-Ginsberg/dp/0199975434
Here you go. Cheap and legit
According to the Thailand FAQ you only need a bachelor's degree to teach in Thailand, so if you can't afford a CELTA or CertTESOL I'd skip getting another cert. Unless that quid's burning a hole in your pocket. Those online certs are worth about as much as the paper they're printed on.
CELTA courses use this book by Jeremy Harmer and this one by Jim Scrivener as introductory textbooks to TEFL. They will teach you more about teaching than the course you linked at a fraction of the cost.
I just bought a book called Teaching as a Subversive Activity at a thrift store. I am in the middle of reading it.
Great read so far. It's right up the guy in the article's alley.
Do you really think the guy writing this has time to explain the methodology of one statistic from one study? The story is already longer than most articles, and the majority of people (excluding curious fellows like yourself) dont care about how the study was conducted.
Go read the book yourself if you want to know more.
Fix It Write and Write Now! for the lazy
>Or were you personally, thoroughly, manually evaluated on your skills?
Yes, as close to this as you could realistically get. I went to a a small private college with class sizes of as little as 2-3 people in some departments.
Even teachers teaching the same class had different tests and assignments tailored to the needs of the students. So if you want to stick to your standardized comment, it was standardized at the specific class (not even course) level.
The average class size for the entire college was 13 students.
Edit:
I'll also add that because of the very small class sizes, students were for the most part personally, manually evaluated. Sure, they got grades on tests, but often, usually if in the student's benefit, grades were adjusted based on personal evaluation. When you have 5 students, you can do things like that.
On an off-topic note: Small class sizes also allowed some classes to just be listed as TBD on the schedule when signing up, so the professor could just pick a time that worked for everyone afterwards. And you get to do things live have class in a garden on campus, or even the cafeteria. It was an all-around amazing experience, but unfortunately not one that I will likely be able to afford for my own kids.
If anyone is interested in a college with an environment like this, check out Colleges That Change Lives. Luckily, my dad read it before we started looking at colleges, which got me looking in that direction.
/u/tuckermalc and /u/pizzzahero both have great comments. I'll add a bit. Go to /r/stoicism, read [William Irvine's book] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195374614?keywords=william%20irvine&qid=1456992251&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1), then read [Epictetus's Enchiridion] (http://www.amazon.com/Enchiridion-Dover-Thrift-Editions-Epictetus/dp/0486433595/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1456992275&sr=8-1&keywords=enchiridion). follow their guidelines. Also check out /r/theXeffect. The most important thing is controlling your habits. If you're in the habit of eating healthy, getting enough sleep, going to the gym, etc. then you're set.
Now for stuff that's harder to do. Go see a therapist. Or a psychiatrist. Try to find a [therapist who can do EMDR] (http://www.emdr.com/find-a-clinician/) with you, it's a very effective technique (I saw a clinician who uses EMDR for two years, and it changed my life-- and, importantly, it's supported by strong scientific evidence, it's not quackery stuff like homeopathy or acupuncture). If you decide to go to a psychiatrist, tell them you don't want SSRIs. Look at other drugs: Wellbutrin, tricyclics, SNRIs, etc (check out selegiline in patch form, called EMSAM, as well). Seriously, go see a professional and talk to them. I have no doubt that you're wrestling with mental illness. I have been there. For me, it just felt normal. I didn't understand that other people didn't feel like I did...so it took me a long time to go get help. But it's so important to just start working through these things and getting support. That's really the most important thing you can do. It will make your life so much better. If you aren't able to get to a therapist, do Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) on yourself! [This is a brilliant program] (https://moodgym.anu.edu.au) that's widely respected. Do it over and over. Also read [Feeling Good by David Burns] (http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1456992639&sr=8-1&keywords=feeling+good+david+burns). It's a book on CBT, and can help you get started. There are lots of other resources out there, but you have to begin by realizing that something is wrong.
