Article: EUOLogy about RPG Campaigns as Books

[Spriggan]

While I think teachers need to be paid more, I think there are many other problems with our school system.  Bill Gates just gave a great speach on what he sees are the problems.

As for the Tracy Hickman thing, that has nothing to do with pay, that has to do with teachers thinking fantasy is "beneath" them becasue that's what they learned in college.

Oh, I'd like to add that in my HS there was a Sci-fi/fantasy class you could take as your litature requirement.  The teacher there announced in the first day of class that one day EUOL would be published.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

No, it's not directly related to pay. But the good teachers wouldn't think that. If you pay more, you can be more selective and you get good teachers.

[Spriggan]

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Education/

the first blurb is an excerpt from the speach I was talking about.

[Skar]

I agree 100% that teachers are not paid enough.  However, the answer is no longer to simply up the pay rate for teachers.  The reason it's not that simple is that the low-paid worthless teachers we have now (I'm not saying that ALL teachers are worthless, there were wonderful exceptions in my school experience) have been the norm for so long that the entire system has morphed into a beast that caters to them.

Witness the hysterical anger that the teacher unions react with to any suggestion of more/better utilization of standardized testing to guage student's educational state.  The current reward punishment system for teachers is in no way merit-based.  They have managed to remove the actual results of their work from the equation that judges their fitness to be employed in that work.

A factor in that phenomenon, of course, is political ideology.  A teacher cannot be held 100% accountable for a student's education.  They can't force a student or his parents to care.  An objective(standardized) look at the educational state of all the students in the country would reveal that, generally, students who come from low-income and dysfunctional homes do rather poorly, and it's because they don't care about school and neither did/do their parents.  Where the ideology comes in is when people notice that the poor/dysfunctional data has a tendency to mirror race data.  I don't want to get into a discussion on why there are disproportionate numbers of blacks and hispanics in the poor/dysfunctional categories.  "Why" is not germaine to this topic it's enough to acknowledge that it's true.  But when that correlation is made, and standardized testing would make the connection obvious (Note that I'm not talking about IQ testing here, I'm talking about testing the knowledge gained in school) you get an immediate outcry of racism and teachers and administrators are faced with the choice to either pass a PC number and ratio of students, no matter their ability, or get vilified and perhaps fired for discrimination.

So to pay the teachers we have now more is just to throw good money after bad.  But you can't attract good teachers with the low pay in the system now.  A major overhaul is needed.  I don't know the answer.  I still support our local public schools with my taxes (and I probably would even if I wouldn't get thrown in jail should I try to avoid it) but I don't subject my kids to it.  My kids are home-schooled.  And after two years of it I can say with authority that they are missing out on nothing.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Witness the hysterical anger that the teacher unions react with to any suggestion of more/better utilization of standardized testing to guage student's educational state.  The current reward punishment system for teachers is in no way merit-based.  They have managed to remove the actual results of their work from the equation that judges their fitness to be employed in that work.

I don't think this is self-evident. I'll need a concrete example. The teacher's union (national and state-level) literature I've read that was sent to my mother doesn't reflect this attitude at all.

see, many teachers in the system are in a position with authority to disagree with your perceptions of how the system works. The union doesn't disagree with every standard put out there. But most of the testing standards are just additional tests that get in the way of teaching -- and they are rarely complete measures of what can and should be accomplished with teaching. I'm sorry, but I fail to see that as real evidence that the teachers and their union oppose improvements to the system, which frankly, comes off as quite ridiculous. What benefit, exactly, does standardized testing give us anyway? After 13 years in the system and several more watching it develop both for my kids and in my mom's experience, I still can't comprehend the benefit that pulls kids out of 3-5 days of actual teaching so they can fill in bubbles for tests that don't take into account several important factors that have nothing to do with the quality of the education their getting (for example, their attention span and ability to sit there and take those tests at all, regardless of whether they know the answers).

Being familiar with my mother and many of her firends from work, I can tell you that the good teachers would also like to get rid of the bad teachers.

Your complaint about paying more being ineffective fails to take into account the fact that every year more teachers are hired. So maybe there's not an immediate and complete change. But that won't happen in ANY political situation short of a violent overthrow, which I hope I can safely say is not something we want to happen in our school systems. There will be an immediate beginning to gradual change. Teachers retire, new ones are hired. If we make the job both desirable and competitive to get to, only the best will be introduced. In the course of 10 years, there will be a major improvement. I don't think any faster change is feasable, and I can't think of a way to do it.

