Adult illiteracy: growing crisis?

polarbear31 · #21 (**permalink**) 03-01-2007, 01:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Politicon

While budgets are always a good thing and money being put into the classroom will return with rewards, I must say that I don’t believe that is the heart of the problem. I come from a family of teachers and the one thing I hear them grumble about is the same no matter how much money is going to education: they can no longer control the class. What can you do to keep control? Can you send the kids to the principle? No, they just returned with candy. Can you sit him in the corner? No, that would hurt the child’s self esteem. Even correcting in red ink was challenged in Texas (I think it was Texas, either way it failed…luckily) because it made the child feel bad about themselves. I don’t care how much money we throw to education, until we take back control it will get us nowhere. Until we learn to deal with little failures like red ink on paper, we will never be able to deal with large failures. What happened to our education? We decided to not feel bad about ourselves and threw it away. I’m not trying to downplay some of the problems in education. I’m just saying that there is another problem that we have to deal with before we can tackle those.

you mention here above that teachers feel as if they have little or no control in the classroom what do you mean by this exactly? are the children progressively becoming more disobediant and attention deficit? why do you think this is ?

flaja · #22 (**permalink**) 03-01-2007, 01:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by polarbear31

you mention here above that teachers feel as if they have little or no control in the classroom what do you mean by this exactly? are the children progressively becoming more disobediant and attention deficit? why do you think this is ?

This was my exact experience as a Christian school teacher. The day I quit my last classroom job (due to a pay dispute) I had 2 students get into a fist-fight before class began. I sent both to the office and they were both returned to my class before I finished taking roll.

oceanbreeze · #23 (**permalink**) 03-02-2007, 08:19 AM

I think it all depends on the area and region of the country you live. The GA Christian school my kids went to have have mandatory drug testing, that the parents have to pay for.

flaja · #24 (**permalink**) 03-02-2007, 08:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ladyofmts

I think it all depends on the area and region of the country you live. The GA Christian school my kids went to have have mandatory drug testing, that the parents have to pay for.

My last Christian school teaching job saw a couple of students threaten to bring guns to school after they got into a fight during PE.

I once interviewed at a school that had a 1st grader throw a chair across his classroom. The school expelled him, but then agreed to take him (and his tuition back) as long as the parents put him on ADD drugs.

Because Florida has a taxpayer-funded scholarship for ADD-type students, students with behavioral problems tend to get concentrated in private schools, because public schools generally won't tolerate their disruptive and disrespectful behavior.