[PRCo] Re: Education/entertainment (changed from Rio)

[Dwight Long]

Fred

Your analysis is very accurate.

However, as an aside, did you know that in Delaware (and I think this may be a federal requirement as well) even highway construction flaggers have to have successfully taken a training course and passed a test?  Most everything is more complicated these days, it seems.

Dwight

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Fred Schneider 
  To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org 
  Sent: Thursday, 01 July, 2010 09:46
  Subject: [PRCo] Re: Education/entertainment (changed from Rio)



  Yes!!!!!!!!!!

  I see a lot with which I agree.  

  First is the loss of jobs that used to be reserved for the uneducated ... the dropouts if you will.   We have fewer and fewer places to put the Digger O'Dell's.    There are only so many positions left for people holding stop signs at construction jobs.  Most of the jobs that used to use the dropouts (picking up the horse dirt from the streets, digging graves, sweeping streets, cleaning sewars, carpentry, evening building rudimentary furniture has been automated.   The guy with the 8th grade education who worked in the steel mill now needs to know how to operate or program a computer.     

  Second ... as we lower the standards in high school, we force more and more kids into a college or university environment ... kids who really should not be there.   Junior colleges and trade schools have often become catch up facilities for those kids who didn't get it in high school because the level has been dragged down.   

  That forces us to go for masters degrees and doctorates to separate the men and women from the boys and girls.

  Yet to me the saddest thing is we simply do not prepare our kids for their position as voters.   They don't understand economics at a macro (or even micro level).   They have no comprehension of how the banking industry works.  When the borrow for a car, their only concern is "can I make the payments" and not is the interest rate reasonable or how much more is it adding to the price of the vehicle or might it be better if I just saved up more?????   They know nothing about history today or that we are often repeating over and over the mistakes of the past.   

  You are right Dennis.   Teaching is a talent.   However, my suspicion is that only one teacher in ten really loves what he or she is doing.   They are the successful ones. They are the ones who are reaching the kids.   The others are like a lady my wife knew ... teach to get a pension but selling real estate on the side for the real money and taking off sick whenever she had a house to show.  You enjoyed it but you, I believe, were unusual.   

  I can go back to my high school days and remember Jim Livengood who taught chemistry and physics.   I later found out that I had taken college freshman chemistry and college freshman physics (without the calculus) in high school.   The man was damn good.   I remember the 9th grade algebra teacher ... Arlene Hauck bragged about teach three generations of the same families before she retired.   I have friends from my class who still talk about her.   I never had a good high school history or geography teacher ... they were all just putting in time.   English ... I had some fair ones.   My wife had the excellent one.   Language ...  Katherine Kuhl was superb with Latin if you loved Latin.   My French teacher was fair ... nice gal but I had her in the first and second years out of college and she was still learning.   Th boys shop teachers were both top drawer ... one went on to be principal and the other moved on to a university environment.   So I named 5 out of perhaps 40 in !
   the school.   Sad isn't it.    The music teacher was great but his work was an elective after the ninth grade and he had to deal with with a high school and three elementary schools in those days.   


  On Jul 1, 2010, at 6:39 AM, Dennis F Cramer wrote:

  > It is entirely possible to educate without the audience immediately turning 
  > off.  Teaching is a talent and so is the ability to entertain.  When you 
  > combine the 2 talents, you have a great learning environment.
  > 
  > We are lucky to have some of the best and brightest students ever going 
  > through our public & private educational systems.  The problem is the higher 
  > percentage of students going into higher education who were not going there 
  > 50 to 75 years ago.  They quit school at the end of 8th grade and went to 
  > work in the mill or mine.  Each succeeding generation has wanted more for 
  > their children, but at some point the "more" has to reach a limit.
  > 
  > The true tragedy in the United States is we still have a 30% drop out rate 
  > from high school nationwide.  Out welfare and prison systems cannot continue 
  > to support these numbers as those aforementioned mill and mine jobs just do 
  > not exist in great numbers any more.
  > 
  > Museums must put forth an effort to first train their docents before 
  > expecting them to get the message out.  This is where small museums miss the 
  > boat as it is hard enough to schedule volunteers to operate the museum, let 
  > alone bring them all in for training.  Once they are trained they really 
  > need oversight to make sure they are getting the message out clearly and in 
  > a painless (to the customer) manner.  This training needs to be ongoing as 
  > even the best teachers need a shot in the arm to refresh.
  > 
  > 
  >          Dennis F. Cramer
  > http://home.windstream.net/dfc1
  > 
  > 
  > 
  >