And despite what Mr. Gates says, the school systems, their approaches, their policies, and their methods change from year to year. School administrations try to stay on top of the best methods. It's difficult to make wholesale change in such large structures, but there are numerous gradual changes every year in approaches.

No, I don't think that pay raises are the ONLY way we can improve it. But I do think it's a very viable, necessary, and driving force for positive change. It will not just result in bad teachers being paid more. It will result in better teachers over all, using better practices that they learned in increasingly difficult college curriculums.

Note that I have no problem with home schooling. I've considered it myself. My mom doesn't like it, though I suspect that's professional reasons. But I don't think that the public school system has all the educational problems that are constantly ascribed to it. (Now, if you want to talk about the negative influence on morality and ethics, that's another matter, but that doesn't have enough to do with the bureaucratic structure or policies to make legislating something make enough difference.

[House of Mustard]

As I've mentioned before, I'm pretty opinionated when it comes to education.  I'm heading to lunch right now, so I'll post something more in-depth this afternoon, but I just wanted to make one comment.

As far as pay raises go:
1) The Masters of Education program I was in only required a 400 score on the GRE.  Though they might have had good reasons for this, my guess is that it was because they were desperate for anyone to fill the seats.  Teaching has to provide some kind of attraction.  I actually dropped out of the program because I got offered another job that paid more than teaching.  I would have preferred to teach, but I prefer providing for my family more.

2) However, one of the first rules of business (described in detail in the book Good To Great) is that money shouldn't be a factor in drawing people to your company.  Instead, your company will only thrive if you get people who believe in the company -- people who are in the job solely for a paycheck won't ever give you the kind of results you want.
 In teaching this is even more important.  As I was taking education classes I came more and more to the realization that being a good teacher cannot be taught -- it requires a deeper commitment and a certain type of person.  Offering more money won't necessarily draw these types of people.  It might draw a few, but, in my opinion, it's most likely to draw people who are concerned more about money than about teaching.

[Fellfrosch]

In my opinion, primary education (K-12) is starting to swing more heavily toward fantasy and sci-fi--maybe because of the big surge in YA over the last few years, or maybe because the kids who grew up on it are now becoming teachers. It seems that teachers have finally realized the obvious--fantasy is what kids like to read, so restricting it only makes their job harder. Harry Potter opened a lot of people's eyes to the fact that kids can be voracious readers if you just give them something they enjoy. I predict that this type of attitude will continue to grow quite a bit over the next decade or so.

I think attrition will have a lot to do with it--once the stodgy "old-school" teachers retire, the vast majority of the anti-fantasy stigma will be gone from primary education. I'd still like my kids to read "Literature" at some point, but for the first several years I don't care what they read as long as they're reading.

Skar, I need to talkto you about home schooling sometime. I'm very interested in how you work it and what your experience has been.

[Skar]

I don't think this is self-evident. I'll need a concrete example. The teacher's union (national and state-level) literature I've read that was sent to my mother doesn't reflect this attitude at all.

My experience is, of course, limited and I'd be thrilled to find that I was wrong.  I've heard frantic objections to standardized testing from both the Indiana state teachers unions when I was in High School and here in Utah when my sister-in-law was an assistant to the Education guy on the Governor's staff.  I really hope that your experience is more indicative of the wider state of affairs.

see, many teachers in the system are in a position with authority to disagree with your perceptions of how the system works...What benefit, exactly, does standardized testing give us anyway?

I don't mean to say that standardized testing is the end-all be-all answer.  All it would do (if it was intelligently done, obviously) is connect teachers to their end result.  Their is a big disconnect their right now.  The attitude I'm hearing more and more is "sure they can't read or write but their self-esteem is high because we've never failed them at anything so it's OK" It's not OK and standardized testing would force the emphasis back onto actual performance.  

And I'm afraid I have to disagree with your implication that teachers should do something more than teach their curriculum.  Teachers have long viewed themselves (please keep in mind that I'm not talking all, just the majority in my experience) as some kind of mentor or role-model or social guide.  That is not their job.  It happens more and more today as more and more kids have parents who just don't care and the kids look elsewhere for good examples.  Those kids who are forced to look to their teachers for things they should be getting from their parents are not best-served by teachers who focus on that aspect at the expense of core curriculum.  The good example a teacher should be setting is not as a surrogate parent, they are not the kid's parent.  It's as a productive and upstanding member of society, a good committed teacher who does his job well and honorably.  If they try to be surrogate parents at the expense of their job all the kid sees is an adult who abandons his duty in order to go for the warm fuzzy.