Finally, I'll talk about college. Don't try to go to fricking Harvard or MIT. You won't get in, and those aren't even the right schools for you. There are many excellent schools out there that aren't the super super famous Ivies. Look at reputable state schools, like UMich, UMinnesota, the UC system, etc. get ["Colleges that Change Lives"] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143122304?keywords=colleges%20that%20change%20lives&qid=1456992746&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1), the [Fiske Guide to Colleges] (http://www.amazon.com/Fiske-Guide-Colleges-2016-Edward/dp/1402260660/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1456992768&sr=8-1&keywords=fiske+guide), and [Debt-Free U] (http://www.amazon.com/Debt-Free-Outstanding-Education-Scholarships-Mooching/dp/1591842980/ref=pd_sim_14_15?ie=UTF8&dpID=515MwKBIpzL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR104%2C160_&refRID=1VC3C23RJP6ZMXGG5QBA). One thing I realized after college was that I would've been happy at any of the school I looked at. People are fed such a line of BS about school, like you have to go to the top Ivies or something. No way. Find a good place at which you can function, learn as much as possible, and have a good social life. Like another person said, also look at going to a community college for a year and then transferring-- my relative did this and ended up at Harvard for grad school in the end.
Here is my copy and paste list:
Books
TIPERS
TIPERs are a fantastic resource for including conceptual thinking assignments. Answer keys are generally available if you talk to your school's Pearson Rep. IMO, the E/M book is the weakest, in part because it ignores that circuits are a thing. I would start with the first as it is a general overview, and go from there.
General Physics Education
Websites
Youtube
Let me know if you have questions about any of these, or about particular types of physics courses.
Here's a good book about exactly this.
My first year, I read this book from [Fred Jones](Fred Jones Tools for Teaching 3rd Edition: Discipline•Instruction•Motivation Primary Prevention of Discipline Problems https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F2LJ0J4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_emoHyb7RSXQ74) . I thought it really helped improve my behavior management, and even now, I still remember his thoughts that at the end of the day, I should not have a headache from having to manage behavior. The students are the ones that should be doing the work, not me.
Absolutely - history has shown us that public education can be used in exactly that way, in Nazi Germany and the former USSR. I think in a lot of ways those specific programs you mention are detrimental since they do more to just enforce meaningless metrics and quotas than they do to cultivate thinking young minds.
We need smarter teachers. And you know what: you get what you pay for. Teachers are so underpaid but they alone are going to be responsible for the quality of future generations, so we're only cheating ourselves. But if we were serious about our future as a society, we'd have better paid teachers, and more of them, and they would be free to be independent and come up with innovative lessons instead of teaching off rubrics which might not work for every class and child. This book made me want to be a teacher.
http://www.amazon.com/Sensation-Perception-E-Bruce-Goldstein-ebook/dp/B00BF3VMSA/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1452534476&sr=1-1
This book says its a "print replica" of yours or something. DeDRM it
Start here: http://giftedhomeschoolers.org
They have a lot of resources.
i also love this book: http://www.amazon.com/Project-Based-Homeschooling-Mentoring-Self-Directed-Learners-ebook/dp/B009AHTRBC/
Okay, you mention electromagnetic field and photons. I'll agree with you there. I am sensitive to the sound of frequency through television especially if its poor reception. I hear like an annoying highish-low pitch sound when the signal is poor. I thought I was crazy but I later discovered about Mosquito frequency.
My visual snow was the strongest when I first started seeing in 2012, New Year's Day. This is where I agree with your "shape" anecdote. I recalled seeing swirls, circles, and anything near circular squiggles in my field of site. I thought I was going insane upon seeing these "illusions". I still see them but over the last 7 years, I grew accustom to them and rather see them as a "bonus feature" to my field of site. Plus, it does make my imagination go wild hahaha It keeps entertained than feeling hopeless than I can't change it.
Side tracked in this conversation, I honestly do believe its neuron connections and more specific to our eye sights. Like wires to a light bulb, I think those wires got burnt out. Or why is it that suddenly, visual snow is being labeled and talked now in the age of technology and bright blue lights as opposed to past. Unless pointillism artists had it and we just mistaken it for art.
If it helps with my idea of neural connection, I recommend checking out Sensation and Perception textbooks. https://www.amazon.com/Sensation-Perception-Bruce-Goldstein-ebook/dp/B00BF3VMSA .
If you may be kind and patience with free time, could you link me to your TED talks. I figure to see what your side of grass looks like to you. :)
You could try posting this to r/TEFL as well. If you're going for a qualification then CELTA is your best bet and there's a CELTA trainee book that might be useful. Some schools also recommend Learning Teaching by Jim Scrivener.
If you know what you are interested in, look for schools that offer that major. Talk with a teacher or coach who you're close to, or your guidance counselor. They can give you some specific options because they know you and your academic record better.
There are plenty of guidebooks out there. My school is in this one. All the schools in there are great and you might find something that clicks. Your guidance counselor or library will probably have a bunch of books like these for you to browse.
