On Feb 6, 8:33�pm, Lew Hodgett wrote:
Leon wrote:

* And while I agree,
*
* Do we,
*
* A. * Do nothing?
* B. *What do you propose?

IMHO, the problem starts with the litigious society we live in.

If a teacher looks the wrong way at a kid, they get sued.

More than once I got dressed down by a teacher and damn well knew
enough to keep it to myself.

If my parents found out, it was better than even money my dad would
have kicked my ass into the next state, never mind county.

Labor unions have and do serve a valid purpose; however, the teacher's
unions have gotten out of hand.

The school administrations have become lazy. There is no incentive to
be good stewards of the monies they are given.

The waste due to poor management runs rampant.

There are two extremes of the chain of command.

The shortest is the Catholic church. (The Pope to the Bishop to the
Priest)

The longest is the army. It is a long chain of command from the
president to a buck private.

Our schools need to be somewhere in between, probably closer to the
Catholic church than the army, IMHO.

To summarize, they is plenty of blame to go around.

The schools, the teachers, and the parents are all at fault.

When and if the parents are willing to assume some responsibility and
thus be able to demand a better product, they will get it.

Till then, good luck.

Lew

Today, though, if my parents or yours were alive and using the same
techniques for child raising, they'd be in danger of spending some
serious jail time, and losing the kids. Somehow, we're better off
because of that, eh?

Your last line truly sums it up. Parents need to assume some
responsibility, but, because this is a free country, it's damned near
impossible to force them to do so. Too, parents in name and parents in
fact are two different things. What can you expect from the guy who
has impregnated half a dozen women, but keeps movin' on? Or the woman
who has six kids by six fathers--she thinks, though she can't remember
the names of all the guys she's slept with?

So, basically, the most important factor in the equation is simple
parental involvement, and that, at least in some cases, appears to be
impossible.

Can we always insist on hiring only inspired teachers? It would be
nice, wouldn't it? I met three in my school career, from kindergarten
through college. But simple competence should be enough, and,
obviously, it isn't. An inspired teacher can even get a horny, car and
motorcycle crazy lunk like I was to learn. There simply are not enough
of them to go around, nor will there ever be.