After 13 years in the system and several more watching it develop both for my kids and in my mom's experience, I still can't comprehend the benefit t...

The benefit is that the kids and their teachers get feedback on how well they've learned the material.  If there's a lack they can adjust.  If a teacher seems incapable of getting kids to learn enough to pass, they get fired.  Without the test, there is no feedback and no ability to adjust appropriately for the kid.  Without the test there is no connectin between the teacher and his performance and thus no Quality Control.

Arguments that say stanardized testing is a poor measure of the "imponderables" that teachers impart to their students are correct but they gloss over the fact that a teacher's job is not to inject children with imponderables.  It's to teach them to read, write, do math, and problem solve.  That's it.

As for the several important factors that have nothing to do with the quality of the education their getting that are defacto tested by the bubble tests (attention span, providing answers while under pressure (other-wise known as "test-taking"))  Two things.  First, the tests are not to measure the quality of the education they're getting.  They're to measure mastery of the subject material.  Important distinction.   Second, sitting and focusing is a rather important skill to have.  It doesn't matter if you have the ability to solve the problems life and jobs present you if you can't bring that ability to bear (because you have a short attention span or whatever).  And answering questions under pressure is what adults do all day everyday.  If you can't do it you need to learn to fix it.  Those things you listed are as important as the subject matter.  So...testing them is reasonable.

Being familiar with my mother and many of her firends from work, I can tell you that the good teachers would also like to get rid of the bad teachers.

I never doubted that for a second. And it makes me happy to hear it from you.

Your complaint about paying more being ineffective fails to take into account the fact that every year more teachers are hired. So maybe there's not an immediate and complete change. But that won't happen in ANY political situation short of a violent overthrow, which I hope I can safely say is not something we want to happen in our school systems. There will be an immediate beginning to gradual change. Teachers retire, new ones are hired. If we make the job both desirable and competitive to get to, only the best will be introduced. In the course of 10 years, there will be a major improvement. I don't think any faster change is feasable, and I can't think of a way to do it.

Now that you put it that way, I think you're right.  The only hurdle left is getting past the administrators (those who do the hiring) who have been trained to reject hardnosed curriculum focused teachers in favor of PC touchy-feely types.

[Skar]

Any time Fell.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

well, I should clarify some of the things I mean. I perhaps take it personally, because I took a beastly standardized tests almost every single year of my elementary school experirence. I was ADD. Not diagnosed, but I would rather have gone to the dentist AND gotten a proctology exam rather than sit through 4 hours of standardized, bubble-filling tests. I can't honestly believe that an 8 year old should reasonably be expected to sit in silence for 4 hours filling in bubbles iwth a number 2 pencil. Let alone not to make stray marks that will throw off the scoring.

I'm also not talking about "imponderables" or self-esteem. I'm talking about certain critical thinking skills. I can think of a dozen times when I was marked wrong for an answer to a  multiple choice question on a critical thinking tests, only to be able to mount a rational argument (at age 9) why my answer was legitimate.
Also, spelling, why is this tested? As we can see from Spriggan, it's not required to be a good speller (sorry, Sprig, couldn't resist it). Why do I need to know the capital of Vermont if I'm not trying to accomplish something that involves their state government? I can look these things up. Especially in today's electronic availability of information, trivia like this, the sort of thing often tested on standardized testing, is irrelevant and doesn't reflect the intelligence of the test taker or how well he was taught.  Again, of what use is it, practically, to know what a Gerund is? Memorizing the "to hit" tables in the first edition Dungeon Master's Guide has had MUCH more use in my life. There has not been an instant in my life when knowing what a gerund is has given me or anyone around me any benefit.

I'm not a fan of standardized tests. I find their use to be a substitute for something more effective. Teacher evaluations should be performed more often perhaps, by independent government officials who are trained and also have a continuing education requirement. This would ensure impartiality, both for or against the teacher. Teachers should be taking the standardized tests to show they know their material. I strongly resist any sort of standardized lesson plan, but I have no problem with lesson plans requiring approval, to make sure that certain minimum requirements are met in the material they are presenting and that they are using effective methods.

Of course, to put them under such stricter scrutiny, I again think compensation should be raised for it. In fact, compensation should be based on how well they meet their requirements. There would be a minimum to be retained as an employed teacher, and bonuses for hitting even higher standards.