Think about what kind of school you want: big/small, urban/rural, east/west/midwest, strong on-campus community/most people live off-campus. Is cost a concern? Try going to a community college first.
What kind of clubs are available to join? Sports? Greek life? Does overall student support seem nice?
Have the dorms been recently renovated or do most people live off-campus? Is it in a safe area?
How easy is it to declare/change a major and minor?
Do students have good relationships with professors? Is there a career center, a tutoring and learning disability center? Are there people that can help you find internships and funding, set up job-shadowing?
Are you ok with Teaching Assistants running most of your classes? Does being in a room with 200 students terrify you? How about a room with 4 students?
Make a list of your likes and dislikes of the colleges you've already visited. Did school A have too much of a "party" atmosphere for you? Was B too big or too small? Was school C too far away or too close? Find what you like, and look for colleges that have a few or more of those qualities. Not everyone has an "a-ha!" moment when they find the perfect college for them. You might have to transfer to find a good place for you. Good luck!
The Underground Guide to Classroom Management is good. Short but lots of good tips.
> ... Cyber Security at the local community college.
You are starting at the wrong place in the curriculum. You should start at the beginning or you will be hopelessly lost when they start talking about a SYN attack. You will have zero clue what they are talking about.
About that BA in Political Science and a BA in Economics. Worthless.
see: Clarey, "Worthless"
http://www.amazon.com/Worthless-Young-Persons-Indispensable-Choosing/dp/B00DJAP32S
What's done is done. Let it go.
What to do now?
Back to school, CC is fine. But get some career counseling now that is actually worth something. With the BA degrees, you probably have all the credits you need for a STEM field degree. At CC take the maths and a track through an IT specific something that actually pays well with just a BS.
Good luck.
http://www.amazon.com/Fix-Write-Nan-Jay-Barchowsky/dp/0965674584/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426625318&sr=8-1&keywords=fix+it+handwriting
Get this book -- TONS of ideas https://www.amazon.com/Hands-Physics-Activities-Real-Life-Applications/dp/087628845X
If you are interested in learning about one of the founding fathers A. S. Neill wrote about the school he founded in his book Summerhill School: A New View of Childhood https://www.amazon.com/dp/0312141378/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_YUfuybCMVVWD7
In order to help yourself stay sane: The Together Teacher by Maia Heyck-Merlin. SO MANY tips and tricks about how to make the most of your time. I didn't read it till my third year teaching and I wish I had read it sooner.
Personally, I've never had the chance to take a CELTA course, but I have heard many good things about it. I haven't heard of the other programs you mentioned.
BTW, If you would like to pick up some general TEFL tips in advance of taking a course, I'd recommend investing in a comprehensive text like Learning Teaching.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0230729843/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1393974279&sr=8-1
There's a fair amount of information in the text on lesson planning as well as teaching listening, reading, writing and speaking.
Cheers.
This may not be for you since you're too far gone, but you should give this to your kids. Actually, any "kid" (college-aged person) reading this should buy this.
SUMMARY: DON'T MAJOR IN THE LIBERAL ARTS.
Dear Stupid Students, America Can't Afford Your Stupidity
***
>1) Teaching
It's doubtful that you truly need a degree in English to teach basic and useable English to people in foreign countries. There's a great number of people who teach English without English degrees (again, still a total under-utilization of your abilities (assuming you're above ~100 IQ).
>2) Happiness is of value to me
You're able to achieve happiness in ways that
>It's taken me around the world (literally)
Wow, that's surely unique from all the other real degrees that certainly don't offer opportunities to move around the world for work.
>I make about 3K a month writing and self-publishing on Amazon
Here's one list of extremely famous writers who didn't go get a degree in English.
Here's some more.
If you have the passion for writing, go write. DO NOT get a worthless degree in English.
>That might not be brogrammer money, but it's a life that's been a lot more interesting and rewarding than just staring into a monitor 60 hours a week.
This seems bitter? Are you suggesting that I'm a "brogrammer?" What, because I espouse for people to avoid useless degrees who don't actually produce or contribute anything of actual value to society?
>The only way you could possibly think that anything other than STEM = parasite is if you had about zero actual life experience. I'm guessing you went from your parents basement to college to some tech job and don't know jack about what else happens in the world.
Even more bitter? Apparently. I feel like it is a lack of understanding of the world to get that worthless, piece-of-shit degree rather than a STEM degree. Why not do something that people actually care about and that *actually contributes to the society that safely coddled you while you wasted your potential getting a useless degree.
