[PassedOut]

barmar, on 2016-February-06, 14:45, said:

The one time I disrupted class was when I got into an argument with my Junior High Earth Science teacher over parallax. He claimed that a star that's 1 parsec away has a parallax of 1 second, 2 parsecs has a parallax of 2 seconds, and so on. But it's the opposite -- the farther away a star is, the smaller its parallax is. I went up to the blackboard, drew a simple diagram showing the two stars, and the angles, yet he still didn't get it right away. It dragged on after the bell rang. Eventually he realized I was right.

If you only had to disrupt class once, you went to a lot better schools than I did. I remember quite a few.

Once a teacher explained to our class (this was well before 1969) that the "dark side of the moon" got no sunlight and was thought to hold nothing but mountains of ice. I insisted that he draw a diagram of an eclipse of the sun. He got partway done, stopped, erased his diagram, and restated his position.

[mike777]

Great posts in this topic.

I have wanted to post that it seems discipline is perhaps the more important factor than many if not most posts in this thread. Take a classroom full of kids performing at below grade level for whatever reasons other than very low IQ and it seems discipline is the best way to raise the test scores, education level...however you prefer to phrase it. This includes urban schools with all the known problems, violence, poverty, parents, etc. I use the word discipline is a broad sense that is not permitted in most public schools. I wish I knew all the factors but I do not but they may include uniforms and maintaining focus in the school classroom. Simple things such as eye focus and posture.


The above is an incomplete suggestion but look at NYC Harlem charter schools for starters.

[kenberg]

mike777, on 2016-February-06, 23:22, said:

Great posts in this topic.

I have wanted to post that it seems discipline is perhaps the more important factor than many if not most posts in this thread. Take a classroom full of kids performing at below grade level for whatever reasons other than very low IQ and it seems discipline is the best way to raise the test scores, education level...however you prefer to phrase it. This includes urban schools with all the known problems, violence, poverty, parents, etc. I use the word discipline is a broad sense that is not permitted in most public schools. I wish I knew all the factors but I do not but they may include uniforms and maintaining focus in the school classroom. Simple things such as eye focus and posture.


The above is an incomplete suggestion but look at NYC Harlem charter schools for starters.

I was a Boy Scout for a couple of years. I liked the camping, I thought the uniforms were silly. And that was when I was twelve. I can't imagine wearing a school uniform as an adolescent. Something that the private school weenies did, was my thought back then. But the idea was supported by Bill Clinton in a State of the Union address. I recall being unable to decide which was dumber, the proposal to have uniforms or the fact that it came up at all, pro or con, in a State of the Union speech. In short, no to uniforms.


Discipline is a more complex issue. One problem with using physical coercion, if that is what you are referring to as not permitted methods, to control an 8 year old is that the 8 year old will become a 16 year old. Unless we are going to include extensive martial arts training in teacher education, we need a better way. Some kids, like some adults, are almost impossible to deal with. Most, however, are not beyond reach. Reasonable boundaries have to be set, clearly explained, and enforced. We get, I think, a little nutty sometimes about the rights of sixteen year olds. Keeping a bunch of adolescents on track is a tough job, and it is perfectly reasonable for the teacher to insist that some wise ass sit down and shut up. Any reasonable person can tell the difference between honest intellectual questioning versus being a pain in the butt for the pleasure of being a pain in the butt. Even as a student, I knew when I was doing one, and when I was doing the other.