[Skar]

well, I should clarify some of the things I mean. I perhaps take it personally, because I took a beastly standardized tests almost every single year of my elementary school experirence. I was ADD. Not diagnosed, but I would rather have gone to the dentist AND gotten a proctology exam rather than sit through 4 hours of standardized, bubble-filling tests. I can't honestly believe that an 8 year old should reasonably be expected to sit in silence for 4 hours filling in bubbles iwth a number 2 pencil. Let alone not to make stray marks that will throw off the scoring.

When I said the standardized testing would have to be done intelligently this is exactly what I was talking about.  You're talking about standardized testing done stupidly and I'm talking about standardized testing in general.  Of course it would have to pass the common sense test in order to be effective.

I really think that a test that measures whether a student of whatever grade level has a sufficient grasp of the relevant subject material is within reach.

As for the whole ADD thing, so what? We can/have learn to cope with kids that have ADD, and all the other Learning Disorders we'll discover in the future.  Part of that coping will necessarily be figuring out a way for them to overcome their disability.  And maybe being able to focus long enough to complete a standardized test would be a good measure of that.  The challenge is not in the test it's in the preparation.  Teachers (the higher paid skilled ones we're both hoping for) would have to teach the kids how to succeed at the "length" portion of the test too.

I'm also not talking about "imponderables" or self-esteem. I'm talking about certain critical thinking skills. I can think of a dozen times when I was marked wrong for an answer to a  multiple choice question on a critical thinking tests, only to be able to mount a rational argument (at age 9) why my answer was legitimate.
Also, spelling, why is this tested? As we can see from Spriggan, it's not required to be a good speller (sorry, Sprig, couldn't resist it). Why do I need to know the capital of Vermont if I'm not trying to accomplish something that involves their state government? I can look these things up. Especially in today's electronic availability of information, trivia like this, the sort of thing often tested on standardized testing, is irrelevant and doesn't reflect the intelligence of the test taker or how well he was taught.  Again, of what use is it, practically, to know what a Gerund is? Memorizing the "to hit" tables in the first edition Dungeon Master's Guide has had MUCH more use in my life. There has not been an instant in my life when knowing what a gerund is has given me or anyone around me any benefit.

Yes, critical thinking is one of the most important things that must be learned in school.  Standardized tests can measure it.  They have to be good tests, and they can't be administered by morons.  Your example from 9 years old could easily have been handled by a proctor with the power to listen to you and mark the answer correct.  If it only happened a dozen times in all those years of testing such exceptions could be adjusted for.  But not by morons who use the testing as some kind of sick substitute for actual teaching.

As for the whole capitol of Vermont vs. D&D hit table thing, how would you have memorized the hit table if you had never memorized anything before and weren't even aware it could be done?  Using your memory is a valuable skill that is integral to learning in general.  So what if you're not interested in memorizing the state capitols?  If that's what your teacher decides to use as the tool to exercise that capacity, deal with it and memorize what you want to, with the skills your teacher helped develop, on your own time.  That is the idea after all.

[Skar]

I'm not a fan of standardized tests. I find their use to be a substitute for something more effective. Teacher evaluations should be performed more often perhaps, by independent government officials who are trained and also have a continuing education requirement. This would ensure impartiality, both for or against the teacher. Teachers should be taking the standardized tests to show they know their material. I strongly resist any sort of standardized lesson plan, but I have no problem with lesson plans requiring approval, to make sure that certain minimum requirements are met in the material they are presenting and that they are using effective methods.

And I have a big problem with even lesson plans being subject to approval above the supervisor level.  Let the teacher teach however he wants.  If he's effective his kids will pass the test.   If he's not he will get fired (or better yet not hired in the first place).  If it's a good test (and it could be) the fact that students can pass is mute testimony to their mastery of the subject material.  Who cares how they got there?

Of course, to put them under such stricter scrutiny, I again think compensation should be raised for it. In fact, compensation should be based on how well they meet their requirements. There would be a minimum to be retained as an employed teacher, and bonuses for hitting even higher standards.

The idea of compensation being raised for performance we agree on.  I, however, don't care whether the teacher has a certification or any kind of higher or continuing education.  The only thing that matters is how well they teach their students.  Good intelligently implemented standardized testing is the only objective way I can see to set that standard.

[Fellfrosch]

I'm firmly in the camp of "standardized tests are a poor measure of education." A standardized test is too artificial, and the environment is too predictable--if they become the measure then teachers will start training their kids to take tests rather than teaching them the information contained in the tests.