"I just wanna be happy, maaaaaaan."
Here's a list of majors you should go back and get:
You want to know why jobs in these fields pay so much? THEY CONTRIBUTE SO MUCH VALUE TO SOCIETY, they are SO GODDAMN HELPFUL TO PROGRESS.
But fine, go ahead and feel happy in your hippy-dippy worthless bubble.
What book are you using to study? A professor at my school wrote this: http://www.amazon.com/Ready-Revised-RICA-Preparation-Californias/dp/0137008686
I found it really helpful. Our reading classes were structured around it and I passed the RICA no problem.
STUDY THIS BOOK:
http://www.amazon.com/Ready-Revised-RICA-Preparation-Californias/dp/0137008686
Zarrillo.
SERIOUSLY.
Don't mess with quizlet- I found most of the questions/answers to be inaccurate.
Focus on case study examples.
I've giving Fix it Write a try.
There's education, then there is education. The US has yet to unify what it considers to be a nationally accepted curriculum and as such schools have been able to pick and choose subject matter to teach and not teach. If you want to understand what modern education is here is some suggested reading which explains how schools are structured and why they are built the way they are.
The main reason I'm interested in the MS credential is to teach middle school core. I already have the book by Zarillo and I've used Teacherstestprep which has helped me in the past.
The admit rate reflects a national trend at nearly all selective colleges and has little to do with Zimmer running the show. There are several liberal arts colleges that have seen similar dips in admit rates during this same period. College rankings by newspapers are mostly just advertising and can't be taken too seriously. U of C's prestige has been unaffected throughout this period, as far as I can tell.
This guy is totally overpaid. Top CEOs in the US are even worse. U of C has seen bigger increases in revenue in past decades, and administrators were paid a lot less back then. The article in the OP gives specific examples that show he's doing a terrible job (debt downgrade, poor communication with faculty, deficits, etc.). U of C simply has not been immune to the national shift toward running universities more like businesses (as demonstrated by Benjamin Ginsberg (U of C alum) in The Fall of the Faculty) that led to absurd salaries for top administrators, more cheap adjuncts, higher tuition, etc.
I understand your frustration completely. Before starting my first year of teaching, I set up my room, was told to move to another, and then told to move again. I think I had final confirmation on my room less than a week before the first day and construction held me up from setting up and organizing in a way I felt comfortable with. This stress became a lot of my focus, and I neglected solidifying routines. If you have some solid routines that make your life and your students' lives easier, your room will fall into place to mirror these routines.
Think about your preferences for collecting worksheets, storing materials and books, and for grading. Can you create any temporary or mobile homes (milk crate with hanging folders, bins, furniture on wheels, etc.), that can be moved as you settle in more?
I was given this book during my new teacher orientation. You might find some ideas that resonate with you.
Best of luck!
Evidence is a prerequisite for faith. Faith requires evidence.
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Christians, and thus the Church, are to have an answer for every question asked. Infinite critical thinking.
1 Peter 3:15 and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you
Public schools are about memorization and standardized testing, not questioning and critical thinking.
Academic skill level generally refers to reading, writing, and math but certainly, more than ever, it also includes critical thinking and application of knowledge. Current students readily acknowledge that they have mastered memorization skills while in high school but they are often inexperienced with what it means to think critically, independently, and apply what they know. The issue is not that they cannot learn these skills. The issue is that too many have never had the opportunity to learn and to demonstrate the skills. A question to be answered is why they have not had to learn and apply these skills during their high school careers.
And what starts in public high school continues on in college
Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses
Everyone is born recognizing that homosexuals are unnatural. No one is born without a mother and a father. Biology 101. The homosexual agenda is indoctrination, discouraging the asking of questions, which at Vanderbilt is banning Christian groups, censoring the opposition. Why discourage asking question and censor the opposition? Because the indoctrination is only successful so long as those indoctrinated are not exposed to critical thinking, which helps to explain the lack of critical thinking in public education.
This is one of several attacks on the finding that public schools outperform private schools when student SES is accounted for, that was documented in the book The Public School Advantage. These attacks do nothing to dis-prove the findings of this book. One of the authors of the book provides a thorough rebuttal to the attacks here. So, no private schools don't beat public schools.