Have you ever flipped through one of those SAT or ACT prep books? They're 5% knowledge, maybe 5% application of knowledge, and 90% "how to think like the guy who wrote the test." I have no doubt that this is the direction our schools would go if we made teachers professionally accountable for their student's test scores.

On the other hand, a better way of making teachers accountable is a great idea. I just don't think standardized testing is the way to do it.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

As for the whole ADD thing, so what? We can/have learn to cope with kids that have ADD, and all the other Learning Disorders we'll discover in the future.  Part of that coping will necessarily be figuring out a way for them to overcome their disability.  And maybe being able to focus long enough to complete a standardized test would be a good measure of that.  The challenge is not in the test it's in the preparation.  Teachers (the higher paid skilled ones we're both hoping for) would have to teach the kids how to succeed at the "length" portion of the test too.

The problem is that I can outperform most of my "peers" and always have been except in standardized testing environments, which are artificial and don't represent anything most people are ever going to have to deal with. Sorry, no, sitting in silence in one spot for 4 hours is not applicable to anything in most people's lives but standardized tests. That's why the ADD is relevant, it throws something into the mix that the standardized test cannot account for. I have adapted quite well to it, thank you very much, and it's NOT by training myself to sit in silence. It's by finding that there are other, more effective routes for accomplishing tasks.

As for the whole capitol of Vermont vs. D&D hit table thing, how would you have memorized the hit table if you had never memorized anything before and weren't even aware it could be done?  Using your memory is a valuable skill that is integral to learning in general.  So what if you're not interested in memorizing the state capitols?  If that's what your teacher decides to use as the tool to exercise that capacity, deal with it and memorize what you want to, with the skills your teacher helped develop, on your own time.  That is the idea after all.

I memorized those tables by frequent use and familiarity, not by sitting down and memorizing them, and that has rarely been an effective method for most people of memorizing anything. Therefore no, I don't think memorizing anything is an effective means of teaching even memorization. And if we're going to teach well, and they have to memorize something, it may as well be memorizing something that I'm actually going to use. Say, by using it so I can see that it has use. It's irrelevant the interest, i'm looking at the usefulness of a task.

And I have a big problem with even lesson plans being subject to approval above the supervisor level.  Let the teacher teach however he wants.  If he's effective his kids will pass the test.   If he's not he will get fired (or better yet not hired in the first place).  If it's a good test (and it could be) the fact that students can pass is mute testimony to their mastery of the subject material.  Who cares how they got there?

The problem with that is that you hurt the students BEFORE you found out if it's acceptable. The idea is to maximize the efficacy long before any student loses out due to have a rotten teacher. I'm not saying that lesson plans have to fit certain molds of process, I'm just saying that they need to be reviewed so they hit important points.

The only thing that matters is how well they teach their students.  Good intelligently implemented standardized testing is the only objective way I can see to set that standard.

and I'm still entirely unconvinced that Standardized testing of the students will achieve anything other than what Fell says: spitting out what the test writer thinks like.

[Skar]

I agree that the standardized testing we have today is a pale shadow of what we could have and what it would have to be to be effective. (not harder just more effective)

Are you of the opinion that it is impossible to craft a test that would measure grasp of the subject material rather than test-taking-technique and the ability to think like the tester?

This test I'm imagining would be such that if (in the extreme case) a teacher actually had a copy of the test and taught his students whatever it took to pass it and nothing else, the students would still end up with a good grasp of the material.

Cheating would still, of course, be a problem, but one easily solved with minimal oversight and a good supply of pink slips.  I knew plentyof teachers who would happily have handed out copies of the SATs their students would be getting and then gone on vacation until test time.

As for the critical thinking skills SE is talking about, it's easy to write questions that measure that and which would be impossible to cheat (unlike the rote memorization questions we have on the tests now).  The difficulty comes in the grading thereof.

You'd have to make the grading distributed somehow rather than sending all the tests to a central facility.  Maybe (and this is right out of my butt so make fun of the idea gently) crafting the test and then, once everyone's taken it, anonymously swap them with other school districts for the grading and have a mechanism for appealing answers marked wrong.  

Here's where the current state of affairs would be detrimental.  I could easily see whole districts of the low-paid, lowest commond denominator, I can't do therefore I teach, teachers we've got now colluding to derail such a process. Whether it's by being extremely tough in the grading process in the hopes of lowering the average so their performance looks better or by being really easy in the grading process so the students don't feel too bad (whimper)   But I think the kinks could be worked out.

But then this is just another of my "If I were in charge..." issues so...