For the subjunctive, I'd recommend going through all the sentences in this and this. By the time you finish all 500 sentences, you should have no trouble whatsoever with the subjunctive :)
If you're stuggling, I'd recommend going through all the sentences in this and this. By the time you finish all 500 sentences, you should have no trouble whatsoever :)
https://www.amazon.com/Underground-Guide-Classroom-Management-ebook/dp/B07NKZ2W7G/ref=mp_s_a_1_fkmrnull_1?crid=1USDH3SKZ0RQ6&keywords=connor+mcgill+underground&qid=1556997905&s=gateway&sprefix=connor+mcgill&sr=8-1-fkmrnull
Hello, it appears you tried to put a link in a title, since most users cant click these I have placed it here for you
^I ^am ^a ^bot ^if ^you ^have ^any ^suggestions ^dm ^me
> I am not sorry if this infuriates you, because you're sympathizing with murderers and that's not my jam.
If you think I'm sympathizing with them, you need to increase your reading comprehension skills.
> You're inability to acknowledge this is quite pitiful.
I said it happened. Where did I say 100% we WEREN'T lied to?
> When you hand over your guns be sure to fetch them the bullets, the duct tape, the gag and the blindfold while you are at it. I know you're just trying to be helpful...
Bro, why do you assume everyone has guns? And then why would you assume that if I do have guns, I'd just give them up?
> If you still believe in terrorists that existed prior to 9/11 then I know I'm smarter than at least you. Yes terrorism exists now of course, we created it after 9/11 by occupying their country.
Do you know what the definition of a terrorist is? Of course, people having been terrorizing for political influence for millennia. If you think we created the first terrorists, then you have read a total of 0 books on history.
> You look back at iran crisis in the 70s. Know what they were shouting? "yankee go home yankee go home". Why not try it their way for a change AND YANKEE FUCKING GO / STAY HOME
UHHHHHHHHHHHH, I'm voting for Bernie Sanders so what in the actual fuck are you talking about? Your aim is so far off you don't know where your shot went.
Here, take this
Looks like it was Drout's Quick and Easy Old English, which has the advantage of being pretty cheap.
The Kindle version is OK, but a dead-tree would be nicer (I found myself using bookmarks pretty heavily to refer back to things.)
If you'd like to see a page or two, let me know what you want and I'd be happy to provide.
----
bonus: All professors' websites are garbage.
----
>Old English Wikipedia
of course that's a thing.
My public school was awesome. Great physics, science, math, computers, language, technology, and history educations. (graduated mid 00's) Ended up in a top university.
Know why? I lived in middle class neighborhood in a rich area of town. Schools are funded largely by local property taxes. Poor places tend to have worse schools. A great example of this is 2 elementary schools in the city of Atlanta: Morningside Elementary School, one of the best schools in the entire state, and Thomasville Park Elementary school, one of the worst in the entire state. They are both part of the Atlanta Public Schools district. One resides in the dilapidated old industrial south part of town. The other resides in the northern, office-based, commercial, and residential part of town. I'm sure I don't need to tell you which is which.
This pattern is repeated across the nation. Poor places have bad schools, well off places have great schools. Given this, do you really think that poor places are going to just grassroots fund their way into great private schools if public schools are taken away?
>You need not ask if your policy feels good, but does it do good. In other words, does it work? Social education doesn't work for the same reason no other bureaucratically managed industries work - they lack proper incentives and controls to innovate and self-manage efficiency.
This just doesn't seem to be true. In the past decade, a bevy of new research has shown that private schools do not actually produce better outcomes. This book is a deep examination of data that shows this. You can find gobs more information out there, including the foot notes and references in that book.
I guess I still don't think the ideas you're proposing are going to educate everyone, though I certainly think we could agree upon the fact that they ARE over-regulated with the endless testing and metricization and focus on memorization rather than teacher certification/trust, reasonable pay, and training students to think and learn problem solving skills.
>Are there asshole parents out there that are going to buy a new car instead of send their kids to school? Sure. But you can't get hung up on this as a reason to make ineffective decisions based on appeals to emotion.
Isn't that what you're doing when you say government schools are producing uneducated people who are destroying the west? "Oh my god, destroying the west? We have to get rid of public schools now!"
> No government welfare program can even hold a candle to the Red Cross
The US Military seems to do a pretty kickass job of being there for disasters that happen across the world.
>The absolute most effective mechanisms for social welfare are private institutions - hands down.
After Reagan gutted the public mental healthcare system (an admittedly primitive system, but one that at least attempted to help the most likely to recover to do so) the only private system to spring up has been those based on exorbitant profit which the majority of Americans cannot afford.
>Why is it you put so much trust in a group of people that has little accountability and no incentives? The market has these - put your trust there.
This seems farcical. Some serious mistakes were made at the founding of the country (and many on the way to now) that prevent us from truly holding our elected officials accountable, including but not limited to: non-enforcement of increased representative count with larger populations, FPTP elections (for some positions), allowance for arbitrary and politically motivated district allocation, and others. In the early 1920's onward, after a pushback against the guilded age corruption from the 1880s to the 1920s, the increased involvement of money in politics, allowed by the justice system, and codified by the judicial branch, has led to our officials becoming beholden to moneyed interests, instead of the people.
I think we could if we make a few changes so that the system is a bit more accountable to us, rather than those with gobs of money - which leads me to...
As for the market - we've seen what happens when the market allows companies to act uninhibited - they attempt to maximize profit at the expense of anything that gets in their way: they permanently contaminate large swathes of land ( here), they pollute water supplies indiscriminately ( [here] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes#Pollution) and (here), they kill people via food for profit (here and here), they kill those that get in their way (here), they poison vast swathes of the world (here). I could go on. So I ask you: what makes you place your trust in opaque capital market entities that pursue profit at all costs rather than the one entity in society that isn't driven entirely by never-ending increase in profit regardless of the consequences?
>Ask yourself honestly, which are you?
Definitely a 1, I'm just trying to get by while leeches like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamara_Ecclestone and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump inherit billions of dollars and don't have to do an honest day's work in their lives to live in the lap of luxury.
Given a more equitable society I would love to do hands on work with children, but it's just not possible if one wants to escape the trap of labor exploitation and one day be able to pursue such works.
This is what I'm talking about. With all due respect, nowhere in the Bible does it say that the Earth is the center of the solar system, the universe, or anything else. There are verses that refer to the Earth as "fixed," which could be taken in any number of ways, least of all if I run into the Earth, it doesn't seem to move. We can't have an argument if you have, like I've said before, no idea what you're talking about. It was considered the best cosmological theory of the day, which was adopted by the Catholic Church, and the Catholic Church by no means was the only institution or government that thought that. It was a theory traced back to the Greeks. I can't believe I have to cite Wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocentric_model.
And yes, the Catholic Church got mad at Galileo when he said, no, this isn't true. But again, to say this makes religion bad or whatever is again conflating two separate things, which is the Bible, and the doctrines of the Catholic Church, which is aimed at being consistent with the Bible, but isn't in fact the Bible.
Overall the comments people leave over and over without being able to see why they are confused simply feeds into the recognition that the vast majority of people have no ability to really think critically, and only instead regurgitate some fashionable opinion they've internalized as their own.
http://www.amazon.com/Academically-Adrift-Limited-Learning-Campuses/dp/0226028550
What if you flipped it and tried to catch the 3 of them doing the "right" things?
It's a long-term strategy, but it might change the energy in the room with them. It reminds me of some things I learned at a Fred Jones Positive Classroom Management Course a long time ago . . . if you have your whole class "earning" for some type of reward - game time on Fridays (with the games all related to your content) or a movie day (again, a movie related to content) - then you can orchestrate it so that those students can't take time away from what the class has earned if they're misbehaving, but they CAN add additional time when they're behaving.
Example: The goal is to earn 30 minutes for the reward day. I give them 15 minutes to start with (so the goal is 45 minutes total), and students can earn minutes by being in their seats working on the warm-up at the beginning of class, everyone having all their supplies, everyone turning in their homework, etc.
For the 3 students you're struggling with, if they DON'T do any of those things, it doesn't penalize the whole class. If they DO the things, it gives the class extra time - so if they're all 3 in the same class period, that gives the class an opportunity to earn 4 minutes for each of the activities instead of only one.
In my experience, that motivates their classmates to put positive peer pressure on them, so that they get to their time goal faster.
Also, you can play it up when they misbehave: "Oh, man. I'm so disappointed that I can't add more time because you (fill in the blank.) I was really looking forward to game time on Friday, but I guess we'll just have to try again next week."
Here's the Fred Jones book, if you want to check it out: https://www.amazon.com/Fred-Jones-Tools-Teaching-Discipline%E2%80%A2Instruction%E2%80%A2Motivation-ebook/dp/B00F2LJ0J4/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=fred+jones&qid=1564510410&s=gateway&sr=8-1
If you put this book on your Amazon wishlist and send me a link, I will buy it for you.
I am 100% serious.